Source: Slacker Radio Press Releases (http://www.slacker.com/company/pressreleases.jsp)

Slacker Radio has gained its share of popularity among music fans for offering a nifty cache feature that other mobile music apps lack; after creating a station, you can save it for offline use (perfect for underground subway rides or long plane trips). Now it's distinguishing itself from other services even more by incorporating still more diverse content.

Slacker isn't the first service of its kind to incorporate news content Sirius | XM does something similar but this move does serve to give Slacker what could be seen as an edge over Pandora, which only serves up music and doesn't allow caching.

For 14 days, basic Slacker users will be able to access ABC News content; Slacker Plus users can keep on tuning in after the two-week period ends (the Plus subscription is $3.99 per month). The content which includes segments from Good Morning America, anchored by Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, Juju Chang and Sam Champion; and Nightline anchored by Terry Moran, Cynthia McFadden and Martin Bashir is located within the mobile app in a folder marked News, and works in much the same way music stations do (i.e. you can skip stories).

You can also choose to add hourly news updates to any of your stations, but the process to do so is laborious, to say the least. First, you have to futz around on the website, create a station, go to the Fine Tune tab to select that option, save the station, make it a Favorite, and, if you're already logged into Slacker on your mobile device, sign in and out to make the Favorited station appear. Sure, you can choose to Fine Tune any pre-existing station which is easier than creating your own playlist or choose to have ABC News turned on for all your stations by surfing over to Account Settings, but all this still requires signing online. We wish it were possible to do all that within the app, as going through all that song-and-dance degrades the whole easy and accessible aspect of it.

More About: abc, App, Mobile 2.0, music, News, Slacker-Radio

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The site has grown at an incredible rate since its inception, and it's always struggled to keep up (technically speaking) with user adoption. Ever since its userbase spread beyond the tech elite to more mainstream social media users, the site has been subject to a seemingly unending string of growing pains.

In response to a wave of failures last month during the World Cup, Twitter engineer Jean-Paul Cozzatti posted that the company's network was improperly configured, leading to downtime and trouble with features.

Cozzatti claimed that the company had doubled the capacity of its internal network, improved its monitoring and rebalanced its traffic to prevent future downtime.

For much of 2009, Twitter's biggest challenge was coping with our unprecedented growth (a challenge we happily still face), he wrote. But as this week's issues show, there is always room for improvement.

Apparently, the improvements made last month were not enough to keep up with user growth and their demands on the service.

Cozzatti posted again today to address Twitter's issues Monday, comparing the engineering team's work on scaling the app to riding a rocket. To give you an idea of how fast that rocket is soaring through the social media universe, we reported in April that the service had 105 million users. In his post today, Cozzatti said Twitter now has 124 million registered users.

Scalability and uptime are the team's top priority; in fact, Cozzatti noted, other projects are being put to the side until these problems can be thoroughly solved. He stated that Twitter's engineers have made more than 50 performance and optimization tweaks since the site's World Cup woes, including doubling throughput to the database that stores tweets, improving how the app uses memcache and improving page caching of the front and profile pages, which helps to reduce page load time.

Nevertheless, There are still times when we run into problems unrelated to Twitter's capacity, Cozzatti admitted.

Monday's issues serve as a perfect example. During the database malfunction and restart which covered a 12-hour period users were unable to login, sign upor update their profile information and design. In the end, wrote Cozzatti, this affected most of the Twitter ecosystem: our mobile, desktop, and web-based clients, the Twitter support and help system, and Twitter.com.

While Twitter is getting its own data center this fall and is actively recruiting more engineering talent, the company clearly needs to implement the long-term solutions we're reading about. To have the cultural cachet of a web service such as Google search, Gmail, Facebook or any of the apps we rely on for day-to-day work and life and we have the distinct impression that Twitter does, indeed, hope to be part of that cadre it must first and most importantly achieve an acceptable uptime ratio. All the partnerships, revenue and media buzz in the world can fall a bit flat when the app itself doesn't work.

That being said, we're certain Twitter can and will make the needed improvements for scalability, and growing pains are good pains to have.

Are you confident that Twitter can become reliable and stable in the near future? Or do you foresee more significant downtime from this service? What will it take for Twitter to grow as quickly as its users require?

More About: developers, down, downtime, engineering, scalability, twitter

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We've already brought you ways to share music on Twitter, but the solutions below will help you share the spoken word. Whether you want to sing happy birthday to someone, rant, or make a heartfelt apology, we've found five services that can help you out.

