Tired of endless e-mail? An LA-based startup has developed a simple way to remove yourself from mailing lists.
Like many people, I'm in an ongoing battle with my e-mail in-box. As much as I try to stay on top of my messages, every once and a while I'm tempted to declare e-mail bankruptcy and delete them all and start over.
However, guilt usually wins out and I find myself sifting through and answering them one by one. With so many people facing the same time-consuming task, companies are starting to pay attention to our ongoing in-box problems.
When you actually examine all the messages you receive, chances are that a good chunk of them are from mailing lists. As the months go by, we often forget how many times we've added our address somewhere online. While it's easy to delete them on the fly, an LA-based startup has created an even better solution.
The service is called Unsubscribe.com. It's a cinch to use, just sign up for an account to permanently unsubscribe from any lists that send messages to your Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, or Outlook account. Simply download a plugin or add an extension that puts a tiny "Unsubscribe" button within your e-mail account. When you come across an e-mail from a list that you never read or never want to read, select the e-mail and hit this button instead of fumbling to find the unsubscribe link and entering your address on a separate web page.
Unsubscribe gives you up to 5 free unsubscribes on a monthly basis, which is probably enough for the average person. If you need unlimited unsubscribing you can sign up for the $19 (U.S.) yearly plan. Blogger and J-School professor Jeff Jarvis ( @jeffjarvis) is a fan, "I'm loving @unsubscribeme. It feels like I'm shooting down enemy aircraft." The company states that 1 in 5 e-mails in your in-box are from marketers, so a service like this can quickly help to clean up your in-box in no time at all, helping all of us to get a little closer to winning the e-mail battle once and for all.