Kwaga makes its confirmation emails optional for WriteThat.name
Established as a quality control feature, the option to activate or deactivate confirmation emails is now optional for all WriteThat.name users.
Paris, May 11, 2012 – Kwaga, the creator of WriteThat.name, the online service that automatically updates address books for Gmail, GoogleApps, Outlook (beta) and Lotus Notes’ users, has announced today that its confirmation email feature is now optional for all users.
This decision, taken the afternoon of May 10, is in response to the negative reaction by Sarah Perez,TechCrunch writer and enthused new user of the service. Sarah Perez in particular stated that this feature, which can be seen as quality control for contact updates, could be likened to spamming, and she was disappointed that only paying users could disable the option.
Kwaga has collaborated closely with its users since the launch of WriteThat.name to refine the quality of its service, and the decision was immediately taken to make this feature optional for all users. Philippe Laval, CEO at Kwaga further detailed this in a post promising to make sure the changes were in place within 24 hours, and this has since been executed.
“WriteThat.name continues to have wonderful growth throughout Europe and the United States, and the feedback from our users is very important to us, as their outside perspective helps to evolve the service to an ever greater quality. We could not allow users to think that WriteThat.name was spamming their contacts and have made immediate changes to this feature that we had implemented in good faith.” Commented Philippe Laval, CEO at Kwaga.”The update is now in place, and sincere thanks goes out to our users for their trust and to my team at Kwaga for their reactivity.”
What is the purpose of confirmation emails?
To ensure the quality of contact updates in WriteThat.name’s users’ address books, each time a new entry is detected, an email is sent to the new contact asking if the information detected is up-to-date. See an example of the email sent.
Optional for both Freemium and Premium
Until now, these emails could only be made optional as part of the Premium plan. Now both Freemium and Premium customers can disable/enable this feature in their “preferences” within their settings at WriteThat.name.
4 Comments
Comments are closed.
Well it’s nice that you listened and acted so fast but it begs the question ‘if what you were doing was wrong, why were you doing it?’ I suggest that the answer is that it wasn’t wrong. My view is that if you pay (I do and love the service) then you’re contributing, if you don’t pay, then you’re getting a free service but doing a little marketing through the confirmation emails. I think Ms Perez should really stop and think about just whose side she’s on. She’s agitated because she’s being asked to pay to avoid having her friends spammed. As a tech journalist, she should be viewing this differently. She should see that a developer’s work isn’t free, the price is a hand with the marketing. She points out right at the beginning that she had more than one recommendation and there are glowing reviews around the web. So I stand by my first remark, you were doing nothing wrong. I think it’s time that everyone realised that no one *sells* a service for free. I think you should continue to charge, continue to improve the service and stand by your customers, i.e. the ones who stump up real cash.
Hi Simon,
Thank you for the thoughtful comment.
I agree that users should contribute in some way for a service that they benefit from, and the current challenge is an internet industry that breathes “free”, be it based on ads, or a freemium business model. Someone else in our sector, Dimitri at Sanebox, recently reflected on the subject in a post called “death ti freemium”:
http://www.sanebox.com/blog/death-freemium/
Our goal is to continue to do what we do best: develop a service that is valuable for our users, and to do that we of course need them to support us, be it financially or through spreading the good word. With this in mind, we’ll continue to improve the premium service, and also move moving forward with a referral system that will encourage freemium users to value the portions of the service that they really enjoy. More soon.
Thanks again for sharing this side of the truth, and really glad to have you on board, Simon. Best from Paris, Brad
Hi Brad, I saw Dimitri’s piece as I use (and pay for!) Sanebox too. I particularly feel your pain as I have spent a lifetime in the restaurant business at the mercy of journalists and now, bloggers and tweeters too. We have a saying in my business that you might relate to, ‘those who can do, those who can’t are critics’.
Whilst I’m commenting I’ll add one more point. I’m not sure that the new, current differential between paid and free is enough. There, I’ve said it and wish you the best going forward.
Simon,
A man of my own heart! I was a professional cook until a few years ago, and I helped open one of the world’s “best new 75 restaurants in the world” in 2003. Worked with the chef who had the highest-rated hotel restaurant in NYC, and then the longest-standing 5 star restaurant in the US. I know EXACTLY what you mean.
Your last point is a point I’ve personally been working hard to move forward and trust me, we’re getting there. It all ties in with the referral system as well. Watch this space 😉
Thanks again for the support and glad to hear that you dig Sanebox as much as I do. Best, Brad