All the services we've tested have three things in common they are all completely free, they don't require a phone (i.e. they are web-based solutions), and they are all easy to use. There are differences between them, so it's worth having a read through our experiences so you can see which would best suit your own needs.

1. Chir.ps

Chir.ps is a super simple way to broadcast your voice to your Twitter followers. After signing in with OAuth, it's just a matter of entering your name for your personalized Chir.ps page before you can get going on the recording side of things.

The on-screen recording is again, simple just authorize Chir.ps to use your computer's mic, hit one button to start, say your piece, and then hit stop. You can preview your recording and once you're happy with it, add text and then tweet it.

There's a slight delay before the tweet will hit your stream, and when it does Chir.ps will have added a shortened URL (like this: http://chir.ps/6hb) to your message which people can click through in order to hear your audio.

While still decent, the audio quality of Chir.ps did not seem as great as other services we used, but the site does offer a listen count, so you can see how many people have hit play, which we do like. Here's what your message will look like when people click through to Chir.ps:

2. AudioBoo

AudioBoo (because sound is social) offers an iPhone and Android app as well as an online service, but for the purposes of this article, it's the web-based offerings we're interested in.

Once you've signed in with OAuth and chosen your AudioBoo username, the online recording takes place in a pop out window, which also gives you the option to upload a common audio file.

If you record via the site, you can talk (or sing, or hum, or groan or whatever it is you want to do) for five minutes, after which you can preview your ramblings. Once you're happy, give the recording a title and AudioBoo saves it down into the Your Boos section of the site.

From here you can choose to share your audio to Facebook, get an embed code for it, or tweet it, which creates a short URL like this: http://boo.fm/b154817

AudioBoo's sound quality is good, but there's no way to see how many people have tuned-in to listen to your broadcast, although there is the capability to comment on Boos. This is what your Boo will look like:

3. Twaud.io

Twaud.io is another service that lets you both record online and upload files. Recording online is easy: Just sign in with OAuth, authorize use of your mic and you're good to go for a generous thirty minutes worth of record time, which is practically podcast length.

Just hit the record button, hit it again to stop, and then press play to review whatever it is you've just uttered. Once you're done on the same screen there's a box to enter up to 100 characters of text, then just press the Twaudio it! button and you're done.

Twaud.io's URLs are super short (http://twaud.io/ls4) and play automatically when someone hits the link. Those who listen to your recordings also get the option to download them, get an embed code, retweet them or comment on them, which is sent as an @reply to the creator.

Sound quality is good, and the site tells you how many listens you've racked up, which is also good for an ego boost. This is how your message will appear to others:

4. Chirbit

Chirbit doesn't offer OAuth sign-in as it's not designed solely for the microblogging service, but setting up an account is a pain-free process, all the same.

Once you're in, you can use the service to record up to two minutes of audio, as long as you've given the appropriate permission just by hitting the onscreen buttons. After you've listened back and decided you like what you hear, you can give the clip a title and then add it into a category.

The default category is a Chirbit and any casual users who are interested in occasionally using this as a social tool need not worry about the others (such as audiobook, joke, pickup line), which are designed to help the Chirbit community find content more easily.

To save your Chirbit, you hit send and it will then appear on your Chirbit homepage. To get sharing, hit the cog icon on your recording and the site gives you the option to post it to Facebook or Twitter, making you a nice little shortened URL in the process. Here's one we prepared earlier: http://chirb.it/5LAfeM. And here's what viewers will see, which includes the option to respond:

5. ShoutoMatic

As well as offering a paid-for service where celebrities will record a message for you to tweet, ShoutoMatic also offers the infinitely more useful and free service of letting you record your own tweets.

Head on over to the site, either sign up for an account, or connect via Facebook, and you're ready to start shouting, as it were.

On the simple interface you just hit to record, review and save the clip. If you've signed in with Facebook it will prompt you to post it on there, but you can skip this bit.

After you've saved it, you can e-mail, download, post to Facebook or tweet your audio. If you tweet it, then Shoutomatic makes you a neat shortened URL (like http://bit.ly/ckvllv) and adds the text Check this out to your tweet, which obviously, you can choose to delete.

