A VC - Latest Comments in Don't Forget About Email

Re: Don't Forget About Email

KennytheClown — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:32:47 -0000

Interesting.

Re: Don't Forget About Email

twitter-17413603 — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:48:54 -0000

I think its a question of the right tool for the right job. (And the right audience.)

When we launched SpacedEd (http://www.spaceded.com), a site that offers a learning marketplace with courses on various topics in the form of simple Q&A delivered as 1 or 2 questions a day, we learned this lesson very quickly.

All the research that Harvard had done to develop and prove the system was based on using email to deliver your daily questions. The results were amazing.

However, when we launched the spin-off company and built our infrastructure, we expanded the options to include getting your questions via RSS, the web and mobile devices like iPhone and BlackBerry.

While that has proven to be very popular, the majority of learners continue to elect to receive their daily questions via email. Its a great format for "push" learning and it gives folks a lot of flexibility in how, when and where they take their learning.

This has been great learning experience for me - as a developer/start-up guy its very easy to get caught up in the latest tech, especially given we are all typically early adopters, but it would have been a huge mistake for us to discount (or worse, discontinue) the use of email for our service.

Re: Don't Forget About Email

twitter-4929831 — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:48:33 -0000

@DaveinHackensack

Technically, compliance with the CAN-Spam Act does not require use of an in-house list. The reality though, is that the recipient ultimately determines (and defines) what is and isn't spam.

See my blog posts below:

A Practical Definition of Spam
http://www.messagingtimes.com/2008/09/05/a-prac...

Email Marketing: Growing Your In-House Email List
http://www.messagingtimes.com/2009/02/11/email-...

Regarding list rentals, just beware that the average rate from reputable list brokers is $170/thousand (B2C) and $277/thousand (B2B). So if someone is offering you a list of 1 million co-registration addresses for the special price of $99.99, you can be pretty sure that the list is full of invalid addresses and potentially spam traps.

Good luck!

Re: Don't Forget About Email

twitter-4929831 — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:39:40 -0000

Technically, compliance with the CAN-Spam Act does not require use of an in-house list. The reality though, is that the recipient ultimately determines (and defines) what is and isn't spam.

See my blog posts below:

A Practical Definition of Spam
http://www.messagingtimes.com/2008/09/05/a-prac...

Email Marketing: Growing Your In-House Email List
http://www.messagingtimes.com/2009/02/11/email-...

Regarding list rentals, just beware that the average rate from reputable list brokers is $170/thousand (B2C) and $277/thousand (B2B). So if someone is offering you a list of 1 million co-registration addresses for the special price of $99.99, you can be pretty sure that the list is full of invalid addresses and potentially spam traps.

Re: Don't Forget About Email

twitter-12013522 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:03:36 -0000

Robert, please request an invite to http://threadsy.com It's totally in line with your idea.

Re: Don't Forget About Email

fredwilson — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:30:06 -0000

Nice way to put it Ro. I agree

Re: Don't Forget About Email

davehendricks — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:12:07 -0000

To paraphase Mark Twain 'Reports of email's death are greatly exaggerated'. 99% of people getting off a plane are going to check their email, if they didn't while on the flight. Blackberry sales are increasing. And when you get a direct message on Facebook, you are notified by email.

Yes, this may be replaced. But an email address is the ultimate unique identifier and portable number. It's surprising that by now it hasn't replaced the phone number as an alternate way to ring someone up. Love it, hate it (spam) email is here to stay.

Who do you know who uses a computer without an email address? No one that I can imagine - every service requires an address to set up an account. How many don't use RSS, Twitter, Facebook, etc. - most. I love those, but just like TV didn't kill radio, 'social media' won't kill email.

Re: Don't Forget About Email

jasonspalace — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:51:56 -0000

thanks, i like what i was reading, will make time for indepth look at service integration in very near future

Re: Don't Forget About Email

Robert_Dewey — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:59:45 -0000

I agree with Fred.

Competition forces innovation.

Re: Don't Forget About Email

Ro — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:27:34 -0000

Indeed. I actually use email quite often as an analogue to comments when describing Disqus to people.

*Both have been around since day 1 of the net
*Both have seen many other potential substitutes emerge along the years (personal communication: IM, SMS, tweets, etc.; UGC: blogs, Flickr, YouTube, etc.)...
*...yet both are still dominant in their respective spheres in terms of volume and ubiquity
*And thankfully, both have benefited from a long overdue wave of innovation in just the past few years

Re: Don't Forget About Email

roblevin — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:26:25 -0000

Email marketing will be here for a long time. However, there are drawbacks - everyone can do it. Check out Levin's Law - http://www.nyreport.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Fe....

Re: Don't Forget About Email

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:46:18 -0000

I'm seeing them (RP) tomorrow so this is timely feedback. Thanks

Re: Don't Forget About Email

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:32:17 -0000

I love that attitude. Bring it on!

Re: Don't Forget About Email

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:27:03 -0000

Anthony's got it figured out. That's for sure. And I do love hypme. Bigtime

Re: Don't Forget About Email

daryn — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:24:07 -0000

And by fix, they should: 1) make express more visible 2) make its
pricing available online, and 3) make the signup process
self-service.

We got caught in sales call hell with RP awhile back, where we
couldn't get straight answers on cost or features, just "what do you
want to pay?"... I know it's standard practice in the enterprise
space, but frustrating at startup-scale.

Re: Don't Forget About Email

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:21:10 -0000

Great story. For him, email is the web

Re: Don't Forget About Email

daryn — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:20:47 -0000

sendgrid looks great isaac, very cool...

Re: Don't Forget About Email

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:17:09 -0000

SMS

Re: Don't Forget About Email

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:14:04 -0000

I use it to send this blog's daily posts every night to about 2,000 subs

Re: Don't Forget About Email

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:13:09 -0000

I have a different experience erica. This blog gets more traffic from twitter than google and email clicks aren't even in the top ten even though I mail out my blog posts every night to about 2,000 people

Re: Don't Forget About Email

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:09:10 -0000

Nope. See my previous reply

Re: Don't Forget About Email

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:09:09 -0000

Nope. Anthony Volodkin built it while he was in college

Re: Don't Forget About Email

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:09:07 -0000

I'm replying to your comment via email. Disqus is a bleeding edge social media service. And yet I use it almost exclusively via email

Re: Don't Forget About Email

fredwilson — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:06:08 -0000

Return Path has a low end offering they call express. Not enough people know about it. That is something they need to fix

Re: Don't Forget About Email

facebook-589275504 — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:09:07 -0000

In theory it's the responsibility of the list owner or list manager. In practice most lists are horribly inaccurate.