The 2008 Gmail Appeal

Email Standards Project - Gmail Grimaces from Mathew Patterson on Vimeo.

More on the Email Standards Project (from me).

The Case Against Undo

Paul Buchheit (via Google Blogoscoped) is calling for more use of “Undo” in software - particularly for GMail to add it to the “Send” command. He says, “this will require adding a short delivery delay, like 10 sec, but it's worth it.” Philip Lessen of GB basically supports this assertion, though he adds:

...there’s still the problem that we’re not used to an Undo option suddenly disappearing, which would be what happens after the 10 seconds... maybe there needs to be a countdown ticker as well, or is all this just shifting the same problem around?

I get where they’re coming from. We have, in many ways, been trained that you can always take back your actions on computers - at least when it comes to word processing, browsing websites (though not Flash-based ones!) and using other applications like Photoshop (though only a specified number of steps - so take snapshots!). But one action that there has never (to my knowledge) been an undo associated with is email, and adding it now overcomplicates a commonly understood action.

If implemented in the manner Paul advocates, an “Undo” action adds time to a medium already slower than other forms of messaging that are becoming widely used (IM, SMS, etc.). 10 seconds is a long time on the web. I, for one, do not want to have my email queued for any amount of time to compensate for others acting without thinking and sending messages unintentionally.

And why 10 seconds, anyway? Why not 5 minutes, while we’re at it? You know, just in case you click send, go make a cup of coffee, and while waiting for the water to boil realize that you actually just sent that angry email about your boss as “Reply All” instead of just “Reply to your secret girlfriend in Accounting.”

Just because it’s possible to take something back on the web doesn’t mean that it is a good interaction model, and online communication is one place where I’d argue that it would actually be a negative presence - reinforcing problematic behaviors like carelessness and lack-of-attention. You can’t take back what you say on the phone or in person. Why should we expect to be able to do so online?

That said, I think a feature checking for an attachment whenever you write “attached” or similar (like this Greasemonkey script does) could be a welcome addition.

Ultimately, technology can’t make up for human error - nor should it be expected to. If you screw up and mis-send a message, or forget the attachment, there is always a solution:

Apologize, re-send, and, if necessary, deal with the consequences of your recklessness and haste.

You know, just like in the “Real World.”

Email And The Fight For Standards

As a young web designer who cares about standards and accessibility, but also about paying the rent and having enough left over to buy some slick gadgets, I often find myself stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place when it comes to designing HTML emails for a client.

You see, on one hand there’s a strong part of me saying, “No! Don’t do it! It’s not worth it to revert to web practices straight out of 1999. Tables are bad! Inline styling is bad! People hate HTML email! Your code is ugly! Fish are friends, not food!”

But then the devil on my right shoulder (wearing a blue dress, not a blue beanie) speaks up to say, “Dude, you need money if you want that [insert latest Apple product here]. Clients will not settle for text-only emails, or at least they won’t pay you for them. And besides, studies show that HTML emails are actually much more cost-effective for businesses. Suck it up a code a table, you sissy. Everybody used to do it, why do you think you’re exempt?”

To some of you, this whole discussion might seem to be flying 50,000 feet up, but here I’ll try to summarize:

In web design, it is now widely accepted that using Tables (grids of rows and columns, just like one you’d create in MS Word) for the structure of a website is a bad practice because it doesn’t allow for the separation of content (the text and pictures and videos) from presentation, and requires a ton of maintenance, among (many) other things. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) emerged years ago as the solution to this problem, allowing designers to change the look of an entire site simply by editing a couple lines in a single external file (instead of every line on every page), and after a lot of activism in those early days, is now widely accepted as the proper way to code a site. Standards-compliant pages tend to load faster, have shorter development times, and are readable by every device now and in the future that has support for these standards.

The trouble is, most email clients don’t have this support, and some (like Outlook 2007) have even less support than their predecessors. Worse still, every single email client has vastly different support for various CSS/HTML elements, and will render your code in disgustingly problematic ways. So, by and large, many web design companies have abandoned email design, or if not, done it begrudgingly, ashamedly.

I’ve done my share, and it’s not glamorous work. Looking at what I’ve just written sometimes makes me want to cry (in pretty much the same manner that coding all-Flash sites does, but that’s a post for another day).

