Aminology

Any serious mailer will tell you that the high volume mailing business isn’t something you can just jump into - you need real technical know-how, a decent amount of start up capital, and a good amount of experience to make it worthwhile.

However, you can easily send several thousand emails a day without having to invest in a hefty setup.

Here’s a quick step by step method I’ve been using to send up to 500 emails an hour:

1) Buy Atomic Mail Sender . It costs £55 (around $100) and it’s a nifty little software which allows you to mass mail by connecting to an external smtp server. I personally use this software, and it gets the job done. Any other reputable mass mail software should also be fine.

2) Get a Hostgator hosting account. The hosting account type you need to purchase depends on your mailing needs. Anything up to 500 emails an hour will work fine on a $5 a month shared hosting account. Even if you have a list that runs into the thousands, you can easily just schedule the software to mail a maximum of 500 emails an hour - that way you could effectively send over 10,000 emails a day. If you need to send a signifantly more amount every day, then just opt for a dedicated hosting package, which allows unlimited emails.

3) Set up your mail sender app with your hostgator smtp mail server settings. Hit ‘test’ - if successful, you’re ready to go.

4) Import your mailing list. Hit send. Make cash.

I won’t go into CAN-SPAM laws here, so just remember, keep it legit. Not that a few hundred/thousand emails would get you into trouble anyway ;]

So it looks like Viacom’s $1bn case against Google over Youtube is going to work against not only Google, but over Youtube users too, as Viacom will now be able to gain access to the names and IP addresses associated with Youtube viewers and uploaders that have ‘infringed’ upon their copyright.

While I strongly doubt Viacom is going to sue anyone over watching clips of the Daily Show on the site, I do think it’s a possibility that Viacom will go after Youtube account holders who have uploaded large amounts of video footage of programs owned by Viacom.

Even more worrying, is the problem this would cause video marketers, who employ tactics of mass downloading videos from the popular video sites, mass watermarking them with their own websites’ URLs, before mass uploading them to video sites again, including Youtube. And because of the scalability and automation involved in such an operation, the damage against individual video marketers could be severe, should Viacom choose to take action.

Let’s just hope they’ve been using proxies…