Life is full of bad ideas that should never see the light of day. Unfortunately, 3D Mailbox, the self-proclaimed “world’s coolest email program” has pooped its head out from the sphincter of the idea fairy.

The idea is so implausible it sounds like an April fools gag:

Think of 3D Mailbox as email meets videogame. It’s e-mail for the visual generation. 3D Mailbox turns your emails into people: beautiful models represent good email, and goofy Sumo guys represent spam. Chill with your email poolside and in private cabanas, and feed your spam to the sharks! The beautiful locales and Brazilian background music make you feel like you’re on vacation any time of the day.

Right… so each of my emails is represented as a person, and I can “chill” with them poolside?

I can then arrange them into cabanas (mailboxes):

If the bouncer (spam filter) can’t decide if a person (email) is legit, they’re forced to skate around naked at the ice rink:

Genuis!!! To think I’ve been wasting all these years using Entourage.

After over thirty years in private beta, Google’s Gmail is finally available to the general public. It’s a pretty good offering too: Gmail’s spam protection is pretty robust, and the 2.6gb of storage is more generous than accounts offered by Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail.

You can sign-up for a Gmail account here.

SiteVista is a new service for testing HTML emails across a wide range of email clients. Each test results in two screen grabs: the email displayed in the software’s preview panel, and another showing the entire message when opened. Currently, the service supports:

• Gmail
• Hotmail
• Outlook 2000/2002/2003/2007

Support for the following email clients is due imminently:

• AOL Mail
• Yahoo! Mail
• Outlook Express
• Eudora
• Apple Mail
• Entourage

SiteVista is a great idea that deserves to do well. The price point is currently way too high (it’s at least 50% too expensive), and the lack of Lotus Notes support (yes, Lotus Notes still matters, as it is used by many large corporations) is a let down, but these things may well come in time.

Junk email tracking and intelligence company Spamhaus have released their “Top 10 Most Wanted” list. Responsible for a staggering 80% of all spam in Europe and North America, these evil-doers generate income by using virus-created botnets and open relays to send massive amounts of email promoting everything from pharmaceuticals to dubious information on the movement of stocks and shares.

It’s astonishing to think that such a limited number of individuals are behind the umpteen billions of junk emails sent each year. An estimated 76% of email is regarded as spam - despite initiatives from a number of companies with a vested interested in this technology (notably Microsoft and Yahoo!), the problem is getting worse.

You can use as many spam filters as you like, client-based or server-side, but, with a grim inevitability, spam will find its way to your inbox sooner or later. If anyone has an answer to this infuriating pandemic, then please, answers on a postcard….

Include Digital are proud to announce that we have been retained by FremantleMedia to design and build a series of branded HTML emails. The six newsletter emails will allow Fremantle Archive Sales to keep clients informed of company and industry news whilst continuing to strengthen their profile in the market place.

The partnership has formed following the successful Sunny Side of the Doc email campaign earlier this year which saw Fremantle Archive Sales enjoying their busiest festival ever.

The emails themselves will be sent using Inbox Ally, Include Digital’s bespoke email system. The tool automates the process of inserting unique tracking links and provides comprehensive usage statistics that can be used to analyse the success of each communication in real-world terms.

The initial email is due to launch in early December.

With viewing figures for our most recent email marketing campaign hot off the server, all indications point to it being a success.

Carried out on behalf of FremantleMedia’s Archive Sales division, the drive aimed to raise awareness of the division’s presence at the Sunny Side of the Doc international film market and targeted a database of over 1200 industry professionals. The campaign encouraged recipients to arrange an appointment during the festival to speak with one of Archive Sales’ representatives. It represented the first time the division had commissioned the design and production of a tracked HTML marketing email.

“Our sales representatives attending Sunny Side this year enjoyed their busiest schedule in years” said Business Development Executive Sam Partner. He continued “We’re very pleased with the results of our first fully-featured email marketing campaign and look forward to developing a long-term partnership with Include Digital.”

The mailout was administered by Include Digital’s bespoke email sending and tracking tool. The tool automatically inserts unique tracking links into the HTML, sends the email and logs user interaction. The usage figures were collated into a final campaign report.