Finally, some of the big guns in web design and standards-advocacy are taking a stand and beginning to fight for standards support in all the major email clients, rather than ignoring the practicalities and pretending that HTML emails don’t or shouldn’t exist. That kind of denial sounds nice in theory, but in practice it’s totally flawed. Today, the default in nearly every email program is to send an HTML-formatted email. Any time you change the colors, or the fonts, or add some underlining or embed a picture - that’s HTML. So, if it has to exist anyway, shouldn’t it be done right?

These reasons (and others) are why the announcement of the Email Standards Project is such a big deal, and why I can hardly wait for the day when I’ll have coded my final bit of inline styling.

If you’re in the business, please join me in supporting this initiative. Here’s how you can help.

BlogRush Sends Evil Emails

UPDATE: After a comment from Andy Beard, I have changed the title of this post, because accusing (even hyperbolically and in the heat of the moment) John Reese of spamming me is wrong, and potentially harmful to his reputation and business. The email is clearly not spam, and I am, after all, on a list that I (apparently) opted into when signing up to try out BlogRush.

I’ve pretty much ignored other emails I’ve received from BlogRush in the past couple weeks (about one a week), but this one caught my eye, because I was genuinely surprised by the subject line. I read it, and, as I mention in my response to Andy’s comment below, I was insulted and offended by the assertion that if you aren’t a totally hardcore member of the BlogRush network, then they have no desire for your business and will delete your blog automatically. This is, in my view, an unfortunate move for such a new service, and raises some real concerns about the strength of the network, which, by all accounts will only work well if made up of power users. To me, this is a shift from the initial promise of the network, and now sounds like another “fat get fatter” kind of thing. Maybe I’m wrong, and I’d love the hear that I am, because BlogRush did seem interesting at first.

All that said, my main point - which is that the email is horrifying - still stands. From a buzz standpoint, it has certainly worked, but the long, rambling, finger-pointing, and LOUD message isn’t something that works for me when it comes to selling your service. If I were to write a tutorial on how not to do business email newsletters, this would be a prime example.

Anyway, my apologies to John, who I’m sure is a really great guy. Here’s the rest of my original post:

One day late for Halloween, I received a horrifying email in my Inbox from BlogRush, a traffic-building widget service I got wind of from Andy Beard’s Niche Marketing blog and tried out for a couple weeks back in September. At the time, I was making some layout tweaks to my blog, and ultimately decided against keeping the widget on my site, and I haven’t paid much attention to how BlogRush has been doing since then.

Until now. Or rather, ten minutes ago, when I received this most terrifying message with a subject line so spammy I’m surprised it made it past Google’s Spam Filter (“42% Increase In Free Traffic”), and I am now reposting it below with comments in brackets, emphasis (though not capitalization) entirely mine:

THIS MESSAGE CONTAINS *CRITICAL*
INFORMATION. PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT
TO READ IT RIGHT NOW. [Holy God, Save Me]

In This Message:

- TrafficJam.com Is Coming [Woo!]
- 42% Increase In Free Traffic [Double Woo!]
- Widget Performance Monitoring [Blah...]
- All Members Must Be Displaying The Widget [WTF?]
- Closing In On ONE BILLION Blog Headlines [Nice work, BlogRush]

We’ve received TONS of positive feedback on the
release of “Phase 2″ for BlogRush! [And boy is it heavy! Whew!]

Members are really happy with the new Dashboard
stats and reporting as well as all the new
features — including the new “thin widget” option
and “BUZZ” meter. And many are especially excited
about the important news we released about our
upcoming “TrafficJam” sister site.

If you haven't yet experienced the new
"Phase 2" of BlogRush (and viewed the
new VIDEO inside) make sure to login
to your account to check it out:
http://www.blogrush.com

*********************************************
TrafficJam.com Is Coming [Dun dun dun...]

*********************************************

TrafficJam (which will be located at
TrafficJam.com) will take the hottest posts from
across the BlogRush network and rank them by
category based on our “BUZZ” meter technology.
This site will be another way for our users to
drive more free traffic to their blogs.
We expect many Internet users will start using
TrafficJam to keep up with the latest news about
the niche they are interested in, as well as a
great resource for bloggers to find important
blog posts from other bloggers so they can then
write about them (and link to them!) on their own
blogs.

