Number of FROM addresses (Identities) Survey - Page 2

Jessm · 7 May 2002, 08:07 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by mklose
If you had a good e-mail program you can have as many from addresses as you like.

Hello mklose,

This is exactly what I've been wondering about. I posted this thread this morning enquiring about the way Identities send email. I mean, does it look like the mail is being sent from me@mydomain.com or me@myfastmailaccount.com in the headers? So far, the response looks like identities help 'mask' that it really comes from me@myfastmailaccount.com. My concern for this is that when the headers only show one originating address (me@mydomain.com) then the email looks more professional. When I use my email client to send from my email address but change the 'Return Address' to another email address, both email addresses show in the headers. So, with this in mind, I believe more identities for full members would be a great help.

Just my 2 cents.

Jessica

FromLine · 7 May 2002, 08:12 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jeremy Howard
The increase to 100 for Enhanced was because we want Enhanced to be (within reason) unlimited; we didn't think anyone would need 20, but we were wrong! So we increased it to 100, which I really doubt is going to be a real limitation.

If you regularly use more than 8 addresses then you are an enhanced user, and should IMO pay for it. If you regularly use less than 8, but from time to time use more, then the custom from address will be perfect for you anyway.

At any given level, there will always be some people who can not afford the next level but really want some feature from it. The only thing I can suggest in this situation is that you harass friends and family for gift certificates, or get your friends to put you as referrer and upgrade themselves...

Jeremy,

I do understand that you and Rob put a lot of time into this product and that this is a busineess. (Incidentally, I once asked Rob some time ago if fastmail.fm was a non-profit and he did reply to me informing me that it was not and that they hoped to make some money one day).

I just want to let you know that I don't mean any disrespect by bringing up this matter for discussion and polling the fastmail.fm community. While I do understand paid membership has benefits, perhaps this could be viewed more so as a discussion as if someone is paying, how much benefits should they receive between varying levels.

Some of the differences in quotas between Full and Enhanced are very resource intensive such as bandwidth, file downloads, and storage capacity. Someone did make an excellent point in this thread that email clients such as Outlook, Eudoda, etc. do not offer restrictions on this capability. Of course, we can use fastmail.fm with our Eudora and Outlook, but this limitation applies to us that prefer to use the web interface instead of an email client.

If there is a consensus among you and Rob that a Full User needing more than 8 is on the Enhanced Level, even if all the other differences between Full and Enhanced are not utilized, then perhaps the cost of Full Membership should be increased? (not sure I want to suggest this though).

You do charge for additonal aliases.

Have you considered charging $x for an pack of additional Identities? Perhaps $5 per year more for each additional 20 identities?

***Edwin*** · 7 May 2002, 08:18 AM

IMO, it's worth reminding everyone that businesses are not "votocracies". Outside of government, I can't think of any business where the service level offered by the business depends on what its customers vote on!

While I'm sure Jeremy and Rob appreciate everyone's input, it could also be seen as a little tiresome that whenever people feel the "feature goalposts" need to be moved a little, they post a poll about it to try and sway the Fastmail team into making changes (after all, if the status quo is OK, then why post a poll?)

Jeremy Howard · 7 May 2002, 08:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by fb19
I just want to let you know that I don't mean any disrespect by bringing up this matter for discussion and polling the fastmail.fm community.

That's OK. I know you're interested in this topic. I hope you don't mind that we don't always respond exactly as you hope!

Quote:

Have you considered charging $x for an pack of additional Identities? Perhaps $5 per year more for each additional 20 identities?

When we review our pricing in 12 months we'll consider this.

mklose · 7 May 2002, 08:21 AM

[Headers]

This is an SMTP issue.

Don't forget, the web interface is nothing more than an e-mail client. That's all it is. The "from address" is an issue limited to this web email client. And this web email client, like any other e-mail client that you can use with FM, makes use of IMAP and SMTP.

Most SMTP-Auth servers of freemail providers do not allow you to have a different from address , so I am glad fastmail's does. But FM is not a freemail provider (at least not if you're allowed to use SMTP).

Any ISP SMTP allows you to do this though.

That the fastmail SMTP server allowed this was one of the major reasons for me (next to quota) for going to fastmail and paying for an account becase I am on the move a lot with my laptop. And the SMTP-AUTH server that allowed this from the freemail account uni.de I was using before (I never used the account, just the SMTP server) shut down it's service.

The number of from addresses had nothing at all to do with me coming an enhanced member.