There is no listen counter on ShoutoMatic, but people are able to reply directly on your message page. Here's what anyone following the link to your message will see:

BONUS: Pockets

If you're in the United States, Pockets lets you send targeted voicemail to an individual Twitter user. As you will see in the video demo above, Pockets will call you and record your message, which is then sent as an @reply to the recipient who can click through to the Pockets website to listen.

More Twitter resources from Mashable:

- Top 20 Sites to Improve Your Twitter Experience
-10 Ways to Share Music on Twitter
- Twitter to Facebook: 5 Ways to Post to Both
- HOW TO: Create Custom Twitter Backgrounds
- HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Twitter #Hashtags

[Img credit: Pixey]

More About: audio, AudioBoo, chir.ps, Chirbit, how to, how tos, pockets, shoutomatic, social media, Twaud.io, twitter, twitter tools, voicemail

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Blog Entry

I will preface this post by saying that I know how close I am skating to social media douchebaggery by writing a post on a new Facebook feature, but I was reading about Facebook Questions today in a post from Dan Patterson, and as I began to pen my response I realized that I had more to say than what could be reasonably considered a comment. Fair warning, this piece is opinion only, and is based upon my initial reactions to the new features, as opposed to detailed analysis.

If you want some background on what Facebook Questions is, I highly encourage you to take a look at Dan's post, as he provides a great summary of the new features along with his commentary. Also, he has screenshots, which I will not be able to provide.

Go ahead and read his post first. I'll wait.

Done? Awesome, let's move forward.

You may have noticed that Dan has included a link to a Mashable post that explains a number of ways that Facebook Questions can be improved. As the service is not rolled out to me yet, I can't comment on that aspect of it, but in principle the ideas outlined in that post make a lot of sense. It would behoove Facebook to follow up on those suggestions, particularly the integration into a user's profile and wall. To be honest, I am a little shocked they did not integrate it that way in the first place. I'm sure most or all of the suggested functionality will be incorporated to future versions of the feature as development continues, especially if Facebook wants to be able to effectively capitalize on their user base to make FQ a success.

Now, if your interest in Facebook Questions was totally confined to UX and playing with your social graph there's a dirty euphemism in there somewhere, but of course I am too classy to make such a vulgar insinuation that would be the end of the matter. However, I don't think the features or success measured in number of users is the real test of a Q&A site.

I think the real test of a service like this is how useful the answers actually end up being to the end users. FQ is a publicly available feature, covering any topic under the sun, which is a bold move aimed at leveraging the diversity of knowledge available among its 500 million users. This answers-for-anything approach is a tantalizing path for any company that would like to start seriously monetizing based on search, but ultimately it can become more of a weakness than a strength for this type of service. There are a number of general purpose Q&A services on the web, and the consistent trait among all of them is that the quality of answers vary radically, with most of the answers being pretty useless, e.g. most of Yahoo! Answers. The general rule at least in my experience is that quality answers to questions typically are best found by visiting niche Q&A sites such Stack Overflow when I have a programming question or hitting up forums dedicated to the specific topics I am asking about. These types of niche communities tend to have more experienced participants, and also tend to be more rigorous when it comes to community management, with the aforementioned Stack Overflow being a stellar example.

That's not to say there haven't been some unique approaches to trying to solve this problem in general purpose Q&A sites. Mahalo's approach involves incenting users to provide good answers by providing a way for the asker to set up a cash bounty for the best answer. Now, I don't have enough information to gauge how effective this has been for them overall, but a quick browse reveals a number of good answers to questions when a tip or cash reward is offered, but the quality of questions and respective answers if there are any seems to drop otherwise. Although, I must say, that I'm surprised at the number of cash bounties being offered for opinion/discussion based questions. It's an interesting model, and it certainly seems to have built up an engaged community.

It's clear that FQ has a significant advantage just from the raw user base available to them, and I don't have any doubt that the product launch will be successful. Although, if Facebook does not quickly integrate FQ deeply into the social experience on Facebook, it's going to be treated as separate service by it's users, which diminishes the likelihood of prolonged interaction with the Q&A aspects of the site. Further, if they don't provide some incentive for users to produce great answers, it is in danger of becoming yet another of the worthless general purpose Q&A sites littering the search results in the SEO-dominated wastelands of the Internet.

It's only fitting that I conclude this piece by asking you all a question: Will Facebook Questions become a useful service, or will it only add to the noise?

That's up to you. I'd love to hear your answer.

Tagged with douchebaggery facebook social networking

Shawn Foust is head of the video game industry team at law firm Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP.

