Relaunching an email service - Page 3

stevew · 30th March 2010, 05:19 AM

I don't want to agree with you re the logo but on reflection you may have a point.
Perhaps I need to seriously reconsider the logo, elements of the site design - and possibly the site's name.

Something a bit more business like is required I think.
We own "WrightEmailServices.co.uk", "ImapEmail.co.uk", and "Zapo.net" - these aren't exactly perfect either - but they are better than "CwazyMail" I guess.

Suggestions below?
Right now I'm leading towards a more business like feel around "WrightEmailServices" but I'm happy to discuss.

stevew · 30th March 2010, 06:37 AM

>Given that google is "free" (in the Faustian sense), and by your own admission you offer nothing remotely close you cannot rationally expect to find people willing to pay -- except for those you can extort into retaining the domain email address. But with 'free' "tell your friends your new email address service" the typical ISP extortion model is RIGHTLY dying.

Extortion isn't a business model that I'm comfortable with

I think I have a business model now, we're going to stick with the age old 'adverts will fund it' but incentivise the adverts by allowing users that make us money to have additional features and benefits.
(This will be quite upfront BTW for both advertisers and users)

>If you PROPERLY implement IMAP UNLIKE gmail you might retain some interest

I don't really understand this comment. I don't really use gmail much but it seemed a very powerful service, what haven't they implemented properly?

>> we've been running Squirrelmail since 2001
>And how have you customized it from its boring, vanilla, featureless defaults?

All the plugins that users have asked for have been installed, I'm happy to install additional plugins if a number of people want them. I don't really want to put a NutsMail skin on it though.

>** and email is NOT for sending LARGE attachments.
> email an FTP link or link to other resource

I don't disagree with you but I've found that most users haven't used FTP and don't really like it much when they do use it.
I appreciate that techie types will disagree and probably chipin with the benefits of rsync vs ftp, etc - but how many non-techies do you know with ftp servers?

I'd like to think this was an opportunity for us but I suspect that if I created a method to send large encrypted files to large and custom groups we'd suddenly be very popular with people who wanted to share films and music. Not really a path I want to take.

>The times call for standards compliant SECURE IMAP with at least 3 gigs of storage.

We have standards compliant secure (TLS) IMAP and will offer additional space to those who either pay for it or make use of partner's incentivised adverts.

> stuff pix in flicker, temporary file exchange into drop.io

I don't really want to get involved with flicker at the minute due to work load but a small temporary file storage area for users is a nice idea for those who are happy with FTP.
We are not a file storage site and I don't want to become one, so the area would have to delete files that had been there for say three weeks? Enough that you could put some work there in the morning at home, and download it from home - not store it there forever.
Given I'm envisaging this being for work 40MB or so per user should do.

>> is a simple service still useful today?
>yes, but very simple is not something anyone with sense will purchase unless you offer them FINE GRAIN control. gmail/yahoo/hotmail/aim filtering is only about a decade out of step with reality

SIEVE filters are very cool.
I need to check we have external access to SIEVE turned on - although I don't know of anything other than Mulberry that can program it.
We have the Squirrelmail filters plugin on, that can change the server side filters.

>> Roundcube, Squirrelmail, RBL checks, IMAP, and POP3? 300MB of mail space?
> 10 times that storage

That's not going to happen at the minute - we just can't afford it.
As above I think this will need to be a 'for fee' or 'for using the adverts' add on.

>limit message size to 6 megs to re-educate the sheeple email is not for sending a mass of files.

The problem is that most people don't have any alternative.

>if squirrelmail allow individual installs to let users tweak, and add plugins to their heart's content

I think this would expose us to a high degree of risk.
Squirrelmail plugins are executed server side and custom plugins added by users would allow users to execute any custom serverside code they were to create.

>POP3 is almost entirely useless in light of IMAP availability -- to wit allow at least four simultaneous IMAP connections

Ok - we do that.

>do not pander to itards of their iphones... if one mobile app then one for HTC, windows "mobile" :snicker: and with witches brew android.

I like my iphone

My view is that we provide IMAP and POP3 - if your phone supports this then welcome aboard, if it doesn't then there will need to be a strong case for us to add support.

> What about outgoing SMTP, DSPAM, user viewing of mail logs to show rejections, etc?

