Comments on: Rant on Email Notifications

By: name goes here

name goes here — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 15:31:46 +0000

This looks nice. I already mask my real address using mailinator-dot-com (public, temporary storage, both web & RSS accessible inboxes) or spamgourmet-dot-com (custom forwarding addresses, auto-created, self-destructing with overrides available to make them persistent). Digesting these emails (whether for delivery at a time of day or week, or upon a count being reached) seems like the next step.

By: FAKE GRIMLOCK

FAKE GRIMLOCK — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:35:08 +0000

MAYBE BUILD NEW WAY CONSUME EMAIL NOT AS HARD AS YOU THINK.

By: iaindooley

iaindooley — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:51:57 +0000

Changing email as a transport mechanism isn't required - we just need to change the applications we use to view email.

The most depressing thing is that very few people ever really learned to use email properly and all the "innovations" in email so far (ie. sticking rich text and images in it) have largely ruined it as a communications medium.

When people talk about wanting to "change email" my first reaction is usually "how about we, as a group, really learn to use email properly first, then make a decision".

Of course, this won't happen - someone will come along with some platform specific app that makes it really great to do email on one device that's the most dominant and every will fall in love with it, resulting in the rest of the computing world have to conform with whatever idiotic new features it has, but a man can dream.

By: William Mougayar

William Mougayar — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:42:17 +0000

Right on the money with these suggestions. But how about collecting feedback on "Why the person unsubscribed". There are 2 methods that come to mind:
- offer a quick feedback link or simple email link in the confirmation screen pop-up
- send 1 email from the CEO...sorry to see you leave, if you care to tell me why...

Other thoughts on that?

By: William Mougayar

William Mougayar — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:32:23 +0000

That field is open for disruption and innovation. Definitely.

By: Robin Fisher

Robin Fisher — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:51:35 +0000

Completely agree with you. I don't care if you're using an external agency to do your mailings – fix your process.

By: Chris Norström

Chris Norström — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 06:50:20 +0000

Most definately. We really do need to rethink email and stop treating it as the online version of real mail. At this point we really need something better than a “mark as spam” button. I'm willing to try anything, a block / request / permissions feature that I can put in place to control who can send me emails would be the first step. And a standardized subscribe + one-click-unsubscribe protocol that's integrated into all email2.0.

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 06:47:13 +0000

Easy enough, make the user type in the first part of their email address or something like that, to prevent mistakes. Malicious unsubscription (really?) you'll probably never be able to stop.

By: FAKE GRIMLOCK

FAKE GRIMLOCK — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 05:27:49 +0000

NOTHING CHANGE IN EMAIL OVER LAST 20 YEARS EXCEPT PUT ON WEB.

THAT LIKE 200,000 INTERNET YEARS.

ME SAY NO FIX WHAT GET IN EMAIL.

FIX EMAIL.

THAT REAL CHANGE.

By: Ken

Ken — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 01:47:36 +0000

If you're not going to require any kind of security measures for an unsubscribe, the least you can do is send a confirmation message (#4). Otherwise a victim can't detect the problem.