I tend to agree with Jeremy though. If you really need more than 8, then you're doing more than most people, and probably need the other features of the enhanced account anyway.

FromLine · 7 May 2002, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Edwin
IMO, it's worth reminding everyone that businesses are not "votocracies". Outside of government, I can't think of any business where the service level offered by the business depends on what its customers vote on!

While I'm sure Jeremy and Rob appreciate everyone's input, it could also be seen as a little tiresome that whenever people feel the "feature goalposts" need to be moved a little, they post a poll about it to try and sway the Fastmail team into making changes (after all, if the status quo is OK, then why post a poll?)

This business is a little bit different than some others. For example, you don't see a Hotmail feedback forum with Bill Gates responding to every post where here you get to communicate with the founders. So in a sense, this can be considered more open and personalized than the way most companies conduct business and communicate with their customers.

To some extent, since only two email providers so far qualify to meet the criteria to have their own threads on this forum, it seems that such comments, feedback, and objective input are encouraged. I'm not saying that fastmail.fm and runbox are votocracies, but they are a bit unique in that you can actually communicate directly with the founders.

In regards to the quote, I think what happend was when I was responding in the closed forum, you probably closed the thread while I was typing and by the time I hit "submit reply", the poll was closed and gave me the message, so I hit the back button to retrieve the text. It wasn't intended to bypass the closure.

Regarding the poll, I guess that was 20/20 hindsight and probably would have made sense to do a poll when this subject came about. I guess the feeling for the poll is to quantify, even though this isn't a votocracy.

Also, I wasn't sure if "votocracies" was actually a word, so I went here:

http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=votocracies

***Edwin*** · 7 May 2002, 08:50 AM

My "votocracy" post was a general comment, not (just) about this thread. In the last few weeks, I've seen a relatively large number of instances where, when people essentially didn't like/disagreed with the limitations of the Fastmail service, they posted a poll that was clearly intended to canvas support for change.

Incidentally, I know "votocracy" isn't a word, which is why I added the quotation marks to indicate it was just something I coined to fit the point I was trying to make

Stinger · 7 May 2002, 08:51 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by mklose

I paid for an enhanced account because of the quota (and bandwidth, which I only use less than 1/10 of).

Personally I'd really be interested in the total number of enhanced members voting on this.

I did the same mklose and I don't come anywhere my bandwidth limit!.............as for identities, 100 is a lot, I wouldn't mind if it was lowered and 'Full A/C' members increased.
Just my thoughts

Regards St......

mklose · 7 May 2002, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Also, I wasn't sure if "votocracies" was actually a word, so I went here:

You wouldn't want to learn German ;-)

If there is no word that describes something alone, you just put several words describing it in a row, and many of these composite words stick. There is no way you can put every german word in a dictionary because of this, because every composite wrd is a valid word.

Hmmm, now I'm trying to think of an extremely long example, but can't think of one. But take my word for it. Some German words are extremely long.

Jeremy Howard · 7 May 2002, 09:09 AM

Generally speaking, posting polls about feature requests will not help that feature to get implemented. If we feel that we do not know enough about customer preferences to correctly prioritise something, we may post a poll ourselves. However, we know from our analysis that polls on this forum bear almost no relationship to the feelings of the FastMail.FM customer base--where past poll results can be tested against actual data, the two have not been correlated at all closely. This is not surprising, since the people who read this forum are a very small subset of the customer base, and the people who respond to polls are a small subset of the people who read the forum. This subset of a subset are the most keen users, and therefore tend to provide the best ideas and feedback about the service. However they do not provide a statistically valid sample for the purpose of understanding the feelings of the whole customer base.

In addition, our priorities and pricing are not based only on customer preferences, but also on our costs, revenues, fit with long-term strategy, and so forth. For instance, over the next 12 months you will see Identities becoming a more important aspect of the service in many ways, increasing the power of # identities as an upgrade lever. Some of these features have been discussed before, and a few are being kept as a surprise!

Having said all that, you're welcome to post a poll if you're interested in knowing how people feel about something. Just don't have the wrong expectations about how that will impact our decision process...

In general, if you post a feature request I try to be clear about whether we have resolved that or not. If we haven't, then further input is most welcome and useful. If it is already resolved, further input that requires our response or justification takes up time that we could be improving the service. In this case, my first response to the thread about # personalities included the comment

Quote:

I'll chat to Rob about whether the current levels are appropriate over the weekend.