*********************************************

42% Increase In Free Traffic

*********************************************
42% Increase In Free Traffic Sent To BlogRush
Members In Last 48 Hours

Since releasing Phase 2 we’ve seen a 42% increase
in click-rates (i.e. the free traffic members
receive) across the entire network. This is
mostly due to the release of the thin widget
option.

Many of our users had blogs that could
not accommodate the standard widget size and
were forced to place the widget at the very bottom
of their pages — this was contributing to lower
click-rates across the network.

And we’re about to make additional changes to
dramatically improve the click-through rates
which is what will send every member even more
traffic…

*********************************************
Widget Performance Monitoring

*********************************************

The #1 reason BlogRush isn’t sending the maximum
free traffic to all of its members is simple…
many users are placing the widget very low on
their blogs where most people won’t even see it.

Did you know that over 1,500 BlogRush users
(across nearly all network categories) are
receiving average daily click-through rates
between 1% and 2% on the BlogRush widget on their
blog? [OMG, Really?]

And it should also be no surprise that these
users are getting a higher rate of referral
activity than everyone else — more bloggers click
their “Add Your Blog Posts” widget link and sign
up for BlogRush. (Because more people SEE their
widget.)

ALL of those users have ONE THING in common…
they have the BlogRush widget positioned high up on
their blog where a lot of people will see it! [Wow, insightful]

So right now you could be receiving 10 TIMES (or
more) traffic from BlogRush, but the reason why
you don’t is because so many of our users are
placing the widget very low on their blogs where
it’s not being seen — and those poor performing
widgets are hurting the overall network
click-rates.

YOUR BLOG POSTS are only appearing inside those
1%-2% click-rate widgets on rare occasion (which
is what will send you the most traffic). The rest
of the time your posts are appearing inside
widgets that no one can even see! (Which is why
you aren’t getting more traffic.)

Here’s What We’re Doing About It

[Here’s where things start to get really scary...]
We’ll soon be adding “widget performance
monitoring” to our network. Any users that have
low-performing widgets will be automatically
notified that they need to improve the
positioning for the widget on their blogs.
Failure to improve their widget performance (which can be done by giving the widget higher placement) will remove that user from the network. THIS IS THE ONLY *FAIR* WAY TO DO IT.

“WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, I KNOW, I KNOW…”

Since we originally launched BlogRush about 6
weeks ago, we encountered some problems that we
had to deal with… we had to increase our security
measures to stop people from abusing the network,
which we did… then we had an issue with
low-quality blogs in the network… and we worked
very hard to manually review ALL blogs, we had to
make some tough decisions to remove over 10,000
from the network, and now we have a fantastic,
high-quality network of member blogs, BUT…

Before we fixed all of these problems, the
quality and performance of the network was poor
and it didn’t send as much traffic to our members
— which we were very unhappy about, and the sole
reason we’ve worked so hard to fix things. SOO…
it has been a “Catch-22″ for many of our
members…

“Why should I give the BlogRush widget higher
placement when I’m not getting much traffic from
it!”

And for those that have this reaction, it’s
PERFECTLY UNDERSTANDABLE...

*I* would, personally, feel the exact same way.

But we now have the data that PROVES that
BlogRush, as a system for driving valuable,
targeted blog readers to other blogs, 100% WORKS.
It just requires that our members give the widget
high enough placement so visitors will see it and
can use it.

[SCARIER!!!!!]

So here’s what I’m asking all of our members that
currently don’t have the widget placed very high
up on their blogs… PLEASE immediately move the widget higher up on your blog. (Thank You.)

Just give it a chance as we encourage everyone to
give the widget higher placement and at least see
what happens. If you aren’t happy later, then by
all means, remove the widget from your blog. It’s
that easy.

BlogRush was created as a truly COOPERATIVE
system to drive tons of valuable targeted traffic
to blogs. It only works for those willing to be
fair to the other members.

BY THE WAY, if you’re one of our valued members
that DOES have the widget placed high on your
blog, “Thank You!” You’re doing your fair
contribution to the network and we sincerely
appreciate it. (And you’ll be rewarded for it.)

[EEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!]

Do we require that the widget be placed at the
absolute very top of your blog? NO. But if you
place the widget so that it is immediately in
view when someone loads your blog, or at the very
least is seen shortly after someone starts to
scroll, you can pretty much guarantee that you
won’t be receiving a “widget performance WARNING”
from our system asking you to improve the
placement.

If you will be unable to give the widget good placement on your blog (similar to what is mentioned above) then please go ahead and remove the BlogRush widget from your blog, because I’m afraid you won’t be able to meet our new widget performance requirements. It’s just not fair for our other users to be giving YOUR BLOG POSTS great exposure on their blogs if you aren’t willing to do the same for theirs.

[Absolute terror.]

*********************************************
All Members Must Be Displaying The Widget

*********************************************

This is something that we’ve let slide a bit as
we’ve been fixing all the major issues we
encountered. We understand that many users took
the widget off their blog so they could take a
“wait and see” approach before putting it back.

But now the time has come to enforce a new rule
for the network… if you’re not displaying the
widget on your blog you cannot earn or use
syndication credits for your account. [No way?!] For any
time that the widget is not active on your
blog(s) that you have set up in your account,
none of your posts will be syndicated and your
account will not accumulate any additional
credits.

Your referral network and activity will remain
intact, as will any existing credit balance, but
you will not be earning any new credits (or using
any) during the time the widget is not being
actively displayed.

This is the only FAIR WAY for the network to
work. Many of our members that have been making a
solid effort to contribute to the network have
complained that they click on links inside their
widget only to find a blog that’s not showing the
widget.

So we’re putting an end to this as it just isn’t
fair.

And any members that have an inactive widget for
an extended period of time (30+ days) may be
terminated from the network and have their
accounts permanently closed.

Please know that we are working VERY HARD to help
drive tons of traffic to your blog. We’ve got
lots of new services and plans in the works! Our
success with BlogRush is based solely on YOUR
SUCCESS of getting lots of traffic from our
network. So please know that all of these “rules”
and moves that we are making are with that sole
focus in mind.

We are quickly heading towards our ONE BILLIONTH
blog headline served!

Maybe we’ll throw a little party when that
happens? :)

And a big “Thank You” to everyone for their
patience, understanding, and also valued
constructive criticism!

Best Regards,

John Reese, Founder of BlogRush

I mistakenly left this most important part out at first:

If you want to cancel your BlogRush account and no longer receive
emails from our system, please click here:xxxxxxxxx

This is just terrible. Horrible. Unimaginable. What kind of response is Reese expecting? Does he think that there will be cheers of “Oh yes, Johnny, we looooove BlogRush. We want to have a party with you, so we’ll put the ugly-looking no-good non-high-quality wannabe-traffic-bringing widget right next to our logo and hold hands with other scammy pathetic blogging losers and sing ‘Perfect Harmony’ all day long.” God.

Now, I’m sure John Reese knows something I don’t about sending spam marketing emails - after all, he made nearly a million on a domain name sale years ago - but if anyone ever sends me an email like this, you can rest assured that the absolute nicest thing I will do with it is swiftly move it to my spam folder.

A Blog About Nothing has some issues with BlogRush worth checking out, too. Gosh people...

Editor Of Wired Blocking Crappy PR Email

Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine and author of the influential “The Long Tail (Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More),” has just done something remarkable on his blog.

He has posted the email address to dozens and dozens of PR people who have sent him “something inappropriate at some point in the past 30 days,” and which he has added to his blocked list in Outlook. Hardcore.

Anderson says he only wants two kinds of email: “those from people I know, and those from people who have taken the time to find out what I'm interested in and composed a note meant to appeal to that (I love those emails; indeed, that's why my email address is public).” And he doesn’t care if publishing this list of emails leads to them getting picked up by spammers. Reap what you sow, I guess.

Anderson also says that there is no getting off the list. If you want to email him, you’ll have to send from another address.

