Why Email Stamps Are a Bad Idea (also posted on the Return Path blog) Rich Gingras, CEO of Goodmail is an incredibly smart and stand-up professional. I’ve always liked him personally and had a tremendous amount of respect for him. However, the introduction of the email stamp model by Goodmail is a radical departure from the current email ecosystem, and while I’m all for change and believe the spam problem is still real, I don’t think stamps are the answer. Rich has laid out some of his arguments here in the DMNews blog, so I’ll respond to those arguments as well as add some others in this posting. I will also comment on the DMNews blog site itself, but this…
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AOL and Goodmail: Two steps back for email, Part II
AOL and Goodmail: Two steps back for email, Part II (also posted on the Return Path blog) There’s been a lot of noise this week since the news broke about AOL and Goodmail, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to change the direction of the dialog a little bit. First, there are two main issues here, and I think it’s healthy to separate them and address them separately. One issue is the merits of an email stamp system like the one Goodmail is proposing, relative to other methods of improving and ensuring email deliverability. The second issue — and the one that got me started earlier this week – is the question of AOL making usage of Goodmail stamps…
What’s in store?
What’s in store? Whether you’re a tech enthusiast, a math geek, or a student of humanity, Union Square Ventures’ Brad Burnham has a great post this week on the USV blog about data storage and how much we as a human race can consume. It’s quick, worth a read, and it uses math terms that I’m pretty sure even my wife, dad, and Board members who went to MIT don’t know off the top of their heads (of course, having said that, I’m sure one of them will shortly email me to prove me wrong with their command of 10-to-the-21st power). Brad’s conclusion is great…once the battle shifts away from storage, where will it go next?
AOL and Goodmail: Two steps back for email
AOL and Goodmail: Two steps back for email (posted on the Return Path blog a couple days ago here) Remember the old email hoax about Hillary Clinton pushing for email taxation? When we first heard AOL’s plans for Goodmail today, we thought maybe the hoax had re-surfaced and a few industry reporters got hooked by it. But alas, this tax plan seems to be true. AOL has long held the leading standard in email whitelisting. Every email sender who cares about delivery has tried to keep their email reputation high so that they could earn placement on AOL’s coveted Enhanced Whitelist. Now, AOL may be saying that those standards don’t matter as much as a postage stamp when it comes…
Spam is Dead. Long Live Spam!
Spam is Dead. Long Live Spam! As pointed out in The Register yesterday (and picked up by Whit in his feed), it’s now been exactly two years since Bill Gates declared that Microsoft would eliminate spam in two years. Hmmm. Let’s think about that. Filters do keep getting better, which Gates predicted. But challenge/response filtering seems to be dead in the water, and the notion that we’re all going to pay for email stamps seems to be toast as well. So where are we? Spam is certainly more of a nuisance than a true crisis these days, which is even more true than when I wrote about here 15 months ago. But it still consumes massive amounts of time, bandwidth,…
New Media Deal, Part II – the We Media Deal
New Media Deal, Part II – the We Media Deal My original New Medial Deal posting from August, 2004, is my favorite posting of all 220 or so that I’ve done to date. It has the most clicks of any posting I’ve done. People mention it to me all the time. I even used it as the foundation for the preface to our book at Return Path, Sign Me Up! The general thesis (although the original posting is short and worth reading) is simple. Old Media was one-way communication – they produce it, you consume it, and Old Media had a deal with us: they give us free or cheap content, we tolerate their advertising. Think about your favorite radio…
How Much Marketing Is Too Much Marketing?
How Much Marketing Is Too Much Marketing? It seems like a busy holiday season is already underway for marketers, and hopefully for the economy, shoppers as well. Just for kicks, I thought I’d take a rough count of how many marketing messages I was exposed to in a given day. Here’s what the day looked like: 5:30 a.m. – alarm clock goes off with 1010 WINS news radio in the middle of an ad cycle – 2 ads total. Nice start to the day. 5:45-6:30 – in the gym, watching Today In New York News on NBC for 30 minutes, approximately 6 ad pods, 6 ads per pod – 36 ads total. So we’re at 38, and it’s still dark…
The Rumors of Email’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, Part V
The Rumors of Email’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, Part V Thank goodness I can finally write a positive piece under this headline, and not a rebuttal like I did here, here, here, and here. It seems like there are signs of an email marketing renaissance left, right, and center these days. First, the industry has enjoyed significant growth this year. Every vendor I speak with in the space except for one or two is posting record numbers — whether they sell data, technology, or services. And lots of vendors have been swallowed up by larger multi-channel CRM or DM companies for nice prices. Every marketer or publisher I speak with is investing more money into their email programs, and…
Deliverability Resources
Deliverability Resources After my last posting on email deliverability, a few people emailed me to ask about different resources that Return Path has published over the last six months or so on the subject. Clicking this link will take you to the white paper download form on our web site, which has all the white papers we’ve written in the past 12 months or so listed, and the most recent one on deliverability pre-checked to get you started. You can check as many of the boxes you want in one shot, and although the download will trigger an email and/or call from someone in our sales department, you can simply respond to the email and tell them thanks but no…
Wanted! Comp Benchmark Participants, Part II
Wanted! Comp Benchmark Participants, Part II So far, the responses to my earlier posting on organizing a comp benchmarking project are going well. We still don’t have as many as I’d hoped, but it’s only been a couple of days. However, I did receive a comment and link that led to an email exchange with Mike DiPierro, who pointed me to another collaborate effort that’s worth looking at on the web. Although it may not be quite as customized as the one I’m hoping we can build, this group does an annual report for private company comp, one in IT and the other in Life Sciences. You can see more about it here if you’re interested in participating in their…
Wanted! Comp Benchmark Participants
Wanted! Comp Benchmark Participants Return Path is looking to benchmark our compensation structure with those of peer companies. We would like to organize a project where an independent consultant gathers and compiles the data from a group of 10-20 companies and shares the aggregated results with individual benchmarks back with participants (the data will be anonymous on a per-company basis). The data we’d need from participating companies (for all positions) is: Title and summary of the job description; Base Salary; Bonus; and Location. The criteria for "peer company" is one that is comparable in size (50-250 people), geography (not rural, at least some in NY/Chicago/SF/LA), and industry (anything tech/Internet/services). We will act as the project manager. Participating companies will mainly…