Same Script, Different Cast: How Social Networking Can Learn From E-mail

Applications with lots of users can send lots of messages. New applications are throttled while they build reputation. Applications that get lots of complaints in various forms are penalized. Does this sound familiar?

From a technical perspective, high-volume senders will need to customize their solution for different social networks. Just because both networks have implemented OpenSocial doesn’t mean that they will work exactly the same way. Yahoo and Hotmail both accept SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol) connections, but sophisticated senders customize the number of IP (Internet protocol) addresses used, number of connections per address, number of messages sent per connection, header content and other factors to optimize delivery for each receiving domain. We can expect to see the same technical optimizations for the various social networks. And just like e-mail, we can expect to see them change frequently.