
Show HN: Rebump – Bump Important Emails Until They're Answered - ezrameanshelp
http://rebump.cc
======
wpietri
If I ever suspected a correspondent of using something like this, they would
be dead to me.

I appreciate a human-generated bump now and again, because it is a signal that
they continue to care about what we were talking about. But automatically
sending me message after machine-generated message to prod me into doing
whatever they wanted? With no effort or intervening social judgment? Fuck
that.

For people to whom this appeals, I'd suggest my approach: keep a "pending"
list. If you haven't heard back and still care, you can always take the 30
seconds to say, "Hey, have you had a chance to think more about this?" or
whatever the contextually appropriate thing is.

~~~
alecsmart1
This may not work very well for out of organization contacts. But for inside
organization contacts it works beautifully. They know youre spamming them but
its like a reminder service for them (which they unfortunately wont do on
their own).

~~~
Ntrails
We use Lync (msn messenger) internally and if someone hasn't responded to an
email I ping them on that, ring them up, or even wander over and chat
depending on our relationship.

There are plenty of folks I know with 100+ unread emails this week and a bunch
of them will never get seen. So imo another email isn't the most effective way
to resolve it.

------
kohanz
_This is probably not the site you are looking for! You attempted to reach
www.rebump.cc, but instead you actually reached a server identifying itself as
www.ohmspa.com. This may be caused by a misconfiguration on the server or by
something more serious. An attacker on your network could be trying to get you
to visit a fake (and potentially harmful) version of www.rebump.cc. You should
not proceed, especially if you have never seen this warning before for this
site._

~~~
ezrameanshelp
Yes! Many a heart skipped a beat during the period where this message was
displayed, but we are back. All good. Thanks.

------
chrisfarms
Dear Busy Person,

I know you get so many emails that it takes you a while to reply, so I thought
I'd help you out by sending you more emails.

Regards.

Rebump.

\------

Jest aside, nagging does work, so this technique probably would too, but I can
imagine if someone started using it on me, it'd just filter the messages to
the bin.

The product does look very well executed. Best of luck.

~~~
ezrameanshelp
You don't reply to an email and you get a reply a few days later: "Hey, I just
wanted to make sure that you saw this. If you need any more details, just let
me know. Thanks again!"

If you did mean to reply to that first email, this gets the job done. You can
also customize the message to whatever you want. Even: "bump!"

~~~
lutusp
It's a new name for spam. Renaming things has limited potential to change how
we think about them.

------
lutusp
Quote: "Rebump sends multiple follow-up messages to your email recipients for
you. These automated emails are customized to appear as if you sent the email
yourself."

Wow -- they managed not to use the word "spam" anywhere on their site.

~~~
ezrameanshelp
It would be silly for spammers to use this. It would just increase the
likelihood of them being marked as spam by people that already ignored their
first try.

This is for people who you expect an answer from but the email has fallen
through the cracks. Maybe it's starred, maybe they opened it on mobile and
forgot to save as new. Your concern is definitely one we are keeping an eye
out for but haven't seen it yet.

~~~
lutusp
> It would be silly for spammers to use this. It would just increase the
> likelihood of them being marked as spam by people that already ignored their
> first try.

Not if the spammers use a botnet to change the email's source for each retry.
Anyone who thinks spam originates from a fixed server name and IP is living in
the past. More here:

[http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/antispam.html](http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/antispam.html)

[http://www.arachnoid.com/anti_spam/pic2_crop_small_trans.gif](http://www.arachnoid.com/anti_spam/pic2_crop_small_trans.gif)

Also, an easy way for a legitimate sender to be redefined as a spammer is for
them to send copies of an e-mail until they get a reply.

> Your concern is definitely one we are keeping an eye out for but haven't
> seen it yet.

Like Bitcoin thefts, you won't see any sign of it until it's too late.

This idea violates the most basic civilized e-mail rule -- if you don't get a
reply, don't badger the recipient. Spammers, of course, don't care about
civilized behavior and will find this idea very appealing.

~~~
ezrameanshelp
We are not resending the original email. We are sending a new message you can
customize that says some version of, "Did you see this?."

Will definitely read up on those concerns. Thank you so much for the resources
and for preventing us from getting sleep at night from now on.