Clearly the topic was unresolved at that time, and as you saw, the following discussion did in fact lead to a policy change.

Digitalant · 7 May 2002, 09:52 AM

I have to agree that these forums whether it be for runbox or fastmail are helpful not only to the hardcore users, but also some general users (soon to be hardcore?) that are making some decisions regarding signup and dedication.

It is clear from the huge thread before that this is fact an issue and I applaud Jeremy & Rob for implementing the recent change (even if it is not exactly what some of us are looking for).

Votocracy, no, community, yes.

Recently a friend of mine who owns a very nice boat discovered a flaw in the design of a particular non-essential part. Not many boats of this brand (Pursuit) are sold each year (under 1000 I think) because of their high prices and more exclusive market. When my friend contacted Pursuit to let them know about this flaw and the trouble it had caused him they took note. In fact, they changed the design in the very next model year as shown at the recent boat show. This is an example of how working together can be so beneficial within a "community."

I am thankful for both this forum and the responsiveness. I hope that Jeremy & Rob realize that this is what causes many of us to not only sign up ourselves, but to recommend...which may be the ultimate flattery.

mail2me · 7 May 2002, 01:07 PM

Quote

...over the next 12 months you will see Identities becoming a more important aspect of the service in many ways, increasing the power of # identities as an upgrade lever. Some of these features have been discussed before, and a few are being kept as a surprise!

Unquote

I was not aware that identities was so going to be so important. I am a member and have only 3 but that is more than enough for me. Two for my fastmail primary and alias and one for my default hotmail address. Since I don't use the fastmail that often, I delete one of them and enter another one that I want to use temporary. So it is not important to me. Increasing from 2 to 3 made a very big differnce for me since I use at least two quite extensively at any given time so I had to delete one of them to enter another even just for one message. 3 solved the problem and I am quite happy.

I agree that you cannnot ask for additional features without paying for it, if it involves a cost or is a significant feature. Recommending a plan to buy additional identities for a one-time fee is a different issue. If I wanted more identities then that is what I would have done.

mvpittman · 7 May 2002, 01:52 PM

I signed up for enhanced just to make sure I get to see all the new features first. I use an IMAP client.

I think people that want something should pay for it. If you don't like what FastMail offers, go find a service that offers what you want.

Oh, wait... nobody else offers what FastMail does... so, I signed up for an enhanced account... I'll wait and see if I think it's worth it.

- Marland

michaelj · 7 May 2002, 09:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by mvpittman
I signed up for enhanced just to make sure I get to see all the new features first. I use an IMAP client.

I think people that want something should pay for it. If you don't like what FastMail offers, go find a service that offers what you want.

Oh, wait... nobody else offers what FastMail does... so, I signed up for an enhanced account... I'll wait and see if I think it's worth it.

- Marland

The fact that Fastmail.Fm is now handling my domain, having moved it from Yahoo, was well worth Enhanced, even though the change took far too long and was an aggravating experience. In retrospect using Yahoo for that purpose is like using AOL for Internet access; they make it very easy, but it's not the best solution.
I don't really care how many features the other service levels get, as I'm quite certain that Jeremy and Rob will make sure that Enhanced is worth the extra money, as this makes perfect business sense.
I got tired of moving my e mail from one free service to the next as they dropped off the earth, and the same holds true for file storage. Once that's put into place I'll really be happy with the service, not that I'm not happy now!

Michael

luzanne · 7 May 2002, 10:22 PM

i was just wondering why jeremy and rob settled on such an odd number - 8 identities. y not 10 instead. the feature doesn't take up a lot of resources does it?

View Poll Results: Feedback on the increase from 5 to 8 Identities (FROM addresses) for Full Members
8 Identities is not enough for Full Account Members and more would be reasonable	20	42.55%
8 Identities is fair and reasonable for Full Members. Anyone needing more than 8 should upgrade to Enhanced	21	44.68%
I am an Enhanced member with 100 identities and will be upset if Full members get more than 8	0	0%
I am an Enhanced member with 100 identities and feel that Full members deservce more than 8	3	6.38%
I am an Enhanced member with 100 identities and I am indifferent as to how many identities Full members have	3	6.38%
Voters: 47. You may not vote on this poll

7 May 2002, 08:18 AM	#18
*Edwin* Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: UK Posts: 3,118	IMO, it's worth reminding everyone that businesses are not "votocracies". Outside of government, I can't think of any business where the service level offered by the business depends on what its customers vote on! While I'm sure Jeremy and Rob appreciate everyone's input, it could also be seen as a little tiresome that whenever people feel the "feature goalposts" need to be moved a little, they post a poll about it to try and sway the Fastmail team into making changes (after all, if the status quo is OK, then why post a poll?)

