

I want to reply - idioterna
http://www.zemanta.com/fruitblog/i-want-to-reply/

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jgroome
I see my email (Google Apps) as the main point of contact for ME on the
Internet. Not my Facebook, not my Twitter, not whatever else. If someone has
to send me a file, it goes to my email. If I just met somebody new and we're
not at "Facebook friendship level" (a friend of mine's phrase) then they get
my email. Email email email.

I'm also perfectly happy to use my email as a notification zone, as it's
probably the one place online where I will absolutely definitely 100% receive
whatever message I'm sent.

With regards to the emails themselves, I'm actually almost against the kind of
personalisation that the author here is recommending. "Hey, Jim, your tweet
got retweeted!"

Yes, very impressive, you worked out how to insert a merge field. How could I
possibly have known the message was for me if you hadn't put my name at the
top there? I suddenly feel so very engaged.

I just think it's a bit disingenuous, almost a little dishonest, to try and
pretend that an email update from a company is actually a letter written to
you personally by some guy who works at said company.

The yes-please-reply@ address is a nice gimmick, but if you're sending
messages to this address and receiving no response then what makes you think
anyone's reading them at all?

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zorbo
What I really want is to stop my email inbox from being a notification area.
It doesn't feel right for notifications. Foo replied to your post. Bug X has
been fixed in project Y. All that stuff doesn't belong in my email inbox.

What I'd really like is a single online notification service. I imagine
signing up for a service somewhere, and I just plunk my special notification
address somewhere in the settings. The service then communicates to that
online notification service instead of sending me emails. I could install an
app on my phone and desktop (separately configurable) that alerts me. I can
set up filters through the app or a web interface.

I'm not too hopeful about this ever happening though. No service will support
it unless it's mainstream, and using the notification service is useless until
most services support it. Chicken and the egg.

~~~
billybob
"What I'd really like is a single online notification service..."

Everything you say about this sounds exactly like hosted email to me. How is
it different?

To me, the problem with email is the time it takes to manage it: filter, mark
as read, etc. Gmail filters help with this, but it's still work. But I can't
see how any notification system could know how I want things filtered without
me telling it.

~~~
mseebach
It would be nice if the community would agree on a simple header that
indicates "notification" so it's easier to filter automatically.

~~~
sp332
You can use address tags to sign up for notifications.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_address#Address_tags> E.g. if your email
is username@gmail.com you can sign up for bugfix notifications as
username+bugfix@gmail.com which makes inbox filtering much, much easier.

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selectnull
Wait... I don't get this.

The guy has "thousands of unread items in my inbox" that he will never get to.

His priority inbox has 26 unread messages of which only 9 are directed to him
(others are mailing list, sent by a machine whatever that means and
newsletters).

I presume his "normal inbox" has the same ratio of email "from machines" and
directed to him directly since there is no reason to be any other way.

To me this paints a picture of a person who does not take care of his inbox
and he wants me to send an email to him? Really? That guy wants to "talk to
me" and he wants to get an email from me, presumably so he can write a blog
post about having thousands of emails in his inbox? Nope, I don't get it.

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jschulenklopper
> Nobody wants nameless faceless corporations anymore. > And even if they did,
> email isn’t a flier you send > into a million postboxes, it’s that personal
> > sales/support/whatever call your humans make.

Derek Sivers / CDBaby has been doing something similar, adjusting the
From:-field to include the customer first name: "CDBaby loves Sarah" for
shipment confirmations. As reported, people loved this kind of mails (thinking
that somebody at CDBaby changed their email profile settings for each outgoing
mail :-)

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jaxn
The same philosophy holds true for SMS notifications.

We (Bizen.com) send SMS notifications to our customers. If they respond to the
SMS, it is directed to their account manager.

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sparknlaunch12
This is a massive challenge, made harder by all the other competing startups.
I have been thinking often about offline versus online. For all the effort you
do online, one good offline meeting could create much more benefit.

For example, you may have a million twitter followers who create minimal
interaction. Or have a face to face meeting with one person who introduces you
to an interested angel or your next big customer.

What has biggest impact?

~~~
adrianhoward
Think of it another way. As a startup getting feedback is your primary tool
for improvement.

It shouldn't be a case of offline _or_ online. Do both until you can't. Then
start optimising.

I often see organisations cut-off e-mail feedback long before the noise from
spammers, auto-replies, vacation mail, etc. becomes an actual issue.

Wait until you have a problem. Then look at the many tools around that can
help alleviate those problems. Then think about maybe recruiting more people
to help deal with the feedback. Then - if you still have a problem - start
thinking about removing communication channels.

It should be the last option - not the first.

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mike-cardwell
If somebody gets so much email they ignore most of it, then they're an
outlier. I'd prefer to hear the opinion of somebody who receives a normal
amount of email, and what _they_ think of the issue.

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antithesis
The correct pronunciation is 'twenty-twelve', not 'two thousand and twelve'.

