Recent Mass Email! Good or Bad Idea?

Huh? What email? I didn't get an email.

I think it's a good idea...although, I pretty much already knew what was in the email by reading posts by Darren and talking with him privately. Hopefully, by now, most people realize there is basically ONE guy trying to clean up the programming and it might result in the members having a little more patience.

Kills me how people whine if there isn't an instant fix / immediate response.

I'm more interested in the email I didn't get...

bugs.tribe.net/thread/9e3...7effbbdd97e

I thought it was cool.


>> on the whole I figure it will have a positive effect in awakening a few members.

yeah, I was hoping to see some old friends log in who I haven't seen on tribe in ages, but so far I haven't noticed that happening. ah well.

The whole "old folks who need to log back in" was the whole idea behind that.

The emailing is still only half done. It takes a while to email 3/4 of a million people, especially with the stupid web based mailing list I installed. I know I could do it quicker with majordomo or even with tribe's scripts itself, but this was the easiest thing to set up.

Our traffic has increased by about 20,000 people a day though.

Very bad idea.

There's a checkbox in the profile for receiving the newsletter. People who have explicitly chosen not to do so should not be subjected to it. To send mail to people who have specifically asked not to receive it has a name we're all familiar with: spam. If they send to people who have opted into the newsletter it's a good idea, but the way they did it is bad.

I have had no fewer than five of my friends complain to me about having been spammed by Tribe. That's definitely the opposite of good marketing and trying to get people to come back.

They used the Habeas watermark for sending mail that people had opted out of, which opens them up to copyright violation lawsuits. By sending the email the way they did, they've probably had people report them as spammers (actually, I know they have) and may have made it less likely that their email will be delivered in the future.

If what they were trying to do was a subscription probe to check for valid email addresses, then they should have formulated the message as such. "Hello, we're attempting to verify the validity of email addresses for our users. Sorry for the email intrusion, please feel free to ignore it. Love and kisses, Tribe." Of the people who complained to me, not one would have been offended by that message.

All in all, it was a potentially good idea that got fucked up badly.

Bad idea

I think trying to reconnect with old members who are not using their profile was a good idea.. Today I got over 200 spam messages (don't use a filter).. they are annoying.. but a single message from a service I signed up for (even if I had opted out) would not upset me..

The sad fact is when marketing.. you have to be aggressive - or the competition passes you by and you die.. . I think to send such mail out in the volume of other spammers is a bad bad thing.. but think tribe will be forgiven for doing this once or twice a year - especially when the focus is to announce changes which might attract users to return to tribe. ...

Having said that - if someone put it over my desk... I might not okay it.. and I certainly would not let it go without an "opt out" button.. Spam laws vary from State to State.. but sending commercial unsolicited mail is a no no - especially without "opt out".. but I guess a good argument could be made that it was a "community and non-profit" mail to members rather than unsolicited commercial spam (?)

Ah, ok, I've taken the liberty of translating this message from marketing spin into plain english. See corrected text below...


--- "Your Friends at Tribe.net" <activity@tribe.net> wrote:


---------------------------------



Dear xxxxxxxxx@yahoo.com,

We hope you excuse this mass mailing. Some of you getting this email specifically have told us that you don't want email from tribe.net and we generally don't send out emails to the entire user base.

Trans: Even though you asked us not to, we're demonstrating our callous disregard for you by ignoring your wishes.



We wanted to let you know about the big changes that have happened here at tribe.net, and if you haven't checked in with us in a while we encourage you to do so.

Trans: We're desperate! Our VC is kicking us daily, but you users have all left in droves since we began to suck in earnest 2 years ago. Please, we're begging, come back.



We've listened to our users for solutions to our site instability problems.

Trans: We are going to try to convince you that you actually asked us to charge you money, instead of admitting we are just greedy.



The overwhelming consensus is that our users love tribe.net so much that they are willing to pay for a premium subscription for all the functions that we now give to you.

