Google’s Gearing Up For Offline Email
Using the same technology that lets Android users work with their Google email accounts offline, the Mountain View company has introduced an email application that liberates millions of Gmail users from unreliable connections.
By adding the Google Gears plug-in to their browsers, Gmail users can now read, search, star, label, and respond to emails offline. Next time they connect to the web, Gears will automatically convey the messages.
The service is still in an experimental stage — you can open and read attachments, for example, but you cannot send them — but Google positioned Gears as a solution to what Google calls “flaky connection mode“; that is, when an internet connection is unreliable or weak in this case, Gears utilizes the local cache as if it were disconnected, but still synchronizes your mail with the server in the background.
“Our goal is to provide nearly the same browser-based Gmail experience whether you’re using the data cached on your computer or talking directly to the server,” writes Andy Palay on the Gmail blog.
Gmail already syncs with mobile phones, like its Android platform, and other units that support Gears — a key part of the company’s Web app strategy, writes TechCrunch. It launched a Gears version of Google Docs in March ‘08, and ultimately plans to offer enterprise customers an offline version of Calendar.
Yahoo continues to lead the pack in terms of sheer number of webmail users, but Google has kept its eyes open for opportunities within the niche. In November, for example, it gave Gmail users voice and video chat capabilities.
Source: MarketingVOX.com
Cheers,
John Uhrig
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Email Deliverability Tips
Posted by Tom Kulzer (AWeber CEO)
Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.
Permission
Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.
Subscriber Addresses
When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.
List Maintenance
Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.
Message Format
Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.
Content
Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.
- Website URL:
Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.
- Words/phrases:
Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.
- Images:
Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.
- Attachments:
With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.
Learn more about Aweber & Effective Email Marketing go here… now: Email Marketing!
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