SendMeRSS
Encyclopedia
SendMeRSS was an RSS
-to-email
gateway
created by Randy Charles Morin
and later sold to NBC Universal
on April 24, 2007. Prior to November 6, 2007, SendMeRSS was known as RMail. RMail was created on April 24, 2005.
making it impossible for users to contact NBC support to get their subscriptions deleted.
On October 20, The Raw Feed blog reported that NBC was breaking anti-spam laws. NBC shut down the service later that same day. Two weeks later, the executive responsible for SendMeRSS resigned from NBC.
The email engine was shut down on October 20. The website was shut down about two weeks prior.
On June 1, 2009, the SendMeRSS website was temporarily available at www.r-mail.org, but was shut down again and now reads "The SendMeRSS service is currently down. We're working on a solution. Any inconvenience is deeply regretted." once again.
By late August, Randy Morin, the original owner, was warning users against using SendMeRSS.
Five months after the initial outage, the users have not received any reply to their support emails to NBC. They have not communicated why the outage happened or when it might be resolved.
RSS
-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...
-to-email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
gateway
Gateway (computer program)
A gateway is a link between two computer programs or systems such as Internet Forums. A gateway acts as a portal between two programs allowing them to share information by communicating between protocols on a computer or between dissimilar computers....
created by Randy Charles Morin
Randy Charles Morin
Randy Charles Morin is a professional RVer and blogger. He runs the infamous TalkSports website. He was chairman of the RSS Advisory Board, a group that assists developers in using the RSS 2.0 specification...
and later sold to NBC Universal
NBC Universal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is a media and entertainment company engaged in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base...
on April 24, 2007. Prior to November 6, 2007, SendMeRSS was known as RMail. RMail was created on April 24, 2005.
NBC Spamming
Late in the lifespan of SendMeRSS, NBC was likely breaking anti-spam laws. The service was sending subscription emails where the unsubscribe link was failing. NBC later deleted the SendMeRSS MX recordMX record
A mail exchanger record is a type of resource record in the Domain Name System that specifies a mail server responsible for accepting email messages on behalf of a recipient's domain, and a preference value used to prioritize mail delivery if multiple mail servers are available...
making it impossible for users to contact NBC support to get their subscriptions deleted.
On October 20, The Raw Feed blog reported that NBC was breaking anti-spam laws. NBC shut down the service later that same day. Two weeks later, the executive responsible for SendMeRSS resigned from NBC.
DealMeRSS
NBC also created a sister website called DealMeRSS which appears to be SERP spam. All of the content is stolen from other sites and the links are all affiliate programs. It is the most professionally run Splog ever. NBC may have been using SendMeRSS to seed DealMeRSS, which now has over 20,000 inbound links according to Google, most all of them generated by the SendMeRSS tool.Shutdown
SendMeRSS was shut down in late summer of 2008. No reason or warning was given by NBC. For a couple weeks, the website had a message that said "The SendMeRSS service is currently down. We're working on a solution. Any inconvenience is deeply regretted", but this disappeared and all DNS entries were eventually deleted, including their blog and email MX records. NBC refuses to respond to any emails or contact on the subject. The original owner Randy Morin has apologized to his old users, but has admitted that he is not aware of the reason for the outage.The email engine was shut down on October 20. The website was shut down about two weeks prior.
On June 1, 2009, the SendMeRSS website was temporarily available at www.r-mail.org, but was shut down again and now reads "The SendMeRSS service is currently down. We're working on a solution. Any inconvenience is deeply regretted." once again.
Demise
In July 2008, some bloggers reported that emails sent to the SendMeRSS support email address were bouncing. This was likely the first sign that problems were on the horizon.By late August, Randy Morin, the original owner, was warning users against using SendMeRSS.
Scrouged
Any user that had existing RSS subscriptions via email lost all their data. Had NBC given any notice, the users could have exported their subscriptions for use with an alternate service.Five months after the initial outage, the users have not received any reply to their support emails to NBC. They have not communicated why the outage happened or when it might be resolved.
RMail 2.0
Morin has announced a replacement for Rmail that will be called Reblinks. Reblinks went live on May 20, 2009, seven months after Rmail died.External links
- SendMeRSS.com (no longer in operation)
- SendMeRSS blog (no longer in operation)
- Image of old SendMeRSS blog
- R-Mail.org (down for maintenance)
- SendMeRSS.org (down for maintenance)
- SendMeRSS.net (down for maintenance)