Trans: Our accountants convinced us you'd cough up dough.



We launched a premium subscription service on November 30, 2007 to allow folks to support tribe.net at a rate of five bucks for thirty days.

Trans: Somehow, even though we offer less than before, and have whored you out to the advertisers, we also feel justified in trying to gouge you too. This worked so well for Yahoo, we just had to follow their example. And our new marketing guru is some guy named Bear Sterns, he'll surely lead us to great things too.



Tribe's traditional, free service is going to continue just as it always has and always will.

Trans: prepare to kiss anything free on our site goodbye.



Those that want to upgrade can click on the PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION link, fillout the information, and sign up. The premium subscribers will automatically have a gold star instead of the orange bubble when they're online.

Trans: anyone foolish enough to actually pay will be branded a fool to everyone else. Maybe when we begin the super-premium memberships, we can also revive the insane conjoined twin icon that we tried to foist off on you users in the past. It was scary enough to drive many of you off, so if we revive it, perhaps the rest of you will leave too.



We also offer bi-annual and annual memberships for $25 and $50 respectively. Each of these services comes with a free 4 period -- you can cancel anytime before the 4 days is up and not be charged.

Trans: 4 whole days! Next week it'll be down to 20 minutes, and the week after that 5 seconds. This proves we have absolutely no idea of what customer service is all about.



We're aware that some people may not be able to sign up for premium service for various reasons.

Trans: most of the world is sane, and that's a pity for us. Didn't PT Barnum say there was a sucker born every minute? Where are they?



For those folks we offer the free service (hopefully they'll click on some of those ads), but we're also offering an ADOPT A TRIBE ORPHAN link where some kind folks can help out one of their friends (or maybe a
lucky, random person) by upgrading them to premium subscription status.

Trans: We're completely unhinged now, probably from sniffing too much glue. We actually think you'll pay for some other sucker as well.



What do you get for this? Currently, the only benefits are turning off the advertising and access to our new web-based TRIBECHAT function. TRIBECHAT is a Jabber based instant messenger that is accessible to all tribe members who have a Jabber client such as Adium (for Apple) or Trillian (for PC). This allows you to chat with anyone on your tribe friends list.

Trans: What do you get for this? Nothing! We're going try to get you to add even more software to your computer, so you'll have yet another thing to ignore - and you'll be paying us to ignore it! We've kicked the glue, and have moved on to harder stuff now.



Ever since we launched this service, we've felt so grateful for this outpouring of support from the Tribe communities. You all have made tribe.net a wonderful place to connect, and we hope that you'll think of us more in the future.

Trans: We screwed you before, and proved how intractable and user hostile we are. Now you've all left, and we're so desperate to keep from getting kneecapped that we'll grovel & suck up to you. Please please forgive us, even though we never changed our ways or made good on previous promises!



Big changes are on the horizon so keep in touch to know the latest. Finally, if you've purchased a premium subscription, we salute you. We have over 1000 subscribers now and the number is steadily growing each day!

Trans: We used to be growing, but now we're shrinking. Nobody loves us, and 1000 paying users in 4 months pretty much proves it. We're so sad it's hard not to cry.



We are dedicated to making tribe.net the best experience we can for you, and your subscription benefits the entire user community of tribe! If you know a premium member, thank them for supporting tribe!

Trans: We're addicted! Give us the money now, man! Or someone will get hurt. See this teddy bear? You wouldn't want me to feed it to the dog, would you?? So fork over your lunch money, and don't say anything about this to the teacher.


Check in at www.tribe.net and reconnect!

Trans: or, just keep watching Youtube videos and checking Fark.



Commentary: look Tribe.net, you had a chance to build a real tribal business model, but long ago blew it. Please stop harassing us and punishing us for seeing through your money lusting ways. Those of us who are sincere about changing the world don't need another advertising platform. Check out wiserearth.org for a model that might save you, there's plenty there. But meanwhile, leave us alone. This time, understand that we mean it.