The biggest gathering of WordPress users and developers takes place each year at WordCamp San Francisco. At this year’s three-day event, I gave a short presentation on the history of spam. Here’s the video:
Vikings, Viagra, and Versace: A Brief History of Spam
Akismet 
I really hadn’t planned to watch this whole presentation but I enjoyed it and found it very helpful. My sites have only been up for a short while and already I’m being bugged by spam. You answered the question whether a filter would be worth the money. Sign me up!
Hallo, Sorry for my bad english! I am an ITALIAN blogger, and i was wondering if akismet clockworks run also in my language 🙂 Often spam in italian is automatically or anyway badly translated, so that italian language is not real italian. Often human spammers that write in italian are not italians, so, another time: that italian language is not good (maybe like my english here is bad!).
Are akismet techniques working good with languages other than english?
Thanks for your attention! 🙂