
Research: How People Use Mobile Email - duck
http://blog.mailchimp.com/mobile-email-research/
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endersshadow
This is interesting research. Certainly good things to keep in mind if you're
crafting newsletters--they give some fantastic guidelines in the full
research.

But, I wonder if the Blackberry effect has just exacerbated itself. I'm a user
that has my personal and work email coming to my phone, but I still treat them
very differently. I don't get notified when my mailbox gets a little fuller. I
get plenty of email, and if my phone buzzed for every one, it would buzz to
the point of annoyance for me. Also, my email tends to be fairly lower on the
signal/noise ratio than, say, a phone call or a text.

So, it surprises me that 87% of the people have notifications turned on. I
mean, why? Why would I care that I got a newsletter? I don't have to open it
immediately. The information is just not that urgent. Do people just have that
important of email communication going back and forth?

While it's geared toward newsletters, but I think the research points to some
things that we need to keep in mind with mobile email. I was once yelled at
for sending an email at 3AM, because somebody's phone went off and they woke
up. More and more, I see email being treated as synchronous communication
rather than asynchronous. If I respond to you within one work day, then I
don't owe you an apology. It appears this research points to the ubiquity of
acceptance of email as semi-synchronous communication. I'm not really
comfortable with that idea, but it appears I'm fighting a losing battle.

~~~
oz
>So, it surprises me that 87% of the people have notifications turned on.

I have 8 email accounts on my BlackBerry, and audiovisual and tactile alerts
are on for all but one of them (my Yahoo account, where the newsletters go.).
I'm a freelancer, and after a major marketing campaign, I like to be able to
respond _immediately_ to queries from potential clients. Makes a very good
impression.

>Do people just have that important of email communication going back and
forth?

Yes. For instance, I have an email account dedicated to Namecheap
notifications, which is also auto-forwarded to an account from a different
provider. If someone logs into my Namecheap account and messes with my
domains, I need to know _now_. Not tomorrow.

Your email is the key to modern digital life. Some things simply can't wait.

------
zafriedman
I've always been a huge fan of the entire MailChimp library, both in terms of
concept and execution. It's a win-win for everyone, MailChimp gets to promote
their brand and platform and give potential users something unique, while we
get free information distilled in an extremely user-friendly fashion.

