Email First Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Email First Startups

#21

Post by ChrisNorstrom » Fri, Mar 29, 2013, 8:20 AM UTC

So would this be considered an email first project? I had an idea for website called "Global Voices" (domain will be glblvcs.com) Users from all over the world will enter their email and subscribe to a micro-newsletter that comes out every Friday night. By entering their email they're also automatically entered into a "lottery". Every week 3 lucky people are chosen and each get to ask all the users 1 question which will appear in that week's newsletter. The 3 questions in each newsletter will link to a message board where people from all over the world with diverse backgrounds and cultures can answer the questions if they want.

I think email in this case would encourage participation. If you're not subscribed and getting the emails you don't get a chance to ask a question. By being subscribed you have a greater chance at returning to the message board and writing an answer. Thus fueling the community.

Sound good?

Re: Email First Startups

#22

Post by MicahWedemeyer » Fri, Mar 29, 2013, 10:49 AM UTC

Email has identity built in. Email is identity.

I'm no security expert, but my understanding is that email is pretty flawed when it comes to establishing the true identity of the sender. I guess you could use something like DKIM or SPF, but plenty of people don't have that set up.

If you use obfuscated inbound email addresses then it's not really a problem. But, if you're identifying people by their FROM address on a very public inbound address, be aware that it's trivially easy to spoof that.

Re: Email First Startups

#23

Post by _pius » Fri, Mar 29, 2013, 2:23 PM UTC

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #21

So would this be considered an email first project? I had an idea for website called "Global Voices" (domain will be glblvcs.com) Users from all over the world will enter their email and subscribe to a micro-newsletter that comes out every Friday night. By entering their email they're also automatically entered into a "lottery". Every week 3 lucky people are chosen and each get to ask all the users 1 question which w…

I had an idea for website called "Global Voices" (domain will be glblvcs.com) Users from all over the world will enter their email and subscribe to a micro-newsletter that comes out every Friday night. By entering their email they're also automatically entered into a "lottery".

There's already a popular project very similar to this called The Listserve.

http://thelistserve.com