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You've Got Mail... It Says You've Got Mail.

MONDAY JULY 23 2007 4:00 AM

Submitted by seanbonner. Edited By erin_broadley.

TAGS: email, messages, site mail, private messages, messaging

A few months ago I was sitting in a cafe in San Francisco showing off my new phone and decided to check my e-mail, an extremely uncharacteristic move on my part actually but a spur of the moment decision I ran with. Amid the mass of temporarily ignorable subject lines was a heading telling me that a good friend of mine had sent me a new message via Facebook. I quickly opened the email hoping to read whatever she'd just written me, but was instead given a link to follow in which to read the message on Facebook. I spent the better part of the next hour trying to either figure out how to get to that part of Facebook with only the phone I had, actually log in with a mobile device, and finally giving up and then being anxious until I was able to read it hours later from a proper laptop.

I've got a similar story about getting an e-mail telling me I had an e-mail from a friend but had to login to a site to read it only to find the site was down and remained that way for the next several hours. This drove me insane especially since they'd already sent me a message, who not just send me THE message rather than making me come to the site to read it. The answer of course boils down to pageviews. Sites get extra traffic when you need to log in to read inter-site mail and are afraid of losing that by sending you the actual message. Sometimes just logging in to see the message is painless, but sometimes it's an absolute nightmare. The worst offender in this, of course, is MySpace and that is in part why I deleted my account in utter frustration last year and haven't ever looked back.

This seems to be the default when a website begins to offer some kind of private messaging. Some sites call it mail, others call it direct or private messages, but it's all the same - a note from one person to one specific other person. I made this spreadsheet off the top of my head using a handful of sites that offer this option to their users. Of the 12 sites I used as examples, only five of them actually sent me the full message when someone sent me something using their system. The other seven required me to log in to see the note, unfortunately SG is in the "make me log in to read it" category. I publicly asked last month if I really needed another inbox because that's the role many of these sites are trying to fill.

The fact is I already have an inbox, and when I get messages there I like to read them. I don't want to be told that I have to go to some other inbox to see a note someone sent me. That's not a good thing for the user, it's creating extra steps and makes me feel like I'm being punished for using that sites particular system. On the other hand when I get a notification from a site like Twitter or Plazes that includes the actual message that someone was trying to send me I always think what a nice feature that is and am glad the folks at those sites understand this simple concept - Don't send me mail to tell me I've got mail, just send me the mail and skip the extra steps.

29 Comments

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grayness

Newberry, SC

January 2006

JUL 23, 2007 04:10 AM

You shouldn't have to log into SG to read your SG messages- go to "My SG", then "Settings", then-

MESSAGE ALERTS:

Send email alerts (default)
Email me the entire message <--- choose this one
Do not alert me

Hope this solves your problem.

dave_sector

United Kingdom

July 2003

JUL 23, 2007 04:19 AM

I just dont bother reading them anymore

Posh

SUICIDEGIRL

California, USA

JUL 23, 2007 04:21 AM

I turn off notifications on pretty much every site I visit. There's a surprise each time I log in! It's more fun that way, and apart from the surprise factor, there's never anything of importance on MySpace, Facebook, etc that warrants immediate attention. Anyone requiring that knows my email and can contact me that way.

Emi

SUICIDEGIRL

North Carolina, USA

JUL 23, 2007 04:25 AM

i don't read shit via sidekick etc because it's wayyyy too stressful.

korlis

United Kingdom

July 2005

JUL 23, 2007 05:12 AM

My university takes this to the next level. I'm just finishing up a year on a study abroad programme in Japan, and every time my home university would put out anything - a new assignment/essay/whatever - we'd get an email telling us about it. Only we'd then need to log onto the university's incredibly poorly designed website to actually get the update. Despite repeated requests by the students to just get mailed the assignments etc., we're still stuck using the website.