It’d be awesome if tech writers and other bloggers/journalists started contributing to this list (wiki-style, perhaps) of PR people who send boilerplate junk to any semi-relevant address they can find (or pay for). If this takes hold, and hundreds of people start adding these addresses to their own blocked lists, some real change in outdated and spam-like tactics might start to change. PR people will stop paying exorbitant amount of money for shadily-aggregated email lists because they won’t be effective. Another great side effect would be increased ease of telling apart the good from the bad. Which service is likely to be better - one that sends some boilerplate b.s. to 100,000 bloggers, or one that sends a nice, personal email to targeted people explaining why their service is relevant to the writer and his/her readers? Tough question, I know.

Here’s the list:

aaron@sunshinesachs.com
acoffaro@fortythreepr.com
actionengine@techmarket.com
admin@cartipostale.ro
adrian.richardson@ar-edelman.com
agarson@taylorpr.com
aheng@moca-nyc.org
alerts@alerts.shephard.co.uk
alessandra@livingdivani.it
alex@highwatergroup.com
alexanne.brown@edelman.com
amaury.laporte@diplomatie.gouv.fr
announcements@dmi.org
apartmenttherapy@app.topica.com
as@thehalogroup.net
athierer@pff.org
awaitkunas@gmail.com
bbrignac@tunheim.com
becky@mediafirst.net
blogworldexpo@gmail.com
bobkatz@easidemographics.com
bounces@darklight.ie
bozenawilkspr@aol.com
broesler@5wpr.com
brranko@gmail.com
bruce@newnetworks.com
bulletin@safe-democracy.org
burrill_life_sciences_media_group@vnh10.net
business_travel_news@vnh10.net
callcenter_events@tig.cmptechnetwork.com
carol.tong@bitepr.com
ccashin@laforce-stevens.com
cemerson@webershandwick.com
cheryl.taylor@chorion.co.uk
chilife@topica.email-publisher.com
chilife1@topica.email-publisher.com
chris@iwebtrack.com
chris@onnetusa.com
chriskeswani@onnetusa.com
chuck@broadwick.com
clay.agee@intermarkgroup.com
clickabilitycentral@nl.clickability.com
cmarch@shiftcomm.com
cmoreno@5wpr.com
cmsprmv@yahoo.com
connect@mailer.idgconnect.com
contact@freenyc.net
contact@mecfilms.com
contact@thejsf.org
cw@email.computerweekly.com
cynthia@emediadynamics.com
dan@onewordphotography.com
danielaschrier@rationalpr.com
danielle@popculturepr.com
dasrate@5wpr.com
davenetz@wallstcom.com
david.cross@ableton.com
david@banktrack.org
dbakker@kirvindoak.com
dberry@5wpr.com
dealmakermedia@response.whatcounts.com
dehartdottie@aol.com
dhenderson@peterlangone.ccsend.com
dice_newsmail-bounces@virtual-hideout.net
dkadakia@inventures.com
dkogan@rsowens.com
domondond@thirteen.org
drumbeat@comminit.com
ecomxpo@theonlinexpo.com
edison.lee@ogilvypr.com
editor@more.punchstock.com
eflyer@choicecutsonline.com
ekannett@sspr.com
email@dealmakermedia.com
emails@agencyaccess.com
engnews-bounces@rfanews.org
enotes@amnh.org
equalitynews@feitventures.com
erik@erikalmasphotography.com
evan@themarketingdivision.net
events@freenyc.net
events@mail.homeplug.org
events@sensesf.com
facilitator@americaspeaks.org
feedback@t-shirtsearchengine.com
financo@financo.com
fllamas@webershandwick.com
fttf@mww.com
gina.ghensi@analysys.com
guestlist@lushonline.com
hcohm@lgphilips-lcd.com
heather.mumm@fleishman.com
henk@isomedia.com
india-now@ibef.org
info.freespeech@gmail.com
info@artexpo.nu
info@asetek.com
info@cceia.org
info@csi-annual-event.p0.com
info@designboost.se
info@goodforparty.com
info@involver.com
info@policyinnovations.org
info@sustainabletable.org
info@tagonline.org
info@wordaffairs.com
internet@rsf.org
invest-now@ibef.org
is@news.imagesource.com
jamie.adams@ciscopress.com
jasperwireless@techmarket.com
jbrown@stantoncrenshaw.com
jdorfman@vivavi.com
jelena@crosbyvolmer.com
jennifer@credibilitybranding.com
jessica.tuquero@dc-intl.com
jgadley@gmi-mr.com
jill@market2world.com
jm@pmgintl.com
jmclaughlin@sspr.com
jmedrano@execforum.net
jmke.madshrimps@gmail.com
jmke@madshrimps.be
jneu@webershandwick.com
jodie@mpogd.com
john@larkinvolpatt.com
johnswren@aol.com
jonas.thornholm@xcerion.com
jorgen.nordin@end2endmobile.com
jroberts@hwhpr.com
jscoggins@doc.gov
julie@liaisonpr.com
