Welcome to the Escape Blog

We love Campaign Monitor - best e-mail marketing software out there.

This graph is theirs and goes with an article about open rates for e-mail marketing campaigns.

They even give you some tips on how you could increase them.

Great article about Linkbaiting (linkbait itself) over at searchengineland.

Spot on as far as I am concerned - it’s the way forward - authority and trust is what’s needed and that takes time and effort.

Well worth a read!

"we don’t need every single page in the world to be ‘compliant’" was a strange comment in this great post from Seth Godin about what the web should be about. Not the next generation, but the generation after that.

It’s great to concentrate on features but surely they should be all inclusive?

Some great ideas however. I love his way of mixing up functionality, ideas and realising that they are VERY possible - sooner rather than later.

I personally find some ‘web 2′ sites, including Squidoo (which Seth is personally involved in) incredibly clunky and slow so I think we have a way to go yet before we get ahead of ourselves.

The first of our seminars starts next week and is nearly fully subscribed - a few places remaining. Craig has been polishing off the presentation and has unearthed some very interesting web facts. He may even share them over the next couple of weeks.

Jo’s got a new Macbook Pro Laptop, which she is loving. Rob got a little jealous and some how, his broke down today so he needs a new one too - co-incidence or what?

Simon and the sales team have been busy talking to some new prospects as well as managing our current workload.

We hope to have three new web sites go live in the next couple of weeks for clients, luckily…

… Keith has finished off our website framework (for now). This means we can build the sites quicker as we have taken a standard modular approach making build easier and more efficient.

The BBC has an interesting report about Open Source.

A report funded by the European Commission concludes that the software could offer considerable savings to organisations with little effect on their business. The report found that in "almost all" cases long-term costs could be reduced by switching from proprietary software produced by firms such as Microsoft.

We develop mainly in ASP and have long and large debates on whether to switch to open source. To that end we have started to work with partners developing CMS solutions using open source systems.

My personal opinion is that it doesn’t matter what platform you use as long as you are getting a return. I also think that it is all about user experience. If you are switching to open source for the cost savings alone, I would suggest that is not a good reason. It may save you money, but it may also cost you even more.

Long-term, I see many software platforms becoming Open Source. The source is free (in most cases) and the support you have is from and by people you wouldn’t get access to in the closed source environment.

The European Commission’s report mentions this with existing Open Source available valued at a cost of £8 billion to develop, equivalent to £525 million in voluntary contributions from Programmers each year.

UK consumers spent £7.66bn ($15bn) shopping online in the run up to Christmas, reports the BBC

Total online sales for 2006 reached £30.2bn, topping forecasts for £30bn.

Seven accessibility mistakes you don’t want to make from 456 Berea Street.

The first one about Content-Management Systems is very much a hot potato at the moment. It seems people want the accessibility without the effort and the main CMS systems out there are very hard to implement accessibility into - especially to AAA standards.

I am sure it will come with time though.

Seth Godin points us to a Squidoo page with the THE 59 SMARTEST ORGS ONLINE.

If you run a non-profit organisation, there are some real gems in there that you may pick ideas from.

My personal favourite is also number one - KIVA - A website that allows you to offer money to entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Spam levels in the first week of January have taken a sudden jerk, falling by 30%. It is believed that this was caused by spammers losing control of one of their ‘botnets’ - networks of infected PCs used to churn out spam.

Don’t get too excited though, it is merely a blip with e-mail security firm Postini reporting that spam continues to grow at record rates, accounting for 94% of all email traffic in December.

Ref. E-Consultancy

If you ever wondered if the internet has moved the goalposts, how about Koopa, who achieved a top 40 chart entry in the UK this week with "Blag, Steal and Borrow", a download only single, and they are, as yet, still unsigned to a label.

They are using the web, and social media to help spread their word, including their own E-Team.

Check out their tunes on myspace.