Nonsense spam - messages containing no links or images and which seem to have no discernible purpose - may be harmless themselves, but they are often designed to mask more nefarious activity, according to security analysts. Nonsense spam typically arrives in barrages, overwhelming an email account and causing the owner to begin rapidly deleting mass quantities of messages, as many as 60,000 in a 12-24 hour period. But the messages are a distraction, designed to hide email confirmations, receipts and other legitimate inbox activity which occur when the user of a stolen credit card or bank account is making large …

In a survey conducted by Aquent and the American Marketing Association (AMA), marketers report that they are decreasing their focus on traditional media. In fact, traditional media occupied the top 6 areas slated for a decline in focus this year by respondents, led by newspapers (32%), consumer magazines (28%) and radio (24%). Digital and direct channels are the least likely to be cut according to survey respondents. 

Metalogix announced today the launch of a new version of its email archiving solution, Metalogix Archive Manager Exchange Edition. A key feature is Heirarchical Storage Manager, the central archiving engine for Microsoft Exchange, Files and SharePoint and now makes all utilities centrally available to manage storage optimization at the click of a button whether on-premise or in the cloud

Data from the latest Return Path Email Intelligence Report shows that top 100 internet retailers are handily beating the North American average in inbox placement rate. Only 6% of top retailers' messages fail to reach subscribers' inboxes, compared to 18% for North America overall. Inbox placement is no guarantee of engagement, however; senders in the shopping category saw read rates drop 15% year-over-year.

Aquent and the American Marketing Association have released a study where 54% of marketers say their teams are ill-equipped to handle new trends and technologies. However, 71% believe that their company's marketing strategy will have a positive impact the organization financially.

Researchers at Symantec have noticed that the Sender Policy Framework (SPF), which is an email validation system designed to prevent email spam, is being used by a new trojan, dubbed Spachanel. Ironically, the bug is used to hijack a web browser to serve up spam pop-ups.

Facebook's launched Custom Audiences tool in August, allowing marketers to upload email address lists to the site and target subscribers across Facebook. While CRM retargeting is not unique to Facebook, match rates on the site are higher than average, owing to the rich user data the site possesses. Facebook reports that it sees match rates above 50% and "sometimes as high as 95 percent."

ExactTarget announced today the launch of MobilePush, an application that delivers messages to mobile users within mobile apps. Messages can be standalone or integrated with email and social campaigns as part of the company's Interactive Marketing Hub. 

Many marketers are flocking to responsive design as a way to provide a consistent user experience across platforms, and spend less time updating content across an increasingly fragmented device landscape. Some however, like Coca-Cola group director of mobile and search Tom Daly, believe that responsive design shortchanges customers and their preferences. Says Daly, "If you get into this HTML5, hybrid mindset and start pretending that a screen is a screen is a screen, you starting forgetting about the customer experience."

Microsoft is rumored to have completed internal testing of a version of Windows Outlook that runs on Windows RT devices, including the Surface tablet. A source reports that there still exists some internal debate about whether or not to release an RT version of Outlook. Windows RT already has a Mail client, though some users believe it is not robust enough.