McAfee SiteAdvisor Blog

Today I wanted to write a kind of ode to the incredible richness of the world economy. I know because one of my jobs here at SiteAdvisor is to open our mail. And, well, that’s a bigger job than it sounds.

One of our key goals here is to help people reduce unwanted mail, whether it’s e-mail or snail mail. When we first started crawling the Web last spring, we made a decision to be very thorough. So when a Web site’s registration form asks us for a name, address and phone number, we had one of our people oblige. I won’t tell who he or she is (going forward, she’ll be a she). I will tell you that of the byproducts of signing up for things online is that she, and therefore we, receive lots of snail mail. And I mean lots.

My Baby, She Wrote Me A Letter
Once Ms. Mail joined us, we set her loose on the Web. Among other things, she enabled us to build a great data set in the form of our Web site e-mail profiles (described in an entry last month). She also ended up bringing us a less anticipated bounty.

A few weeks after she started working for us, we got a call from her mailbox owner asking us to come pick up her mail. You think your mailbox is overflowing with junk? Here’s what a corner of our office looks like after collecting a few months of mail sent to us.

When visitors come to our office and see the pile, they often ask if we track which individual pieces of mail are attributable to which original sign-up forms, like we do for e-mails. We don't do it yet, but this is something we’re considering implementing in the future.

Junking the Mail
This fall, when we moved into bigger offices, we threw out the summer’s opened mail and started again. In fact, the picture above is just our mail since September. Before we toss this bunch (we need the room for more desks) I thought it might be fun to introduce you to the snail mail economy in all its raging diversity. For example, Pumper, a magazine “Dedicated to the Liquid Waste Industry," covers McGovern, a regional waste hauler on an acquisition binge.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals vies for the CosmoGirl audience by splashing a teen heartthrob on the cover.

I receive a last minute Christmas catalog with a certain ennui.

In fact, after going through this month’s mail call, I’m feeling pretty tired. Old even. That’s why I’m looking forward to reading geezerjock.

After all, I’ve got a lot more mail to open next month. See you then for SiteAdvisor Mail Call.

-- Shane Keats