Outgoing SMTP is a 'for fee' feature, more to authenticate the user is not a spammer than to make a profit though.
DSPAM is available to all.
User viewing of their own mail logs would be nice, rollernet do this extremely well - I'll email and ask how they are doing it, logging to SQL I guess.

>> who can use outgoing SMTP these days?
>requiring copies of state issued ids is a great way to drive away most every customer

There needs to be a balance.
We need some kind of test that a non-spammer usually passes and a spammer usually fails, paying a small amount (£1?) to use our SMTP server meets this criteria. I'd be happy to look at other options.

The other side to this is that I'm not sure I want to provide service to people who want to be totally anonymous; I don't ask people I for personal details that I don't need but if they came for service wearing a balaclava and using a voice changer then well.. I'd think it was a bit suspicious.
For the reason above I don't have an issue preventing people who would prefer that authorities couldn't track them via their bank details or ID from having an account.

>> develop a funding model
> paid users get AUTH SMTP in your domain

Yep. This is definite.

>free users get TMDA, and can add alternative AUTH SMTP as one can in gmail

TMDA is to be added to DSPAM.

>both free/paid users IP address will NOT be shown in headers like in gmail

Not sure why people would want this.
Actually I can imagine lots of reasons - but very few of them are good reasons.
Again I'm open to discussion on this.

>essentially to privacy especially when playing 419 eater

Not interested in helping this I'm afraid.
I don't want to be involved with baiting 419 scammers.

>> adding an html graphical banner, then selling the advertising space in that banner. (2M email per day x £0.005 per CPM = ~£300 per month)

stevew · 30th March 2010, 06:37 AM

>You had best offer ALL users the ability to opt out of illicit- or licentious advertising. I would rather break your arms that allow my email to implicitly endorse use of condoms, planned parental genocide, alcohol, smoking products, pornography, lewd imagery, or otherwise 'scammy' business. I do not want 'active' content as adds be that flash (that most email clients will squash), flashing banners, or ads served by major networks to more easily add me to broad profiles -- nor would my recipients tolerate it.

I'd really rather you didn't break my arms

- I'm quite attached to them

I agree with you in principle. I don't want unprofessional things in my professional emails, nor rude adverts in emails to elderly family.

Ads would all need to be screened and be 'child friendly'. I think this would rule out pretty much everything you mentioned and a few other things.
Unfortunately taboos change by culture and while there are a number that exist in most cultures, I can't know them all. I'll be sticking with things 'UK child friendly'.

>If your ads run afoul
>chastity - (moderator - link removed)
>I would be less than amused

Unfortunately I can't follow your link but a look on SourceForge has only one hit for 'chastity' (an ACL for school blocking systems) - don't know if this is what you meant but the ads would be suitable.

>I would only want to be able to POP fetch email from other providers centralized to a cwazy account like I do now in gmail. I would want to fetch cwazy myself via IMAP to local workstations, or POP again to a gmail/yahoo/hotmail account. Add IMAP fetching you would stand out from the crowd

Not sure how we'd do that.. we could pull new emails from the INBOX I guess but that would be a bit basic given plussed addressing.

>> The problem with this approach would be selling the banner space
> banners in SENT email VERY BAD
> ^ same opt out of illicit content a must.

I've dropped this as an idea.
It looks like more trouble than its worth.
Adverts will be inserted into the footer of incoming emails unless the user switches this off (free).

>> it would be totally untargeted unless we did something similar
>> to Google and scanned your emails for keywords
> You will catch the attention of EFF -- and if you don't I'll point them at you -- be sure you have a better than witchcraft model of evil than gmail.

I'm not really sure why the EFF would care. Perhaps we're thinking of different things.
I was thinking about automatically putting car adverts onto emails with keywords matching a list of 'car words' (Ford, Mazda, etc) - I figured people might be more interested in them.
Nothing evil or witchcraft there, just the script adding the advert putting a different advert in if you have certain keywords. (no tracking!)

>> it just makes me feel uncomfortable
> so should your use of a company whose primary business is serving ads, secondarily harvesting every aspect of you for profiles, and tertiary providing "free" serves that allow you to vomit up information to datamine: google. Yahoo is have been slowly travelling down than path since 2004.
>I adblock for similar reasons.

