Podcast Alley 'blacklisted' by Microsoft, and Adam Curry's response

Those of you who have emailed me regarding your vote for Chimpware on Podcast Alley, and the fact that you haven't recieved the verification email. My guess here is that Microsoft has blacklisted Podcast Alley, therefore if you have a .hotmail or a .msn account, it's likely that your vote hasn't been counted. This is due to the huge number of emails that Podcast Alley send off to Hotmail accounts.

This obviously destroyes the democracy of Podcast Alley. After all, Hotmail is still probably the biggest email provider out there, especially for the youth of today with thier MSN Messanger and VoIP. This is a large problem. If this demograph cannot vote on Podcast Alley, there will be a bias against them.

I then contacted the co-inventor of Podcasts, and guy-in-charge of Podcast Alley and the Podsafe Network, PodFather Adam Curry. My MP3 comment was played on his daily Show, the Daily Source Code #348, and in the Sirius Satellite Radio window, too! Here's my question and his response:

'The main reason why I'm calling is because there's problems with Podcast alley, the Podcast voting system. It seems that some of my friends, who have Hotmail accounts (which is the worst account ever), can't vote for it as I think Podcast Alley has been blacklisted. I just thought that you wanted to know because aren't being counted... So my podcast has only two votes! Good luck, love the Charlie, Tata.'

Here's Adam Curry's Response:

'It's kind of fortuitous that this has all come together where we're learning about this 'white list' 'blacklist' stuff and this incredibly unfriendly email tax that I believe AOL says they're going to start next month to put on email, which is not spam protection for you, it's just guaranteeing the spammers that the spam will get through! And when I say spammers, I of course mean marketers who call you from somewhere and send it on through. We found this out quite by accident, although I have a feeling that I do recall Chris Macentire mentioning this to me months and months ago, and yes, it is indeed a problem.

Hotmail is the biggest offender, again Hotmail and MSN both blacklist all kinds of email, and they will send you to a different company, a third party, which they use exclusively to have this stuff solved. Which costs money! If anyone knows if that company is partially owned by Microsoft, please let me know!

This is really the multi-tiered internet.'

So looks like we're stuck. I guess Adam Curry is looking into this problem, and well, it's a problem that Microsoft is doing this. There's one easy solution, though. Switch to Gmail! Or your own domain! Anyone who has a Hotmail account can easily switch via www.gmail.com/accounts.
If not, email me at chimpware@gmail.com And I'll be glad to send you an invite!

Chimpware is currently ranked 737th out of 15875 Podcasts on Podcast Alley. It is also ranked 100th out of 2097 Technology podcasts (9th March).

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