7 May 2002, 08:21 AM	#20
mklose Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Germany Posts: 693	[Headers] This is an SMTP issue. Don't forget, the web interface is nothing more than an e-mail client. That's all it is. The "from address" is an issue limited to this web email client. And this web email client, like any other e-mail client that you can use with FM, makes use of IMAP and SMTP. Most SMTP-Auth servers of freemail providers do not allow you to have a different from address , so I am glad fastmail's does. But FM is not a freemail provider (at least not if you're allowed to use SMTP). Any ISP SMTP allows you to do this though. That the fastmail SMTP server allowed this was one of the major reasons for me (next to quota) for going to fastmail and paying for an account becase I am on the move a lot with my laptop. And the SMTP-AUTH server that allowed this from the freemail account uni.de I was using before (I never used the account, just the SMTP server) shut down it's service. The number of from addresses had nothing at all to do with me coming an enhanced member. I tend to agree with Jeremy though. If you really need more than 8, then you're doing more than most people, and probably need the other features of the enhanced account anyway.

7 May 2002, 08:50 AM	#22
*Edwin* Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: UK Posts: 3,118	My "votocracy" post was a general comment, not (just) about this thread. In the last few weeks, I've seen a relatively large number of instances where, when people essentially didn't like/disagreed with the limitations of the Fastmail service, they posted a poll that was clearly intended to canvas support for change. Incidentally, I know "votocracy" isn't a word, which is why I added the quotation marks to indicate it was just something I coined to fit the point I was trying to make

7 May 2002, 09:52 AM	#26
Digitalant Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: NYC Posts: 117	I have to agree that these forums whether it be for runbox or fastmail are helpful not only to the hardcore users, but also some general users (soon to be hardcore?) that are making some decisions regarding signup and dedication. It is clear from the huge thread before that this is fact an issue and I applaud Jeremy & Rob for implementing the recent change (even if it is not exactly what some of us are looking for). Votocracy, no, community, yes. Recently a friend of mine who owns a very nice boat discovered a flaw in the design of a particular non-essential part. Not many boats of this brand (Pursuit) are sold each year (under 1000 I think) because of their high prices and more exclusive market. When my friend contacted Pursuit to let them know about this flaw and the trouble it had caused him they took note. In fact, they changed the design in the very next model year as shown at the recent boat show. This is an example of how working together can be so beneficial within a "community." I am thankful for both this forum and the responsiveness. I hope that Jeremy & Rob realize that this is what causes many of us to not only sign up ourselves, but to recommend...which may be the ultimate flattery.

7 May 2002, 01:07 PM	#27
mail2me Master of the @ Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: California, USA Posts: 1,597	Quote ...over the next 12 months you will see Identities becoming a more important aspect of the service in many ways, increasing the power of # identities as an upgrade lever. Some of these features have been discussed before, and a few are being kept as a surprise! Unquote I was not aware that identities was so going to be so important. I am a member and have only 3 but that is more than enough for me. Two for my fastmail primary and alias and one for my default hotmail address. Since I don't use the fastmail that often, I delete one of them and enter another one that I want to use temporary. So it is not important to me. Increasing from 2 to 3 made a very big differnce for me since I use at least two quite extensively at any given time so I had to delete one of them to enter another even just for one message. 3 solved the problem and I am quite happy. I agree that you cannnot ask for additional features without paying for it, if it involves a cost or is a significant feature. Recommending a plan to buy additional identities for a one-time fee is a different issue. If I wanted more identities then that is what I would have done.

7 May 2002, 01:52 PM	#28
mvpittman Essential Contributor Join Date: Nov 2001 Posts: 428	I signed up for enhanced just to make sure I get to see all the new features first. I use an IMAP client. I think people that want something should pay for it. If you don't like what FastMail offers, go find a service that offers what you want. Oh, wait... nobody else offers what FastMail does... so, I signed up for an enhanced account... I'll wait and see if I think it's worth it. - Marland

7 May 2002, 10:22 PM	#30
luzanne Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 22	i was just wondering why jeremy and rob settled on such an odd number - 8 identities. y not 10 instead. the feature doesn't take up a lot of resources does it?