julie@softscribeinc.com
justsystems@techmarket.com
kamika@sutherlandgold.com
katie@contosdunne.com
katie@fortythreepr.com
kcabrera@carabinerpr.com
kell@taylorcurtismedia.com
kelsi@investorscircle.net
kevin.johnson@techimage.com
kevind@text100.com
kfoley@coynepr.com
kim@scottandscottllp.com
klipsch@vnewscenter.com
klister@pr-vantage.com
krisj@geminiinc.com
krista@montageagency.com
kristen@hensonconsulting.com
kristien@prioritypr.net
kristin.coleman@morris-king.com
kszarkowitz@mporia.com
kthomas@thomas-pr.com
kwarman@b2zentertainment.com
kzox@nycap.rr.com
laurelkao@comcast.net
lauren@perkettpr.com
lauren@piercemattie.com
laurie@highwatergroup.com
lcapurro@jmprpublicrelations.com
leighnofi@sironline.com
levi@meiff.com
liaisonpr@liaisonpr.com
license@hypetraxx.com
lighthouse-list@independent.org
list@freepress.net
listmaster@soex.org
lkornblatt@sspr.com
llomasky@webershandwick.com
locone-bounces@dna-nyc.info
louis@future-works.com
lpalmer@comminit.com
lsambells@pressoffice.targetwire.com
maeilnews@mk.co.kr
mail@atoa.ws
mail@billiondollarbabes.com
mail@lensmodern.com
mail@pff.org
mailers@marketingmatters.net
mailman-bounces@box153.bluehost.com
mantos@sspr.com
marc@mail2.zogby.com
marge_casey__associates_rqbsrgb@cmpgnr.com
mark@choicecutsonline.com
marlenecheetahlearning@rogers.com
marquiswhoswho@email.marquiswhoswho.com
matt.otepka@104west.com
mchase@calysto.com
mclean@rodmclean.com
mcraig@ringling.edu
mdepoint@tunheim.com
mediacenter7@rothmedia.org
mediarelationsbounce@amnh.org
megang@mbooth.com
meghan@artfinancepartners.com
melissa.robbins@mtvnmix.com
melissa@pepcom.com
menziesbob@lages.com
mertine@melmpr.ccsend.com
messa@americanarab.com
michaeli@hwhpr.com
mika@platformlondon.org
mktinfo@pmai.org
mkusa@marketing.agefotostock.com
mlevine@lcoonline.com
morgan@allisonpr.com
morgan@gregoryfca.com
msg@msgnyc.com
mwalker@mww.com
news@metku.net
news@platformfestival.com
news@uiuc.edu
news@velocityreviews.com
news@vmagazine.com
news1@eprairie.com
news2@eprairie.com
newsbot@tweaktown.com
newsletter#27963.169@pink.nimbussoftware.com
newsletter@fineartamerica.com
newsletter@glass-inspiration.com
newsletter@worldsecuritynetwork.net
newsletters@chicblvd.com
newsletters@webshots.online.com
newwest@newwest.net
nfabris@corp.abiresearch.com
niewalda@kurzfilmtage.de
nikki@chicblvd.com
noe@future-works.com
no-reply@wetpaintmail.com
offers@mercurynews.com
ollie@commontime.ccsend.com
online_resources@cxolyris.cxomedia.com
paarmstrong@myspace.com
palm_software_newsletters@news.palmnewsletters.com
pam@techmarket.com
pandreu@5wpr.com
pattyb@gruman-nicoll.com
paula@kohnkecomm.com
pedro2nd@hotmail.com
petertulba@spe.sony.com
phil@contosdunne.com
photomonday@peterhollander.com
pih@bankinvest.dk
pine&gilmore@strategichorizons.com
pr@adremsoft.com
pr@elcomsoft.com
pr@mayocommunications.com
pr@welcomm.com
pr@xcerion.com
press@creditcovers.com
press@diacenter.org
press@freepress.net
press@lebook.com
press-bounces@taxjustice-usa.org
proctor@anet.net
promo@email.batteries.com
publications@houlihan-lokey.com
publicity@justrockpr.us
q@varnishfineart.com
qualcomm@qualcomm.com
rachel@inspire-communications.com
raghu.madabushi@opco.com
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rferguson@stantoncrenshaw.com
rferguson@thinkequity.com
rhart@nine-patch.com
rich@contosdunne.com
rick@montageagency.com
rippmedia@aol.com
robert.reeve@videojug.com
robertj@gymr.com
roger.howie@zaha-hadid.com
rpopko@webershandwick.com
rscanlan@gmail.com
rstephenson@cleanair-coolplanet.org
rsvp@believingisseeing.tv
rsvp@sonnenschein.com
s.goodrich@niveusmedia.com
salesinfo@diskeeper.com
sarah@caromarketing.com
scfowler@20m.ccsend.com
scleland@precursor.com
scoggin@waggeneredstrom.com
scover@crownpr.net
send78-proxymedia@caedefensefund.org
service@outpost.com
sfedulow@gcigroup.com
shannons@ferencomm.com
shipserv_newsflash@mail.vresp.com
stannenberger@mprm.com
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steve@madeit.com
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talentinfo@stocklandmartel.com
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zingrec@zingmagazine.com

