

Show HN: HTML for Mail - dshipper
http://htmlformail.com/

======
SeoxyS
HTML email signatures need to die. There's nothing more annoying than getting
an email with a huge, colorful and distracting signature.

Signatures should be plain text and a few lines at most. Apple got it 100%
right here in limiting the software. Please stop including entire resumes in
signatures.

Here's mine, by the way:

    
    
        ---
        Kenneth Ballenegger
        www.kswizz.com

~~~
dshipper
Thanks for the comment! I agree to some extent but using HTML doesn't
necessarily mean a gaudy signature. For example your two line signature could
be reduced to one line by linking your name to www.kswizz.com.

I don't think that we should limit use of a technology because it could be
used to create something ugly (almost all technology can be used that way) but
instead look at what kind of beautiful things it can make.

~~~
prakashk

        your two line signature could be reduced to one line by linking your name to www.kswizz.com.
    

What if the recipient is using a non-HTML mail client?

------
jason_shah
Impressive and wise repurposing. When you said "longtail leads from the SEO",
Dan, do you mean that eventually something like this page would rank well for
queries like 'html for mail' and related terms (and push leads and traffic to
Airtime)?

Assuming that's the case, it may help to make more reference to terms like
'Apple' and 'Mac' (on the page and in your HTML) that people may include in a
query when looking for something like this. From glancing at the source, it
seemed like adding those sort of terms and others from using the Google
Adwords Keyword Tool (<https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal>)
might be useful. Eventually it would be a great case study to see data and how
well something like this works for you in driving qualified leads.

~~~
dshipper
That's exactly what I meant by longtail leads. Thanks for the advice, I'm
going to spend some time tonight going over keywords to optimize it as much as
possible.

We're definitely looking to make this into a case-study for inbound marketing
if possible, so hopefully in a month or two we'll have some reportable
results. Thanks again for the feedback

------
slater
Really not fond of giving out my e-mail address, so here's the direct link for
the app:

<https://s3.amazonaws.com/eyeredux/assets/HTML+for+Mail.zip>

~~~
dshipper
Fair enough :). Are you saying that in general you don't give your email out,
or are you saying you think the value prop for this particular app is too weak
to give an email out for?

~~~
sdfjkl
Download buttons are expected to lead to files that you can download.

I don't want to give my email address out unless I actually want to be emailed
by you (with something I care about, not with what you think I should be
reading). On terrible sites that have not realized such basic facts but have
software I really want (VMware for example), I use bugmenot or mailinator.
Thereby this sort of thing only serves to reduce the amount of people that try
your app and annoy those that want it bad enough into giving you a fake email.
And a couple poor sods that get spammed by you later on, either because you
decided to spam them, because you took improper care of your contact database
or because your company got sold and stripped for assets (customer data =
valuable).

~~~
dshipper
Ok I definitely agree that we should change the Download Now button to
something else if it's misleading. Thanks for the feedback!

~~~
ericabiz
Look into how Traffic Travis does this: <http://www.traffictravis.com/>

They built an email list of hundreds of thousands of people who downloaded
free software.

The list is a more valuable asset to them than anything else.

------
mdesq
Access to the site is blocked by my employer due to a perceived security
threat.

"...this web site ( <http://htmlformail.com/> ) has been blocked because it
has been determined by Web Reputation Filters to be a security threat to your
computer or the corporate network. This web site has been associated with
malware/spyware."

Maybe something you want to track down, in case the site somehow became listed
in a malware database. Sometimes removing sites takes manual effort.

~~~
dshipper
Oh wow thanks for the heads up. I wonder how that could have happened - we
just launched the site today.

I'll definitely look into it. Is it possible that a previous owner of the
domain used it for malware?

~~~
mdesq
Could be. I've seen hacked sites get cleaned up and two years later still be
stuck in these databases. Integration with some antivirus programs can make it
so that large numbers of people are effectively blocked from visiting the
site.

------
dshipper
Hey everyone. We built this in a day yesterday by repurposing code from our
current startup (Airtime for Email). We're hoping that people find it useful,
and that eventually it will be able to help us generate qualified longtail
leads from the SEO. We're really new to selling B2B and inbound marketing and
I'd love your feedback :)

------
mnutt
You can use HTML in Mail.app signatures already; you just have to copy some
HTML from your browser and paste it into the signature field.

But considering how bad Mail.app's signature UI is, this is pretty handy.

~~~
dshipper
Thanks I'm glad you found it useful!

------
nrj
HTML is not for e-mail. That's what web browsers are for.

~~~
dshipper
I'd like to respectfully disagree. I think it's akin to saying "web browsers
are not for running applications; that's what operating systems are for" 10
years ago. Email has a huge amount of potential to be used as a medium beyond
just plain-text and I think that's a trend that we'll start to see manifesting
itself more significantly over the next few years.

