I've been inviting my colleague, Scott Voigt, our head of product marketing, to put together some guest blogs over the last few months. I am pleased to include his first blog entry below...

From Scott:
A few months ago, the Internet was abuzz with the meme of Inbox 2.0. A couple of articles in the Wall Street Journal (here and here) and a post in the Bits section of The New York Times, pointed to a future where the inbox would begin to take more proactive role in managing communications, acting as much like a social network as it does a hub for receiving good ol' SMTP messages. Leading the charge on this new frontier are a number of start-ups (Boxbe, ClearContext, and Xobni to name a few) that are, in essence, using technology to help consumers manage their overload of email. More recently, we've seen some of the big inbox providers indicate that changes were indeed on the horizon. To wit, at this year's CES, Yahoo's Chief, Jerry Yang demonstrated a future version of Yahoo! Mail that included a "simplify my inbox" button, which, once clicked, would reorder messages based on "people that are important to me."

My colleagues and I pay careful attention to anything that has to do with changes (perceived or real) that may impact the inbox. As such, a number of us have been testing these new inbox tools, talking to inbox providers and holding late-night bull sessions in an effort to intuit email's future and its impact on email marketers (all the better if we can devise new offerings to better serve them ). At the most recent Email Insider Summit, I shared some of our initial findings in a presentation that contemplated the factors present in a hypothetical "inbox algorithm" that inbox providers might use to categorize, prioritize and sort messages. Bill has been kind enough to lend me some real estate in his blog to expand on this topic. So, over the next few weeks, I'll try to contribute some additional commentary on the future of the inbox. (I just can't bring myself to call it Inbox 2.0.)

Until then...

Posted by Bill Nussey at 06:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm very excited to announce that one of the most respected email marketing executives has joined Silverpop. Loren McDonald has come onboard with us, serving as vice president of industry relations.

Loren is well known throughout the industry for his keen understanding of email marketing and insights into methods to maximize the benefits and returns the channel offers. His development of white papers, studies and articles over the years has helped move the industry forward. His leadership and deep experience will benefit not only Silverpop and its clients, but all marketers eager to maximize customer relationships in ways that build lifetime value.

Loren will be a regular blogger and contributor to Silverpop's e-newsletters, as well as help drive thought capital through the development of white papers and original research for both Silverpop and Vtrenz audiences.

To read the announcement about Loren, click here.

Posted by Bill Nussey at 04:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a great holiday and that you are all off to a wonderful New Year.

It's been a while since I've posted, but a colleague sent me an interesting article from MediaPost that seemed like a stimulating and provocative way to kick off 2008. The story is about social networks and the future of email. The writer, Max Kalehoff, defends email’s role in the much-hyped world of social networks. He notes that email is the engine behind many social networks, and that as young people mature, email may well replace social networks as their core communication tool.

To me, it’s more about the difference between business-to-business and consumer-to-consumer communications. In BtoB, the variety of traffic, the need for people to be able to contact you uninvited (e.g., “Hi, I’d love to buy your product”) and the age-old manage-your-life-via-email-folders make a strong case for email’s continued prevalence in business. For purely interpersonal email, however, social networks can provide a powerful alternative: no spam, better tracking of threads, control over who can contact you, deep context with the individuals you’re communicating with and so on. I don’t think everyone necessarily will use two email addresses for personal and business communications, nor will those who do necessarily use social networks exclusively. However, I do think we’ll continue to see a rise in social networks underlying our daily CtoC communications.

Either way, this line of thinking misses what may be the most interesting question of the day--what about business-to-consumer (BtoC) email? After all, this is how many of us make our living.

As a consumer, how will I want the companies that serve me as a consumer to communicate with me? Frankly, it seems like I’m going to want them to come through whichever channel I use for CtoC communications. This could seem threatening to our business but I believe it also represents a huge benefit. The fact is that consumer channels are diverging. In addition to social networks and email, there’s an increasing use of RSS and chat not to mention the explosively growing mobile channel. I believe that our industry is uniquely well-suited to provide the universal marketing dashboard/tool suite that enables marketers to reach their permission-based audience regardless of channel.

And, as some of you are well aware, many companies in our industry, including my company, Silverpop, are already well on their way. Speaking for the industry, I hope that 2008 will be looked back on as the year where email marketing took the next step.

Posted by Bill Nussey at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)