Facebook Credits are here, and they're sparking quite a bit of debate. Credits are the virtual currency that Facebook hopes third-party game makers will use so that there's a single, consistent currency across all the games in the Facebook community. But if you're going to use Credits, you not only have to pay Facebook a 30 percent cut of any transaction you make with the currency, you also have to keep to some pretty stringent terms dictated by Facebook.

The terms are simultaneously very broad and very narrow. They're broad in the sense that they establish a comprehensive set of regulations governing the implementation of Facebook Credits but narrow in the sense that those regulations only apply to Facebook Credits. The terms do not provide a comprehensive framework for all forms of in-game currency.

That's an important distinction.

The terms only have power so long as Facebook Credits are in play. If you take the Credits out of the equation by exchanging them for your own currency, many of the rules and restrictions are no longer applicable. So the solution for game developers is to accept Facebook Credits but not abandon your own currency.

Specifically, here are a few select things the terms explicitly prohibit you from doing with Facebook Credits:

• You will not (and you will not enable or allow any third party to) sell Credits to, or trade or otherwise exchange Credits with, any third party.
• You may not accept Credits as payment for tangible goods, except in the Facebook Gift Shop.
• You may not accept Credits as payment for a currency or other stored value item that can be used outside of the application.

Further, you as the game developer are not the Facebook Credits mint. That means you lose a lot of practical control:

• You do not control the supply of Credits. That means you cannot offer a sale or giveaway of Facebook Credits (the Terms prohibit you from transferring or trading Credits to a third party). You cannot summarily issue 1000 Facebook Credits to your users to spark interest in your game. You cannot distribute Facebook Credits to the masses and live in a post-currency narco-syndicalist commune. Facebook controls the generation and distribution of Facebook Credits, not you.
• You cannot lock in value. Facebook Credits are a fungible good that can be used in any application that accepts credits. If a person purchases $100 in Facebook Credits with the intention of purchasing things in your application, if they only spend $80, the remaining $20 is free to go elsewhere.
• Credits can abandon you. Facebook retains the right to revoke your eligibility to accept Credits at any time in [its] sole discretion. That means your economy can get up and walk away in an instant.

So why not walk away from Facebook Credits? Well, it's a payment option that resides natively on your lifeline platform. I'm not going out on a limb in guessing that Facebook Credits will quickly develop into a robust and flexible payment services option that will play an important role in the social game ecosystem. You probably don't want to walk away from that.

So why your own currency?
As mentioned previously, the current terms don't extend beyond Facebook Credits. So creating your own in-game currency frees the game developer from constraints while still permitting them access to an important option for payment services.

Since your currency is not subject to the terms, you have full control over its use (subject to Facebook's Developer Policies and Statement of Rights of course). For example, you can permit trading of your currency between players within an application, which is prohibited for Credits. That means Little Jill Jellybean can send Disaster Dollars to her friend so the friend can buy spent fuel rods in Uranium Enrichment City. Perhaps that inspires the friend to play more and convert into a paid user later on.

More importantly, you have control over your in-game economy. If you want to give away Disaster Dollars to a loyal user, you can. If you want to run a contest with an award of Disaster Dollars, there's no problem. None of this is possible if you implement Facebook Credits directly into your game since the only source for Facebook Credits is Facebook.

You also can build in a safeguard from having the plug pulled. If you implement your own in-game currency you can offer your users a variety of options for the purchase of that currency other than Facebook (such as Paypal or Offerpal). Thus, if Facebook decides you are unworthy of Facebook Credits your game still has a viable means for monetization. If you rely solely on Facebook Credits you're at the mercy of the eligibility clause.

Further, offering multiple options creates a greater possibility that a particular user will find one that appeals to him or her. Users with a preference for Facebook Credits may use that option. Alternatively, if a user has a pre-existing relationship with another payment services provider and would prefer to use that provider, they can. Help them help you make money. It's not asking too much.

How do I set up my own currency?
You permit the user to purchase only one thing with Facebook Credits: your currency. Once the users have exchanged Facebook Credits for your currency, they can participate in the broader game economy. There should be no direct purchase of any items or anything other than your currency with Facebook Credits.

Once the exchange is made, you've locked up the value of those Credits in your own currency, ensuring it won't move off to another application. You also introduced the user to an economy where you control the rules. And, as most game developers will tell you, few things are more important to a game than a well structured economy. The economy can dictate the tempo of the game and can have dramatic effects on a user's interaction with the content. Normally it wouldn't be something a developer would consider ceding control over.

