Blog archive

We’ve rolled out some new pricing for commercial use based on the feedback you guys have been giving us. Pro-blogger has remained exactly the same.

The first thing you’ll notice is the Enterprise access now has several price levels starting from $50/mo based on how many blogs you have. This should allow more flexibility for businesses just getting started out.

Second we’ve seen a lot of use of the Akismet API for things which aren’t blogs at all, like feedback forms, guestbooks, and more. For this type of use people might find it easiest to purchase commercial use based on the number of calls they make to Akismet, so we conjured up a new system called the Access API, which also starts at $50 a month.

Keep sharing your thoughts, and we’ll continue to make the service fit your needs better.

Joel Thoms of Joel.net has written a .NET 2.0 library for Akismet, which we’ve added to our development page. We’ve also had another one of these sent in that I need to upload to the site somewhere.

If you’re on a Microsoft platform and need spam protection for any application that takes user input, this library might be for you.

Update: Here is another .Net class someone did, this time for .Net 1.1. I’ve updated the development page with links to both.

Jeff Capron wrote in to say he’s written a plugin to use Akismet for vBulletin. The site requires an email to check it out, so I haven’t tried it out myself, but if you use the very popular vBulletin forum software you may want to check this out and let us know how it works in the comments.

Here are three testimonials we got in this morning:

I’ve been hit hard by comment spam over the last few months, getting at one point hundreds a day. My homegrown systems did a good job, despite the occasional false positive, but did require a lot of maintenance. I’ve switched to Akismet, and have not had one spam get through. I’ve not had one false positive. Finally, I can stop worrying about dealing with the spam!

— Dave Child

Can I please hug you? I was buried in spam. Now I’m not. Akismet just works.

— Amanda

(For the record, we’re pro-hug.)

Thank you for my new found freedom from spam! Please know that you are loved!

— Jami

Notes like this really brighten the day, so thank you folks for sending them in.

Markus from phpMix.org has put together a really cool Akismet module for Drupal, which is a very flexible content management system. I’ve added it to our development page. If you’re dealing with big communities of submitted content, Drupal + Akismet might be a good bet for you.

phpBB is very popular forum software. Douglas Bell is working on a “mod” to integrate Akismet spam protection with phpBB software, so if that sounds interesting to you go check it out.

The b5media Blog Network recently got an Akismet Enterprise License and is installing it for all their blogs. For people running dozens or even hundreds of blogs, I can’t imagine how much time Akismet spam protection saves for them and their writers. I’m biased, but I think it’s a very prescient move on their part.

Moderation can protect any blog but with spam ever rising you have to ask if all the time it takes to sift through so many comments is really worth it.

Update: A little more information about it at Blogging Pro and from the b5media blog.