Ask HN: Sending first e-mail to potential users from "waiting list"

1 pointsby pawelwentpawelvor 14 Jahren2 comments

Around 2 months ago I set up a "coming soon" placeholder page for one of my projects. It was pretty simple - js canvas animation, little bit of a description and a "leave us your e-mail" form. Just e-mail, nothing else.

I'm planning on sending out some invitations for beta-version of the website. I thought that a good idea might be sending personalised e-mails. It would be easy to write a small fb-spider that would gather names/locations of the people that are in the list from facebook to give me some insight. I could greet them with their name then (It conjugates in some languages) or write in their native tongue.

It's a detail really, but got me wondering - is it legal? How creepy receiving an e-mail like that would be?

2 comments

mbellottivor 14 Jahren

It is ... slightly creepy, depending on whether they remember that they didn't give you that information.

But more to the point, is it worth scraping fb on the off chance that their email is part of the public profile? I would think most of your target audience would have better privacy settings.

gregcohnvor 14 Jahren

it's creepy. if you didn't have a form-fill inviting people to give you their first names, you missed the opportunity to address your followers by name. lesson learned for consideration next time.

you should also be thoughtful about how much email you send to someone, if you didn't put that form alongside a fairly explicit opt-in. If the form said, "notify me when you launch," that's not the same as "please feel free to market to me indefinitely."

When we recently launched, I had a similar list, to which I sent 1 (one) email only, and in that email stated that it would be the only email they received from me without further opt-in. We got multiple appreciative comments in response.