So there's the case for your own currency. There are arguments against, of course. Some argue that creating a separate currency is confusing and creates additional friction. Others argue that implementing Facebook Credits directly is good for the reputation of the game. I'm sympathetic to these arguments, but I find them unpersuasive in light of the root issue: direct implementation of Facebook Credits without a buffer currency effectively shifts control of a critical aspect of your game (which is often the main source of monetization) to a third party with potentially different incentives. Not good.

A buffer currency allows you to leverage a powerful new player in the payment services space while retaining control and flexibility.

Shawn Foust is an attorney with Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton's Silicon Valley and Century City offices and head of the firm's video game industry team. He focuses on tackling the cutting edge legal issues facing businesses in the entertainment, new media, and technology industries. He handles a blend of intellectual property licensing/litigation and emerging growth finance work.

Tags: Credits

Companies: Facebook

People: Shawn Foust

Web analytics service Clicky has announced the launch of their video analytics service which is part of the overall Clicky web analytics platform. Clicky has integrated directly with video hosting company Viddler and provides the ability to track videos from YouTube and Vimeo as well.

The Viddler integration will go live sometime in August as Clicky notes that the Viddler team has some additional work on their end before the connection is made live. The Viddler integration will not require you do anything different to make sure the video stats reach Clicky.

To use the YouTube connection with Clicky, there is a bit of work involved. You can read about the changes to your blog or website that must be added on the Clicky help site. It addition, the way you embed videos is different than just copying and pasting the code directly from YouTube into your blog. The same goes for Vimeoyou would need to add some code to your templates and then change the way you insert videos into your blog or website.

Here's an example of the stats page:

Note we are an affiliate for Clicky but none of the links in this post are affiliate links.

Find more stories about: analytics, Clicky, online video, Viddler, YouTube

At their genesis, bike-sharing networks were low on tech and heavy on grassroots, cooperative spirit. But the programs and systems rolling out today for tracking and distributing up to thousands of bicycles in cities from Milan to San Antonio are of another generation one built upon mobile access to the real-time web and GPS chips.

Armed with these IT tools, new and evolving bike-sharing networks fit into the larger trends of smarter digital and networked transportation systems, innovation around providing mobility as a service, and moves by unconventional players (from non-profits to advertising giants to health insurance firms to new startups) to assume new roles in the transportation sector.

Public entities are getting into the act, too, with Montreal's BIXI system being deployed in cities in the U.S. and the UK, while federal and state governments are providing seed money and ongoing funds for some programs. The hope is that the right combination of technology, pricing and convenience will help integrate bicycles into the larger transportation system at mass scale (right up there with buses, trains, ferries and taxi cabs, for example) and spur the growth of some new businesses in the process.

On Friday, the world's largest bike share network will launch in London, with 6,000 bikes at 400 stations. It's an illustration of what technologies like text messaging, smartphones with GPS, and the real-time web are ultimately driving in the bike-sharing market: a shift in scale, as infrastructure costs come down, and growing convenience attracts a broader market.

As it becomes increasingly common for consumers to have web access on the go and operators can use sensors and real-time communication to flag available docks and bikes barriers to adoption are falling away. It's just plain easier to find a station and a bike that's ready to roll. And with GPS chips that can locate you, a bike, or a parking spot, operators have a tool for tackling the bane of bike sharing networks of yore: theft.

A similar shift can be seen on the automotive side of the mobility as a service market. Whereas car sharing providers have had networks at the city or regional scale for years, often using a nonprofit model, Zipcar has built up a national footprint and begun to extend its reach overseas over the last decade. While the company which filed in June for a $75 million IPO has never turned a profit, its revenues reached $131.2 million last year, up from just $13.7 million in 2005.

Zipcar, which has also grown through acquisitions, developed its fleet technology with a plan to scale it. The company's vehicles carry some essential hardware, including a black box device (a custom circuit board, processor and modem) fitted to a vehicle windshield that allows users to unlock the car they've reserved, and also lets Zipcar remotely monitor vehicles. It's a relatively streamlined customization process, compared with competing systems that require installation of keypads in the dash, for example, or a hands-free calling setup. In fact, Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith has told us that the ideal vehicle for car sharing would be modeled after smartphones, with an open platform that would allow Zipcar to roll new cars into its fleet with little more than a software download.

