UPDATE: Just got a very nice message from Sarah at TechCrunch, and I’m glad we were able to clear the air so fast: the wonders of modern communication!

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We just had a bit of negative buzz on TechCrunch and it’s moving us forward: while we’ve seen the confirmation emails as a mostly win-win feature, this was not the case for everyone. This buzz, coming after glowing reviews, pushed us towards a decision: from now on, the confirmation email will be optional for all users, whether Premium or Freemium.

Here is a copy of the mail I’ve just sent to Sarah :

Dear Sarah,

 

I’m Philippe, the Founder of WriteThat.Name. I’ve just read your post and while it’s great to see that you were excited about the service, it’s tough to know that you view the confirmation emails in such a negative light.

 

As Brad said in his comment on the post, we saw this as both a quality control feature for us (especially at the start) and also a way that non-paying users could contribute to the overall quality of the service. More specifically, around 10 % of our premium users do actually opt to still send out confirmation emails.

 

That being said, our team has just had a little pow-wow, and in the end, I know that I created WriteThat.Name to make our users’ life easier, and above all not for anyone to think we’re spamming their contacts, be that the reality or not. SO, I’ve decided to make this confirmation feature optional for all our users, both freemium and premium. I’ll add this comment directly on your post right now and we’ll make an official announcement by this time tomorrow.

 
My hope is that this will make WriteThatName’s direction crystal clear and that you and our future users will never have second thoughts about leaving a service that they enjoy.

 

Thanks again for your thoughts.

 

Best,

Philippe

 

We live and we learn, and what’s important is that we create a service that is valuable to our users. Today, I’m even more confident that we’re heading in that direction!