Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.



[to search, use Blogger search in top bar]

This is what I wrote to the TidBits thread A critical look at .mac (I don't know if my email will be selected for posting):

*** start of email ***
I agree with many of the points that have been made - here is my own spin on things:

This is a major PR blunder by Apple.
But the good news it is easy to fix.
it's a simple packaging error.
I'm amazed that a company who likes to provide "good, better, best" levels for things didn't think of providing an unbundled service, with different levels according to what you want and how much you are willing to pay.

What they're doing right now is like saying the only way to buy a Mac is to get a bundle of an iMac, an iPod, an iBook and an AirPort, all for $5000.

Here's what they should have:

mac.com email "good" level:
- a free mac.com forwarding-only email address for anyone

"better and best" extra cost options
+ webmail
+ POP and IMAP access
+ higher individual email size limit
+ more mail storage on their server
+ advanced filtering
+ spam handling

for spam, I suggest rather than filtering, the best option is the new idea of spam tagging. You select whatever spam identification options you want e.g. different real time blacklists, collaborative filters, semantic heuristic whatevers, and your email gets tagged with a bunch of extra headers:

X-spam-servicename1: flagged as spam, probability X%
X-spam-servicename2: flagged as spam, probability Y%

That way you get ALL your messages, and you can decide on the client side how to weight the different spam tags.

If Apple provided this, with powerful filtering and tag-processing features in their email client, they could tout the combination of mac.com email + Mail.app as a powerful anti-spam weapon. That's practically a killer app right there, these days.

The same thing for iDisk, good level would be e.g. 5 MB for $x, then better and best just adds more space and features.

similarly for @mac.com web pages, good would e.g. be a single 100k page for free, just to advertise "I am user X, and I have a Mac web page, here's a little picture of my cat"

and then better and best add on features: more storage space, more templates, more visitor tracking, higher bandwidth caps...

the possibilities are endless

I don't mind paying for services *as long as it is clear what I am getting, and I have choice*. I pay for a bigfoot.com email address because it gives me a permanent address I feel safe giving out on the net, due to the fact I'm paying extra for them to filter spam for me. Apple's "we'll filter some spam emails but we won't tell you about it" is simply unprofessional. I think a free mac.com email forwarding service provides them with great "viral marketing", they should consider it as a (minor) marketing cost. (Plus which of course they could even stick "This free email forwarding brought to you by Apple, the Think Different company, http://www.apple.com/ Check out our latest 19" iMac." footers on forwarded email, I don't think people would mind too much.) Beyond that, unbundling services gives people choice. Isn't that what capitalism is all about? :)
*** end of email *** posted by Richard at 17:25 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)