Zipcar's grand vision is for a subscriber who lives near its Cambridge, Mass. headquarters, for example, to rent a car in a Barcelona or London Zipcar fleet just as easily as in their home network. Might we eventually be able to rent a bike just as easily in any city around the world, with the swipe of a smartcard or by sending a text message? The race is on to find out, as a growing number of operators seek to replicate their systems in other cities.

We put together a cheat sheet on 10 bike sharing networks to watch earlier this year. But the pace of growth in these programs called for an update, so we revamped our guide to show how bike-sharing networks are putting technology to work, who's paying how much, and what you might expect to find in your own city sometime soon. There are dozens more that we couldn't include on our list (tell us about em in the comments section), but here's 20 places to watch as the latest generation of bike sharing systems put chips to work for pedal power.

Related articles on GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

Mobility on Demand Takes Aim at Transport Networks' Last Mile

Electric Vehicles Give Mobility as a Service a Jumpstart

E-newsletters allow a business to stay in touch with its customers on a regular basis. They give you the opportunity to establish yourself as a "thought leader" in your area of expertise, be that in designing toys for rare parrots or providing software to keep your personal finances straight. They are also a great way to create viral marketing, because if your customers find the information useful they may forward your e-newsletter to others, thereby helping you grow your customer base.

"Done right, they will give you a return far better than any other marketing strategy," says Tamara Gielen, an independent e-mail marketing consultant who has worked for such companies as Cognos, eBay, and OgilvyOne. "But success largely depends on two things: relevance and permission. Sending irrelevant messages to recipients who didn't give you permission to e-mail them will not only hurt your brand, it is also the fastest way to get blacklisted with the major ISPs. The last thing you want is to be perceived as a spammer."

So, how do you get permission, and how do you create relevant e-newsletters?

The following guide will cover how to get permission by building an opt-in e-mail list, how to create compelling content and attract readers, and how to choose an e-mail newsletter provider.

Dig Deeper: E-Mail Marketing Solutions

The first order of business is to build a quality list of customers -- customers who have given you permission to send them e-mail newsletters. "Collect this information wherever and whenever you are making a connection with a prospective customer," advises Eric Groves, senior vice president of global market development for Constant Contact, an e-mail and online marketing tool provider. If you have a store front, for example, have a sign-up book by the register and ask people to fill it out and include their e-mail address so that you can send them your e-newsletter. "There's been research done that if a local business asks a customer for their contact information, over 60 percent of the time they will give it to you," Groves says.

Collect e-mail addresses from your prospects and customers at a variety occasions, such as the following.

Use all offline channels you currently have to drive e-newsletter subscriptions, whether they be direct mail, advertising, catalogs, flyers, or feedback forms, Gielen says.

Be careful with rented lists. "Make sure the list owner sends the e-mail on your behalf. If the list provider promises to give you a list of email addresses, walk away. It's not worth the risk of getting blacklisted because the list is old, contains spam traps and lots of bad addresses," Gielen warns. Most email service providers, such as Constant Contact, won't even allow companies to import rented lists into e-mail newsletter products because it would violate terms of service, Groves says.

Remember that permission is important, so don't add an e-mail address to your list unless you have the owner's explicit permission to do so.

Gielen advises to use a double opt-in process when you're collecting email addresses in places other than your own website or when the email capture is part of a contest or sweepstakes. "Double opt-in means that you ask people to confirm their subscription before you add them to your list. That way, you can be sure that all the e-mail addresses that end up on your list are correct and the people on your list are truly engaged." she says. "On your own website, your Facebook page and your blog there's usually no need for a double opt-in process." Gielen says. However, she does recommend sending an email that welcomes the news subscribers, tells them what they can expect and how they can unsubscribe."

Dig Deeper: Finding and Using E-Mail Newsletter Templates

A successful e-newsletter consistently provides value to the recipient by offering relevant content to the readers. "It's not about you, but sharing what you know," Groves says. "If you do it well, recipients will forward it on to others."

Keep in mind that your customers may be solicited via e-mail with scores of offers every day. They eventually tune out the "buy from me" pitch. But they're more likely to read something that helps them become more knowledgeable about a subject that interests them. "Different content offering might include how-to guides that help readers get better at what they do, tips on how to get the most out of the product or service that you sell, background articles on topics that your readers find interesting, surveys, contests and sweepstakes, and promotions such as discounts or free shipping," Gielen says.