It was the tracking that made me feel a bit uncomfortable.
I probably won't do this as I don't like feeling uncomfortable - it needs thought.

>Assuming you ran ads from a local domain, and not merely a CNAME or iframe, you could support the free model though voluntarily motivated adblock whitelisting.

I was thinking of something similar to this.
Banks (for example) probably wouldn't care if the person applying for a credit card gained a free email account or not, likewise with people buying a mobile phone, doing their online shopping, etc.
If we rewarded our users (credits to buy services rather than spending your own cash) for doing the things that made us money we might well make more money..

Thanks for the feedback.

stevew · 30th March 2010, 07:14 AM

How about making the site look like this: http://www.cwazy.net/draft1.png ?

More professional and business like?

Suggestions welcome.

Berenburger · 30th March 2010, 08:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevew

Something a bit more business like is required I think.
We own "WrightEmailServices.co.uk", "ImapEmail.co.uk", and "Zapo.net" - these aren't exactly perfect either - but they are better than "CwazyMail" I guess.

Suggestions below?
Right now I'm leading towards a more business like feel around "WrightEmailServices" but I'm happy to discuss.

No doubt zapo.net. It's short and easy to pronounce.

nbarr · 31st March 2010, 08:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevew

I don't want to agree with you re the logo but on reflection you may have a point.
Perhaps I need to seriously reconsider the logo, elements of the site design - and possibly the site's name.

Something a bit more business like is required I think.
We own "WrightEmailServices.co.uk", "ImapEmail.co.uk", and "Zapo.net" - these aren't exactly perfect either - but they are better than "CwazyMail" I guess.

Suggestions below?
Right now I'm leading towards a more business like feel around "WrightEmailServices" but I'm happy to discuss.

How about just "Wright Email".

David · 31st March 2010, 08:51 AM

WrightCwazyMail holds definite possibilities too....

jdtaylor · 6th April 2010, 04:32 AM

That would look a lot better but also nice and easy to read to.

nbarr · 22nd April 2010, 08:13 AM

Steve, I thought http://www.cwazy.net/draft1.png was appealing, are you still considering changing ?

jdtaylor · 23rd April 2010, 05:51 AM

I think it's already been changed.

nbarr · 23rd April 2010, 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdtaylor

I think it's already been changed.

Not Yet...

SethM · 25th April 2010, 12:34 PM

Hello, rollernet checking in here. I do remember when cwazy used us for secondary MX.

You mentioned my logs. Yes, they're basically SQL. They're also a pain in the *** to keep nice with performance, and some of the search functions still don't work quite like I want it to. Right now my challenge is full IPv6 support. It works with a system of syslog collectors (rsyslogd with syslog-ng hubs) with lots-o-perl that watch for specific patterns, massage the data, and associate it with an account and specific transaction. The second hardest part to performance is ensuring it is self-recovering, non-duplicating and doesn't drop messages. I cheat a little bit and have some hardware load balancers do some of the heavy lifting. Way back in the day I used sqlrelay a lot. Eventually I'll have to split all the various log views into their own separate servers. They currently all live together on a big 'ol 15k SAS RAID10 array. (If anyone cares here's a picture from when I first added an external cage after filling up all the built in bays.) Even /tmp gets a separate physical array just to keep up when someone runs a search. I use XFS pretty much everywhere performance matters. I used to use ext3, but its performance bit me one day.

Good luck with the restart. I try to make my niche the full control thing and customer suggestion driven. I think the detailed logs are still not too common. But honestly, so many people would rather just use massive free provider X with their friends, or some horrid combination of facebook and free photo/file sites to "email" something rather than pay. Just last week I had a customer who was using paid port redirection for years have their mail server fail for good, and even though they had our hosted mail and could have switched modes in seconds, they went through the effort to get hosted mail elsewhere. I have no idea why. I think some people just want to have their stuff "in the cloud" or feel better about being part of a huge machine rather than with someone like me who is relatively tiny, even though we'll actually answer phone calls, admit it when we have problems, and have higher uptime than those "100% uptime" places. Plus there's people who just don't care to manage their account beyond a login/password.

jdtaylor · 26th April 2010, 10:01 PM

The current .net one does look very similar, maybe it's me.

