Improving Outlook Email Display

Today Litmus announced they had partnered with Microsoft to fix many of the rendering issues with Outlook. Congrats, Litmus! This is awesome. I know a lot of folks have tried to get MS to the table to fix some of the problems with Outlook. Take a bow for getting this off the ground.
According to Litmus, the partnership has two parts.

  1. A rendering bugs feedback loop
  2. New Microsoft email clients available for testing in Litmus

Rendering bugs will be reported through Litmus to the MS development team. The new clients available for testing gives Litmus users the opportunity to code for existing and new email clients.
microsoft-announcement
Great job, Litmus. This is amazing and awesome and I look forward to hearing about all the great things this partnership create.
 

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The history of email

My first access to “the internet” was through a dialup modem on a VAX at the FDA. I was a summer intern there through my college career and then worked full time after graduation and before grad school. My email address ended in .bitnet. I could mail some places but not others. One of the places I couldn’t send mail was to my friends back on campus.
A few of those friends were computer science majors, so one weekend they tried to help me troubleshoot things. . There were text files that they ended up searching through looking up how to send mail from .bitnet to .edu. But it was all a baffling experience. Why couldn’t it just work? I had email, they had email, why could we not talk?
I never did figure out how to send email to campus from .bitnet.
Eventually, the FDA moved from BITNET to the internet and I had a .gov address. I could send mail around just by getting the recipients’s address. But the mystery of why I could mail some .edus and not others still lingers. I wonder what our setup was that we couldn’t send mail. I’ll probably never know. I don’t even have enough details to explain the problem to someone who would know. I suspect the answer will be “bang paths” or “host.txt” files, but I really don’t know.

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We joined the i2Coalition

Word to the Wise has joined the i2Coalition. Today they posted our introduction to their blog.
Why did we do it?
Email, and online spaces, are so important to modern life. We shop, bank, communicate, play and interact online. The internet has facilitated everything from political revolution to coffee dates and international friendships. Steve watched the Berlin Wall fall from his college dorm room over the internet. The internet was a major factor in the organization of the Arab Spring and other political movements. And sometimes we just meet people online. BBSes, usenet, email, and social networks let us connect with each other.
With that being said, too many people see online spaces as nebulous and “not real.” But the reality is that people genuinely connect, organize, and participate in online spaces. Those spaces need to be protected so these things can continue. The internet is, in many ways, a very special and unique place that has facilitated the growth of millions of communities. Unless we protect the infrastructure, these communities will fall apart and be useless.

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Things to read: March 9, 2016

It’s sometimes hard for me to keep up with what other people are saying and discussing about email marketing. I’ve been trying to be more active on LinkedIn, but there are just so many good marketing and delivery blogs out there I can’t keep up with all of them.
talkingforblog
Here are a couple interesting things I’ve read in the last week.
Five Steps to Stay Out of the Spam Folder. Conceptually easy, sometimes hard to pull off in practice, these recommendations mirror many things I say here and tell my clients about delivery. The audience is in charge and your recipients are the best ally you can have when it comes to getting into the inbox.
Which states are the biggest sources of spam?. California and New York top the list, but the next two states are a little surprising. Over on Spamresource, Al points out the two next states have some unique laws that may affect the data. I just remember back in the day there were a lot of spammers in Michigan, I’m surprised there’s still a significant volume from there.
CASL didn’t destroy Canadian email. Despite concerns that CASL would destroy the Canadian email marketing industry, the industry is going strong and expanding. In fact, spending on email marketing in Canada was up more than 14% in 2015 and is on track to be up another 10% this year. Additionally, according to eMarketer lists are performing better because they’re cleaner.
A brief history of email. Part of the Guardian’s tribute to Ray Tomlinson, the person who sent the first email. Ray’s work literally changed lives. I know my life would be significantly different if there wasn’t email. Can you imagine trying to be a deliverability consultant without email? 🙂

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