A restaurateur might have the chef send out tips on cooking, such as "What to do if you put too much salt in a recipe," Groves suggests. During the holidays, they might send out a newsletter item on what great wine goes with turkey for Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, a landscaper might write an article about plants that deer won't eat. "That's something people can use," Groves says. "They're going to take that and forward it to their friends and say, 'Check this out.' You're sharing knowledge and getting engagement. They already know what you sell."

How can you figure out what your target audience considers to be relevant content? "One way is by asking them on the sign-up form or via surveys and polls," Gielen says. "Another way is by analyzing their behavior. Which links do they typically click on? What kind of subject lines typically trigger them to open your e-mails?"

The articles in the e-newsletter should be brief, Groves advises. And there shouldn't be 42 different items. "A simple one-article newsletter is a fantastic tool," he says. In addition to articles, you might add a calendar of events that might interest readers and, perhaps a link to a promotional offer at the bottom. "If you're writing about California Chardonnays, you might say, 'Here is a real special Chardonnay that we just got in.' That's fine if it's all tied together."

Design for the Preview Pane
Once you have built your list and determined what kind of content your readers value, it's time to develop an effective template for your e-newsletter. The first thing to keep in mind is that most e-mail clients do not display images by default, Gielen says. "The top right two to three inches of your template is what people see in their preview panes, so if your template has mainly images in that area, most readers will not see anything in their preview pane," she says. "Make sure you design your template with this in mind." Think of the preview pane area as a teaser area, and use this area to grab the reader's attention. The information in this area should be compelling enough to make the reader open the e-mail, download the images, and scroll down for more information.

Keep Design Professional
Pick a layout that is going to look professional and render well. Groves says that Constant Contact has 400 different e-newsletter templates alone. You don't have to worry about how to create HTML, but you do need to look at the colors, create images, and think about layout so that it renders well. Most e-mail clients have images turned off as a default, so it's not necessarily a good idea to put a big company logo on the top of the image in the preview pane because it won't load, Groves says. Instead, have that logo lower on the page and just write the company name in regular text at the top of the screen. Choose colors that look weak and reflect your brand. Groves recommends two online tools, Color Cop and Color Schemer, which can help you choose colors. "You don't have to be a graphic artist," Groves says. Lastly, leave some white space for your readers so the e-newsletter doesn't look too dense and is easy on the eye.

Write a Compelling Subject Line
The subject line (and your sender name) is what convinces someone to open your e-mail, Gielen says. You can ask a question, state a benefit, or add urgency, as long as you don't try to deceive your readers. "You should keep your subject line short," she says. "Most readers see only five to seven words, or 50 to 60 characters, of your subject line, so your most important words should be right in the beginning." Also, make your subject line dynamic. Don't use the same subject line over and over again. Finally, tell, don't sell, what's inside. A subject line that tries to sell something is often perceived by readers as spam, and the chance they will delete your e-mail without opening it is much higher.

Choose an E-Mail Service Provider
Don't use Outlook to send out your e-newsletter. Apart from some very nasty deliverability problems you risk running into, you will not have any reporting for your e-newsletter whatsoever, Gielen says. Without the necessary reporting, how will you know how your e-newsletter performs?

There are a number of very good and affordable e-mail service providers out there, like Aweber, Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact, MailChimp, eROI, iContact and others. "By using an e-mail service provider, you won't have to worry about any of the logistics, you'll know exactly who opened and clicked and even creating a professional looking template will be a piece of cake," Gielen says.

Manage Your List
Each time you send out your e-newsletter, you'll find e-mail addresses that no longer exist or people that have unsubscribed from your list. It is of the utmost importance that you remove these e-mail addresses from your list before you send out your next e-newsletter, Gielen says. "If you don't, you risk running into legal problems, as well as being blacklisted." Remember the two rules of sending e-mail newsletters: relevance and permission. If a customer revokes their permission, you need to respect that. But, Groves says, next time the customer comes in to your store or makes a purchase, follow up and ask to make sure they didn't unsubscribe from the e-newsletter by accident.

Additional Resources

How to Write Effective E-Mail Newsletters
Tips from Web Market Central, a portal for interactive marketing professionals.

E-mail Marketer's Club
Discuss e-mail marketing trends, issues and tactics with other e-mail marketers.