30th March 2010, 05:19 AM	#31
stevew Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Selby, England Posts: 100 Representative of: Cwazy.co.uk / Zapo.net	I don't want to agree with you re the logo but on reflection you may have a point. Perhaps I need to seriously reconsider the logo, elements of the site design - and possibly the site's name. Something a bit more business like is required I think. We own "WrightEmailServices.co.uk", "ImapEmail.co.uk", and "Zapo.net" - these aren't exactly perfect either - but they are better than "CwazyMail" I guess. Suggestions below? Right now I'm leading towards a more business like feel around "WrightEmailServices" but I'm happy to discuss.

30th March 2010, 06:37 AM	#32
stevew Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Selby, England Posts: 100 Representative of: Cwazy.co.uk / Zapo.net	>Given that google is "free" (in the Faustian sense), and by your own admission you offer nothing remotely close you cannot rationally expect to find people willing to pay -- except for those you can extort into retaining the domain email address. But with 'free' "tell your friends your new email address service" the typical ISP extortion model is RIGHTLY dying. Extortion isn't a business model that I'm comfortable with I think I have a business model now, we're going to stick with the age old 'adverts will fund it' but incentivise the adverts by allowing users that make us money to have additional features and benefits. (This will be quite upfront BTW for both advertisers and users) >If you PROPERLY implement IMAP UNLIKE gmail you might retain some interest I don't really understand this comment. I don't really use gmail much but it seemed a very powerful service, what haven't they implemented properly? >> we've been running Squirrelmail since 2001 >And how have you customized it from its boring, vanilla, featureless defaults? All the plugins that users have asked for have been installed, I'm happy to install additional plugins if a number of people want them. I don't really want to put a NutsMail skin on it though. >** and email is NOT for sending LARGE attachments. > email an FTP link or link to other resource I don't disagree with you but I've found that most users haven't used FTP and don't really like it much when they do use it. I appreciate that techie types will disagree and probably chipin with the benefits of rsync vs ftp, etc - but how many non-techies do you know with ftp servers? I'd like to think this was an opportunity for us but I suspect that if I created a method to send large encrypted files to large and custom groups we'd suddenly be very popular with people who wanted to share films and music. Not really a path I want to take. >The times call for standards compliant SECURE IMAP with at least 3 gigs of storage. We have standards compliant secure (TLS) IMAP and will offer additional space to those who either pay for it or make use of partner's incentivised adverts. > stuff pix in flicker, temporary file exchange into drop.io I don't really want to get involved with flicker at the minute due to work load but a small temporary file storage area for users is a nice idea for those who are happy with FTP. We are not a file storage site and I don't want to become one, so the area would have to delete files that had been there for say three weeks? Enough that you could put some work there in the morning at home, and download it from home - not store it there forever. Given I'm envisaging this being for work 40MB or so per user should do. >> is a simple service still useful today? >yes, but very simple is not something anyone with sense will purchase unless you offer them FINE GRAIN control. gmail/yahoo/hotmail/aim filtering is only about a decade out of step with reality SIEVE filters are very cool. I need to check we have external access to SIEVE turned on - although I don't know of anything other than Mulberry that can program it. We have the Squirrelmail filters plugin on, that can change the server side filters. >> Roundcube, Squirrelmail, RBL checks, IMAP, and POP3? 300MB of mail space? > 10 times that storage That's not going to happen at the minute - we just can't afford it. As above I think this will need to be a 'for fee' or 'for using the adverts' add on. >limit message size to 6 megs to re-educate the sheeple email is not for sending a mass of files. The problem is that most people don't have any alternative. >if squirrelmail allow individual installs to let users tweak, and add plugins to their heart's content I think this would expose us to a high degree of risk. Squirrelmail plugins are executed server side and custom plugins added by users would allow users to execute any custom serverside code they were to create. >POP3 is almost entirely useless in light of IMAP availability -- to wit allow at least four simultaneous IMAP connections Ok - we do that. >do not pander to itards of their iphones... if one mobile app then one for HTC, windows "mobile" :snicker: and with witches brew android. I like my iphone My view is that we provide IMAP and POP3 - if your phone supports this then welcome aboard, if it doesn't then there will need to be a strong case for us to add support. > What about outgoing SMTP, DSPAM, user viewing of mail logs to show rejections, etc? Outgoing SMTP is a 'for fee' feature, more to authenticate the user is not a spammer than to make a profit though. DSPAM is available to all. User viewing of their own mail logs would be nice, rollernet do this extremely well - I'll email and ask how they are doing it, logging to SQL I guess. >> who can use outgoing SMTP these days? >requiring copies of state issued ids is a great way to drive away most every customer There needs to be a balance. We need some kind of test that a non-spammer usually passes and a spammer usually fails, paying a small amount (£1?) to use our SMTP server meets this criteria. I'd be happy to look at other options. The other side to this is that I'm not sure I want to provide service to people who want to be totally anonymous; I don't ask people I for personal details that I don't need but if they came for service wearing a balaclava and using a voice changer then well.. I'd think it was a bit suspicious. For the reason above I don't have an issue preventing people who would prefer that authorities couldn't track them via their bank details or ID from having an account. >> develop a funding model > paid users get AUTH SMTP in your domain Yep. This is definite. >free users get TMDA, and can add alternative AUTH SMTP as one can in gmail TMDA is to be added to DSPAM. >both free/paid users IP address will NOT be shown in headers like in gmail Not sure why people would want this. Actually I can imagine lots of reasons - but very few of them are good reasons. Again I'm open to discussion on this. >essentially to privacy especially when playing 419 eater Not interested in helping this I'm afraid. I don't want to be involved with baiting 419 scammers. >> adding an html graphical banner, then selling the advertising space in that banner. (2M email per day x £0.005 per CPM = ~£300 per month)