Cigarette

Cleveland, OH

April 2004

JUL 23, 2007 05:20 AM

And get offa my lawn!

badgers

United Kingdom

January 2006

JUL 23, 2007 05:48 AM

While I appreciate that having to log in to a site to get your message can be a pain, there's always the fear that your customers won't come back to the site if you simply let them email each other outside of it.
Site administrators could always provide the full message text, but only allow you to reply by logging in, which would be a nice compromise i suppose.

Personally though, i like the suspense of being told i have mail, but not knowing what it is. Usually, I'm disappointed.

palacemuse

Phoenix, AZ

March 2005

JUL 23, 2007 07:12 AM

I just can't get behind this article. I turned off email notifications to myspace because I log in to myspace a few times a day. I keep email notifications on with SG because, even though I log in here a few times a day, I almost never get private email from anyone. Like the poster above, I enjoy getting the notifications and then wondering what the message might say as I switch over to SG from gmail. I keep Facebook notifications activated because I never log in to Facebook unless someone contacts me.

My point is...the system seems to work. Just turn off notifications and log in to your favorite sites more regularly.

Keri

SUICIDEGIRL

Virginia, USA

JUL 23, 2007 07:13 AM

Cigarette said:

And get offa my lawn!

hehe.

TheFox

Carrboro, NC

February 2006

JUL 23, 2007 07:13 AM

grayness said:
You shouldn't have to log into SG to read your SG messages- go to "My SG", then "Settings", then-

MESSAGE ALERTS:

Send email alerts (default)
Email me the entire message <--- choose this one
Do not alert me

Hope this solves your problem.

That's what I did, as well - you still have to log in to reply, but at least they'll send you the message. I wonder if some of the other sites might have that setting, too?

verucalovescandy

Prospect Park, PA

July 2004

JUL 23, 2007 07:35 AM

I have Gmail by Google, and you can download a free (i believe its free) application that allows you to read your mail, and its SOO easy, and isn't at all time consuming or hard to read. its the best ive seen yet.

skeeve

Boston, MA

September 2006

JUL 23, 2007 08:33 AM

Oh and just and just an fyi, but if you want to actually read your facebook messages from your phone without having to log in or anything, the easiest way is to enable facebook mobile. Then and messages/wall posts/pokes/friend requests etc.. will be texted to your phone (you can choose to only be notified for some events and not others). Or you can go to m.facebook.com and log in if you prefer the webs. I agree with your frustration as there are plenty of examples that don't offer solutions to this, but you can almost always find a work-around if you take the time to look. Also, I doubt the sites care about the extra traffic from making you log in to read your mail. The idea is that you have to log back in to send mail, and that's where they get the bulk of their traffic. Also the few sites you mentioned really don't need to worry about increasing their traffic. They're doing pretty fine as is.

Erynn

Birmingham, AL

May 2007

JUL 23, 2007 10:15 AM

i would much rather read emails on the site, b/c then i know they're from friends... on yahoo i get way too much junk, and i rarely actually read my mail, i just delete what i definitely don't want to read and leave the rest for later. then in about 6 months or so, i delete those emails as well, as they are too old to hold any importance.

...but, recently i was unable to use my computer, so i was checking my email via phone, and my phone doesn't have the "real" internet. i saw i had a message on myspace from a friend who was getting married soon, and i was quite sure that it had something to do with either the wedding or the bachelorette party, but i couldn't read the actual message, so it drove me absolutely insane!!!

kinghell

Portland, OR

July 2003

JUL 23, 2007 11:34 AM

Just turn off the notifiers and login to the sites once a day, or however often you please. You'll save a lot of time by not getting cranky about receiving useless emails, which then prompt you to write useless articles.

seanbonner

NEWSWIRE

Los Angeles, CA

JUL 23, 2007 12:16 PM

Did not know about the SG setting but most sites don't offer that option. You can turn off notifications but you can't opt to have the full message sent to you. The point isn't about being bothered, it's about the stupidity of sending messages to tell you that you have messages from sites that are supposed to be all about making communication easier.

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