Well, I’m a bit behind on the blog but Enthusem is coming along nicely. Here’s a quick intro and timeline to catch things up.
The Enthusem Concept:
An online service that makes sending postal mail (yea, the printed
kind) super simple and seamlessly integrated with online content.
The service lets users send direct mailers one-at-a-time (or to a
list of recipients) from a Web browser or through a set of web
services. In addition, Enthusem mailers can include online attachments.
The attachments link the printed communication to online content much
like an attachment to an email message.
The www.enthusem.com website
lets end users send Enthusem mailers while a set of web services let
3rd party applications send direct mail without all the complexities
associated with your typical Web-to-print solution. So, for example,
using the web services, a developer could create an add-in for
Microsoft Outlook that would allow Outlook users to send direct mail in
addition to email.
Timeline and Milestones to Date:
February - March 2007: General feeling that
Web-to-print solutions are too complex and that there should be a way
that anyone with Internet access to send postal communications as
easily as sending email.
April – May 2007: Searching, searching and more
searching for someone who has done it. Specifically we looked for a
service provider that could answer “yes” to the following seven
questions:
1. Can I send direct mailers one-at-a-time from a Web browser?
2. Can I do everything online without talking to a person?
3. Can I pay as you go?
4. Can I personalize text and graphics?
5. Can I use PURLs or something similar to tie-in online content?
6. Can I access the service through some sort of API?
7. Is the quality of the mailers something I’d be proud to send and can I get a free sample?
A number of services hit our radar but we didn’t find a single one with a “yes” answer to all seven questions.
June – August 2007: The final decision is made to move full steam ahead with Enthusem and we start coding the first prototypes.
September – December 2007: Teamed up formally with
Marc Fors - the perfect co-pilot. I learn (once again) that nothing
ever goes as planned – we have to change lead programmers – we fall
behind schedule for our planned internal beta tests.
January 2008: Internal beta is working (sort of)
February 2008: First public beta is live and working (sort of)
March – May 2008: First public beta gets marginal
marks from initial users – “a little too light on the functionality”.
Decision is made to scrap the initial release and rebuild.
June - July 2008: The second public beta is launched – user feedback is MUCH better but there’s still a lot of work to be done.