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Fred says the spam crisis is over. It’s ironic with all of the controversy roiling about Sender ID that — from the investor standpoint, at least — the problem is negligible. (It’s happened even faster than Bill Gates predicted.)

Still, I tend to agree that the problem is becoming more manageable. Filtering technologies (I use P2P tech from Cloudmark and a Bayesian filter called SpamBayes) have gotten more effective. We’re beginning to see the promise — if not the fruition — of technologies for e-mail authentication. Still, plenty of resources (time, money, personnel) are being employed to deal with the spam problem — and that situation would have to improve immensely for me to say spam was no longer an issue.

Will all the dough companies now spend on “ISP relations” and “deliverability” be saved when authentication becomes a reality? I doubt it. That money will probably end up going to “reputation management” and maintenance of correct Sender ID and SPF records.

UPDATE: Matt weighs in.

Apologies for the lack of blogging action this week. Between getting stuck at home due to subway flooding and the usual vagaries of the workweek, things have been busy. I do have news to report on a personal front, though. We’ve finally set the date for my moving to the Bay Area. Yes, it appears to really be happening. As of November 22nd (Monday of Thanksgiving week), I’ll be reporting to work in our San Francisco office. I’m sticking around NYC for Ad-Tech, then driving across the country the next week, possibly staying at various relative’s places in Missouri, Colorado and/or Nevada along the way.

We still don’t know where we’re living, but we’re working on renting a place starting in November — if you know of anyone looking for tenants, let me know. My husband is growing keen on the inner Sunset area. Maybe I’ll get a chance to check it out this weekend when I visit.

UPDATE: Now we are thinking of a house (to rent) in Berkeley. Anyone got a line on anything? And, yes, I’m familar with Craigslist — got my searches on my RSS reader. Just thought there’s a chance of someone having a place to rent out, or someone knowing someone. Thanks in advance.

Anne Mitchell says it well and it bears repeating. SPF is not about stopping spam. It’s about making sure the purported sender domain (be it citibank.com or bank-usa.com) of an e-mail really is the sender.

SPF (and Sender ID) are, of course, considered first steps toward stopping spam. Once you know who really sent a message, you can determine whether that domain is a known spam or known ham sender. Spam gets blocked; ham doesn’t.

Anne is totally right to scream about misconceptions about SPF. After all, I’d hate for e-mail authentication to be branded a “failure” for failing to do what it was never designed or expected to do in the first place.

“Citizen journalist”/blogger Steve Rubel is at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital moblogging the scene as reporters wait to hear the latest about President Clinton’s emergency quadruple bypass surgery. It’s funny for me — who has dealt with Steve in his capacity as a PR guy — to see him flip sides and embrace the journalist role. Heck, he was even interviewed by Entertainment Tonight!

Steve says:

If you’ve never seen the media assemble for a major news event, it’s fascinating. There are people all over the sidewalks all waiting for the hospital PR people to make a statement. They were supposed to do so at 1:30 p.m. Eastern, but it’s now 2:20 nad there’s no word yet when they might.

As for me… I’ll be signing off soon for the Labor Day weekend. I’m wishing the former President well, and hoping all of you have a lovely, relaxing few days off.

Rushkoff writes about the PS 122 blog panel discussion last night — specifically about his perception that there seemed to be forces at work against even considering the idea of an ad-free blogosphere’s value.

Honestly, this is one reason I love Rushkoff. I write about ads and marketing all day long and I carry Google AdSense ads on my blog (which have earned me approx. $1 $1.50 for anyone who cares). But, folks, there are things more important than money. Why give up on the idea of using this incredible technology to really make a difference in people’s lives? Why squelch that idea when it arises?

Rushkoff came and talked to our graduate journalism school class at Columbia, and he really knocked people’s socks off. Why? He challenged their assumptions and got them thinking in whole new ways. Why not let yourself at least consider a different way of thinking?

UPDATE:
This debate has sparked a lot of discussion here and there:

Jeff Jarvis (the moderator)

Fred Wilson

Ken Layne

Dave Winer

Ed Cone

UPDATE2: Rushkoff’s follow up

I put Google AdSense ads on an experimental (for my eyes only) blog as an experiment — what kind of ads would be served, I wondered. At first, I got public service ads, and then, only hours later, the ads started to be relevant. Between the first PSAs and the eventual ads, I input the URL (created only a couple of days ago) to Google’s Web search submission form. Was it the URL input and a (very fast) Web crawl that made the difference? Or were the ads acting as a homing beacon telling Google to crawl this page, pronto? Either way, I’m impressed.

UPDATE: it looks like the “homing beacon” idea was the proper one. I found “Mediapartners-Google/2.1” on my server log today.