Month: April 2006

Attachment Extractor Extension for Thunderbird

For the most part I don’t want Thunderbird to automatically extract all attachments, but I also receive about 15 automated e-mails every day that have large attachments where I’d like to automatically extract the attachments to a directory.

Attachment Extractor is an extension for Thunderbird that does just that. Simply select the messages that you want the attachments extracted from, right click and select the “Extract Selected Attachments” and the extension takes care of the rest.

Plaxo: We’ll Spam You Less!

Plaxo didn’t get it in 2004 and its recent announcement that it will scale back its spamming reveals it still doesn’t get it in 2006.

Plaxo earned a light of well-deserved scorn for the way it helped its users keep their contact information updated. Essentially after entering your contacts into Plaxo, the service would spam the contacts periodically with e-mails asking users to update their contact information with Plaxo.

And the big change Plaxo announced in March?

…as of a few weeks ago, you should start seeing fewer and fewer of these e-mails, as we’ve shifted our product functionality away from address book update.

Wow, you mean there wasn’t a market in getting people to spam their friends and co-workers? How shocking.

Anyway, notice that people will start seeing “fewer of these e-mails” not “none of these e-mails.” The relentless spam will march on, just in slightly diminished quantities.

The only good thing that Plaxo ever did was serve as a clueless filter. Aside from e-mailing me about this or that MLM scheme, nothing says “clueless” like “Plaxo user.”

Sources:

A Little Less In Your Inbox. Plaxo’s Personal Card (Plaxo Official Weblog), March 20, 2006.

Plaxo Scales Back Automatic E-Mail Feature. Associated Press, March 23, 2006.

Advertising In Virtual Worlds?

This Australian Age article claiming that advertising in virtual worlds is taking off might be a little more believable if it weren’t centered mostly on Project Entropia, the Enron of MMORPGs.

When last we saw Project Entropia, it was claiming that a user paid $100,000 for a piece of in-game property, only it turned out the user was also a spokesman for the company. If you believe that was a legitimate sale, I’ve got a bridge in Azeroth you can have real cheap.

According to Australia Age,

The latest release of the game, created by MindArk PE AB of Sweden, features advertising billboards. Through a PowerPoint-like system, players created animated ads and buy time on the billboards.

So far, the ads have been promoting player-organized in-game events like fashion shows and hunting competitions, as well as businesses like stores and hunting grounds, said Marco Behrmann, MindArk’s [sic] directory of player relations.

Sometimes I think Project Entropia is a culture jamming project designed to see just how many gullible reporters and news organizations it can suck into reprinting its transparent self-promotion.

There’s also a passing mention of Second Life in the Age article, but no indication that advertising itself is especially lucrative in-game (though, obviously, some players in SL are making significant amounts of real-world money hawking their virtual wares).

Source:

Advertising takes off in virtual worlds. Australia Age, April 5, 2006.