Email Addiction

I’m seeing a lot of these “email addiction” articles lately. They all say things like “the average American checks his/her email 5 times a day.”

What’s weird to me, I guess, is the concept of “checking” your email.

Somehow that seems so antiquated - a callback to the dial-up days of yore.

I don’t check email anymore - I get email. Like I get a phone call.

And I’m not just talking about my iPhone.

What about you? How often do you “check” your email? Are you “addicted?”

Oh, I’m Gonna Be Rich!

How nice! A letter from Mrs. Dodd G. Penny!
And it made it past GMail’s spam filter. Hooray!

Hello Friend

Compliment of The season,

I'm happy to inform you about my success in getting the fund transferred under the cooperation of a new partner from Paraguay. Presently I'm in Paraguay for investment projects with my own share of the total sum. Meanwhile, I didn't forget your past efforts and attempts to assist me in transferring those funds despite that it failed us some how.

Now contact my secretary, his name is Mr. louth Ashley, E-mail is: xxxxxxxx@yahoo.co.uk ask him to send you the cheque of $800.000.00 which I have made available for your compensation for all the past efforts and attempts to assist me in this matter. I appreciated your efforts at that time very much. So feel free and get in touched with my secretary and instruct him where to send the amount to you.
Re-confirm below information's to him:

[1]Your full names
[2]Your Contact address
[3]Your telephone/fax numbers

Please do let me know immediately you receive it so that we can share the joy after all the sufferness at that time. At the moment, I am very busy here because of the investment projects which I and the new partner are having at hand, finally, remember that I had forwarded instruction to the secretary on your behalf to receive that money, so feel free to get in touch with him and he will send the amount to you without any delay.

With best regards

Mrs. Dodd G. Penny

Yahoo Mail To Offer Unlimited Storage

According to Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch, starting May 2007, Yahoo Mail will offer unlimited storage to all users. This is a huge swipe at Google’s GMail, which offers what now sounds like a tiny 2.8GB at the moment. Arrington says that the unlimited space is contingent on use consistent with “normal email practices,” which means it can’t be used for free online storage (in theory - but it could still be great for backing up, well, everything on your hard drive bit by bit).

I wonder where Yahoo got the guts (and the servers) to do something like this, and what kind of research they did to confirm this would be a good idea.

I also wonder what Google will do. I plan on sticking with them, after all. Because GMail, GMail Chat, Google Reader, Blogger, Google Analytics, Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Apps For Your Domain, Google Earth, and well, Google Search are amazing amazing amazing.

So yeah. Pretty big move, though. Glad to see Yahoo is still in the game.

Official Announcement on the Yahoo Blog here.