Newsletter quality

20 Feb 2002

At some point I must have given my email address to Classmates. I don’t remember doing so, but reputable companies generally don’t buy spam lists, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

This morning I got an offer from them for some sort of subscription bonus. I wasn’t interested, but here’s some hints for Classmates.

  1. Permission goes stale. I don’t remember signing up to receive offers from you. If I did it was long enough ago that I don’t recall doing it, but this is the first time I’ve gotten an email offer from you. If you haven’t contacted me for a long time, make sure you remind me why I’m getting this email and make it easy to get off your list.

  2. Check your links
    You spell check your newsletter don’t you? Then why don’t you also check and make sure all the links in the email work as well? Especially if you send HTML email to me where I can’t see where the link takes me until I click. I cound’t find unsubscribe instructions, so I clicked a link to your help section. The link has an extra space at the end, which my browser encodes as %20. So I got a page not found error. I happen to know that when I see http://www.classmates.com/help/%20 that you really meant http://www.classmates.com/help/, but not everyone does.

  3. Color Blind
    I’m sure you thought that changing some of the text to red was a good way to highlight it. Good thing I’m not color blind or I might not have been able to see it. Many people have trouble reading red text on a white background. In fact I’ve seen some statistics that say up to 10% of people may have trouble with red text on white. The University of Wisconnsin has some good links resources for dealing with color blindness in Web design.

Steven Garrity
February 20, 2002 4:02 PM

“Permission goes stale.” - Preach on brother! This important rule reminds me of Jakob Nielsen’s proposed ‘token’ based permission system. Jakob idea involves giving a company a digital token that will allow one (or some other limited number) of opportunities to contact you without divulging your actual address.

Good call.

Adam Kalsey
February 20, 2002 8:55 PM

But Nielsen would want to tie those tokens to micropayments. :)

When I am required to divulge an email address, I often use a Sneakemail address. Sneakemail is a free service that allows you to create an unlimited number of thowaway email addresses that forward to your real email. If a company starts abusing it or if it shows up on a spam list, you can block all email forwarding or even delete the address altogether.

http://sneakemail.com/

fltankersley
November 3, 2003 12:48 PM

I joined classmates several months ago. I changed computers and e mail a address. I can not get in touch with any one at your Help address. I sent a address change but when I go to Classmates all i get is advertising to get a a gold membership. I already have one under my old address but can not get it changed to my new email address. My old email address was ltankersley@ @hormel.com I am a member of the 1961 class at Whitehaven High school in Memmpis Tenn. I s there any way I can get this changed to my new address Right now the membership is worthless

Adam Kalsey
November 3, 2003 1:43 PM

Since I’m not affiliated with Classmates.com, there’s not much I can do to help.

Apparently this page is one of the top search results for classmates.com/help, so I get a number of visitors who typed that URL into a search engine instead of their browser’s address bar.

Many of these people think that they’ve reached Classmates for some reason and send me a message asking for help. Many of these people have similar problems. They’ve tried contacting Classmates Help and don’t ever get a response.


Your comments:

Text only, no HTML. URLs will automatically be converted to links. Your email address is required, but it will not be displayed on the site.

Name:

Not your company or your SEO link. Comments without a real name will be deleted as spam.

Email: (not displayed)

If you don't feel comfortable giving me your real email address, don't expect me to feel comfortable publishing your comment.

Website (optional):

Follow me on Twitter

Lijit Search

Best Of

  • Embrace the medium The Web is different than print, television, or any other medium. To be successful, designers must embrace those differences.
  • Customer reference questions. Sample questions to ask customer references when choosing a software vendor.
  • Simplified Form Errors One of the most frustrating experiences on the Web is filling out forms. When mistakes are made, the user is often left guessing what they need to correct. We've taken an approach that shows the user in no uncertain terms what needs to be fixed.
  • Debunking predictions Read/Write Web's authors have some goofy predictions.
  • The best of 2006 I wrote a lot of drivel in 2006. Here's the things that are less crappy than the rest.
  • More of the best »

Recently Read

Get More

Subscribe | Archives

Recently

Ideas, Risk, and Investors (Jan 1)
Over at SacStarts, I have piece up discussing a common question I get from entrepreneurs....
VoiceXML for web developers (Dec 17)
Building voice applications isn't hard at all. Any web developer can do it.
De-skunking a dog (Oct 27)
How to clean up your pet after a skunk attack.
Pressure sales via Twitter (Oct 16)
Sticking an ad in my face when we first meet is a good way to lose my interest.
Loma Prieta, 20 years later (Oct 13)
Looking at the earthquake from October 17, 1989
Red light cameras don't work (Oct 13)
Cameras installed to catch people running red lights aren't about traffic safety at all.
Jack-o-lantern pumpkin carving patterns (Oct 12)
It's a tradition, what can I say?
SEO realities (Oct 12)
The real search engine optimization. Works every time.

Subscribe to this site's feed.

Elsewhere

IMified
Build instant messaging applications. (My company)
SacStarts
The Sacramento technology startup community.
Pinewood Freak
Pinewood Derby tips and tricks

Contact

Adam Kalsey

Mobile: 916.600.2497

Email: adam AT kalsey.com

AIM or Skype: akalsey

Resume

PGP Key

©1999-2010 Adam Kalsey.
Content management by Movable Type.