Very Exciting News - Expect The Truth About Email Marketing on August 1

BrightWave Blog readers - I have a sneak preview of a major announcement coming out tomorrow and you will read it here first.

Pearson , one of the largest and most prestigious publishing houses in the world, will be publishing my book, The Truth About Email Marketing, as part of their well known and highly regarded "Truth About" series. Needless to say, I am very excited on many fronts.

At this point, I am thrilled to have the writing behind me as it is quite a detailed and lengthy process. Don't get me wrong - I would not trade this opportunity for the world but don't expect much new content from me. In fact, I will be on hiatus from writing new iMediaConnection articles so I can take a breather on that front.

I will save my thanks to all the people that made it a possibility - you have to buy it to see who I thanked. Speaking of, it is available for pre-order on
Amazon or you can buy it at any major bookstore on August 1, 2008.

Check out the newly launched book website here and be sure to sign up for email updates where you could win an autographed version of the book as well as receive exclusive information and discounts related to the book.

FTC Revises Compliance Rules for CAN SPAM

The Federal Trade Commission has approved several changes to Can Spam regulations related to compliance requirements for opting out of email lists and sender clarification.

The FTC bulletin can be found here

Highlights and my comments below it in (brightwave) blue...

New rules prohibit charging fees to opt out of e-mail lists, or requiring individuals to provide any more information other than their e-mail address and opt out preferences.
The impact here is to sites that require you to log in or register to change your preferences or unsubscribe. Many retailers follow this practice so headaches loom ahead. A great example of a well intentioned idea that in practice is more complicated and less practical for many permission email marketers than it seems.

The changes also specify that individuals seeking to opt out of lists must be able to accomplish this task by simply sending a reply e-mail message or by visiting a single Web page.
This is one that may seem painless but as we have covered before, many companies don't monitor their replies leaving ecommerce gaps and CAN-SPAM compliance holes. We routinely find that many companies don't allow replies or know where replies to campaigns go. This will have to change.

Another revision now allows e-mail senders to use postal addresses and P.O. boxes as return addresses
Nothing major here.

The definition of “sender” was modified to make it easier to determine which of multiple parties advertising in a single e-mail message is responsible for complying with the Act’s opt-out requirements.
What that means is not yet known, at least to me but if you only send emails to your house opt in lists than it should not affect you.

The current CAN-SPAM Act can be found here.

Social Networking That Works

Read about how a grad student who was arrested during a protest in Egypt used social networking/text messaging firm Twitter to assure a quick release. Amazing story.

In a nutshell:

The micro-blogging service allows users to send text messages up to 140 characters long, and the message Buck sent had the desired outcome: his friends called the University, the American Embassy, as well as the Associated Press, the International Herald Tribune and other media.

The result: he was released the next day, although according to his affirmations, the Egyptian authorities told him just hours after his arrest, in the middle of the night, that he was a free man.