;-)

~~~
lutusp
> We are not resending the original email. We are sending a new message ...

Yes, and that's exactly what spammers do. They know better than to send the
same message more than once, but they certainly won't abandon an address they
know to be valid (no bounce).

The first might say, "Our automated analysis tool has detected that your
computer has been infected. Click this link for a repair."

The second might say, "We're sorry -- your bank has reported a hacking attempt
and we need you to change your password. Please enter your login ID and your
old and new password."

The third might say, "Is your wife no longer happy? Try our miracle ..." (use
your imagination)

Spammers might be intellectually challenged people, but they're not perfectly
stupid, on the ground that nothing is perfect.

~~~
ezrameanshelp
To clarify: if an email is spam, no number of Rebumps will rescue it from the
spam folder. In fact, if it was just ignored the first time, it makes it more
likely to be marked as spam with every bump.

------
alecsmart1
I know some might accuse you of spamming but this is extremely useful. Been
using boomerang but that only remind me and then I have to manually send them
an email. I hope it remains free though.

~~~
ezrameanshelp
Thanks! Its usefulness to us is why we were motivated to spin it off and
release it into the wild.

~~~
jerf
I tend to share the general HN opinion here. But I do feel obligated to point
out that this is probably just about the most hostile environment you could
possibly announce this into. Our hatred of it doesn't mean there's no market
here.

...

Stupid honesty.

~~~
ezrameanshelp
The feedback has been incredibly valuable. No regrets.

------
geminitojanus
The first time I see an email from this service, they will meet my permanent
blacklist.

This is absolutely, brutally intolerable. It's hard enough maintaining spam-
free email without this nonsense.

~~~
ezrameanshelp
It won't be from us. It will be an email from a loved one, asking simply if
you saw the email they send you a few days ago. Be gentle.

------
ezrameanshelp
This is a tool we built to use internally and are spinning off. We did the
same with InVision App a while back.

Rebump works with Gmail on Chrome/Firefox for now.

Feedback treasured.

~~~
matt_vera
It looks simple and valuable, which is good, but I feel my needs are already
more than met with Boomerang for Gmail.

~~~
ezrameanshelp
Boomerang is awesome. And it will tell you when an email hasn't been replied
to.

But it won't automatically bump until you get a response. We think Rebump
saves time and workflow that way. It plays very nicely with both Boomerang and
YesWare.

~~~
lutusp
> Boomerang is awesome. And it will tell you when an email hasn't been replied
> to. But it won't automatically bump until you get a response.

That's because Boomerang understands and meets widely accepted email standards
of behavior.

> We think Rebump saves time and workflow that way.

It's spam. No blizzard of words, however blinding, can change its identity. It
renames a deplorable social email practice, but without changing its identity.

Civilized people write once, then wait for a reply. Spammers "bump" over and
over again until they either get a reply or are classed as spam.

~~~
ezrameanshelp
Civilized people remind their friends, coworkers and clients to follow-up on
important emails. That's what this is for.

~~~
lutusp
> Civilized people remind their friends, coworkers and clients to follow-up on
> important emails.

Civilized people have inboxes and outboxes. If an e-mail isn't transferred to
the the inbox, the pending-action category, then any attempt to change its
status by repeat mails is at the very least disrespectful of the recipient's
choice of priorities.

All I am saying is that you need to find out how people think about these
things. You're well past explaining, now you're rationalizing.

------
Dorian-Marie
As someone in the feedback chat told me:

If you want mutiple accounts, you will need to sign in with an account, then
sign out (top right of
[https://www.rebump.cc/emails/home/](https://www.rebump.cc/emails/home/)),
then sign in the other account, etc.

Happy bumping

------
uladzislau
Looks cool and I'd like to try it. A few questions for you:

How does it work technically? Is the same first message sent every time? What
is the feedback from people who are being "rebumped"?

~~~
ezrameanshelp
You can adjust the message and how frequently you want the bumps to happen.
The people being bumped think it's you and they respond to the original email.

~~~
nuxi7
Except its glaringly obvious that the original sender didn't send the new
email.

Notably, your emails are HTML only.

------
JTon
From the video: > You can easily monitor the status of each message you send
and know if and when it gets read

Huh? How?

~~~
lutusp
There are a number of reliable ways to detect a read. The most common is to
sent an HTML-format message with an embedded graphic link to the sender's
server.

~~~
manuelflara
That's not reliable enough. A lot of email clients (or users) have images off
by default, at least when reading emails from new senders.

~~~
lutusp
> That's not reliable enough.

It's reliable enough for a spammer. Remember spam is a numbers game -- things
only have to work as hoped a small percentage of the time for the system to
work.

------
dalore
... the more of a chance you have for a 100% response rate.

sounds like it works 100% of the time, 50% of the time.

------
joeblau
I hope Gmail updates it spam algorithm to catch stuff like this.

