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Email usability: the science of keeping it short and sweet

TechDept — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 09:00:30 +0000

You’ve probably heard the advice, ‘Keep your email campaign short and sweet’, often followed by, ‘… because no-one’s going to read loads of copy, anyway’.

As much as this seems like commonsense, we’ve all seen clients attempt to cram in as much information as possible, oblivious to reason. I believe this is largely due to another school of thought, which goes along the lines of, “My subscribers have signed up because they obviously want to read all about my brand values and 5 year plan.” With a lack of hard evidence to the contrary on hand, this can be an frustrating argument to dismiss.

By Ros Hodgekiss for Campaign Monitor Blog, 25 Jan 2011.

Announcing amazon simple email service

TechDept — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 09:00:37 +0000

Another nail in the coffin for small email sending providers…

Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) is a highly scalable and cost-effective bulk and transactional email-sending service for businesses and developers. Amazon SES eliminates the complexity and expense of building an in-house email solution or licensing, installing, and operating a third-party email service. The service integrates with other AWS services, making it easy to send emails from applications being hosted on services such as Amazon EC2. With Amazon SES there is no long-term commitment, minimum spend or negotiation required – businesses can utilize a free usage tier and after that enjoy low fees for the number of emails sent plus data transfer fees.

By Amazon Web Services

Why does broadband speed vary so much?

TechDept — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 09:00:11 +0000

If you are a night owl who enjoys surfing between the hours of 4am and 6am and are fortunate enough to live on top of a telephone exchange then you are probably very happy with your broadband speeds.

But the majority of people in the UK are not getting the broadband services they signed up for, according to a comprehensive speed report by regulator Ofcom.

By Jane Wakefield, for BBC News Technology, 28 July 2010.

Should e-mails open with Dear, Hi, or Hey?

TechDept — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 09:00:54 +0000

It’s time we ditched “Dear…” from work e-mails, according to a US political figure, who says it’s too intimate. So what is the most appropriate way to greet someone in an e-mail – hi, hey or just get straight to the point?

Two words. That’s all Giselle Barry needed to leave a lasting impression.

By James Morgan for BBC News, 21 Jan 2011.

iPad and the future of email design

TechDept — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:53:22 +0000

OK, I’ll admit it. I got up early Thursday morning Sydney time to watch Steve Jobs keynote on the mysterious new tablet concept from Apple. While I’m quietly excited about the change this device will bring, there was really only one part of the show that I got out of bed early for. How was thing going to handle email? It lasted about 90 seconds in total, but that was enough.

Since then I’ve had a few ideas stewing in my head that I wanted to share with you guys. What sort of impact this will have on how you approach email design, does this open any new doors or techniques to try? This morning I started throwing some of these together, and then stumbled across this great post from Paul Farnell of Litmus fame that generally summed up what I had to say. Go check it out and then read on for a few additional points I wanted to expand on.

From David Greiner @ Campaign Monitor Feb 4 2010

DMA says email marketing spend to grow in 2010

TechDept — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:15:09 +0000

Seven out of ten marketers expect expenditure on email marketing to increase over the next 12 months, yet strategic planning and best practice processes are lagging behind, findings of the latest Direct Marketing Association (DMA) National Client Email Survey report.

Click here to read more…

From dma.org.uk 19 November 2009

New Google Caffeine

TechDept — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:45:09 +0000

Back in August, we were shocked to learn that Google was working on a new version of its search engine. The secret project, known officially as Google Caffeine, wouldn’t change the face or design of the Google search engine, but would instead provide an overhaul of the architecture of Google’s web search that would improve its indexing speed, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

To read more Click Here

By Ben Parr, Mashable.com, November 10th 2009

Google Wave: A Complete Guide

TechDept — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:52:24 +0000

Today has been dominated by news and excitement surrounding Google Wave (Google Wave), Google’s (Google) new real-time communication platform that will launch to the public on September 30th. In fact, there’s been so much buzz that you might just not have enough time to read the thousands of articles being released on Google’s biggest product launch in recent memory.

To make sense of it all, we have compiled key information, definitions, and links related to the launch of Google Wave. This in-depth guide provides an overview of Google Wave, discusses the terminology associated with it, details information on Google Wave applications, (i.e. the Twitter Wave app Twave), and goes over ways to keep yourself informed. We know you’re excited about Google Wave, so here’s what we think you should know….

To read more Click Here
To view video Click Here

By Ben Parr, Mashable.com, May 28th 2009

HTML5 and Video in E-mail

TechDept — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:12:47 +0000

As momentum quickly builds behind HTML5, the new version of HTML and XHTML, we’ve had a close eye on what impact this might have on HTML email in the years to come. While the finer details of HTML5 are still being finalised, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera have offered support for much of the new technology for some time.

One particular area of interest to me was the HTML5 video tag. The aim of this tag was to provide native video support using a single codec across all browsers without the need for third party plugins like Flash. While the dream of a universal codec appears unlikely, one clever project has surfaced that uses the video tag for browsers that support it and falls back on traditional video options for those that don’t.

To read more Click Here

By David Greiner, Campaignmonitor.com, Oct 14th 2009