30th March 2010, 07:14 AM	#34
stevew Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Selby, England Posts: 100 Representative of: Cwazy.co.uk / Zapo.net	How about making the site look like this: http://www.cwazy.net/draft1.png ? More professional and business like? Suggestions welcome.

31st March 2010, 08:51 AM	#37
David Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: location, location Posts: 8,386	WrightCwazyMail holds definite possibilities too....

6th April 2010, 04:32 AM	#38
jdtaylor Master of the @ Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 1,328	That would look a lot better but also nice and easy to read to.

22nd April 2010, 08:13 AM	#39
nbarr Essential Contributor Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Calgary Posts: 435	Steve, I thought http://www.cwazy.net/draft1.png was appealing, are you still considering changing ?

23rd April 2010, 05:51 AM	#40
jdtaylor Master of the @ Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 1,328	I think it's already been changed.

25th April 2010, 12:34 PM	#42
SethM Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Nevada Posts: 12 Representative of: Rollernet.us	Hello, rollernet checking in here. I do remember when cwazy used us for secondary MX. You mentioned my logs. Yes, they're basically SQL. They're also a pain in the *** to keep nice with performance, and some of the search functions still don't work quite like I want it to. Right now my challenge is full IPv6 support. It works with a system of syslog collectors (rsyslogd with syslog-ng hubs) with lots-o-perl that watch for specific patterns, massage the data, and associate it with an account and specific transaction. The second hardest part to performance is ensuring it is self-recovering, non-duplicating and doesn't drop messages. I cheat a little bit and have some hardware load balancers do some of the heavy lifting. Way back in the day I used sqlrelay a lot. Eventually I'll have to split all the various log views into their own separate servers. They currently all live together on a big 'ol 15k SAS RAID10 array. (If anyone cares here's a picture from when I first added an external cage after filling up all the built in bays.) Even /tmp gets a separate physical array just to keep up when someone runs a search. I use XFS pretty much everywhere performance matters. I used to use ext3, but its performance bit me one day. Good luck with the restart. I try to make my niche the full control thing and customer suggestion driven. I think the detailed logs are still not too common. But honestly, so many people would rather just use massive free provider X with their friends, or some horrid combination of facebook and free photo/file sites to "email" something rather than pay. Just last week I had a customer who was using paid port redirection for years have their mail server fail for good, and even though they had our hosted mail and could have switched modes in seconds, they went through the effort to get hosted mail elsewhere. I have no idea why. I think some people just want to have their stuff "in the cloud" or feel better about being part of a huge machine rather than with someone like me who is relatively tiny, even though we'll actually answer phone calls, admit it when we have problems, and have higher uptime than those "100% uptime" places. Plus there's people who just don't care to manage their account beyond a login/password.

26th April 2010, 10:01 PM	#43
jdtaylor Master of the @ Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 1,328	The current .net one does look very similar, maybe it's me.