go-Digital Blog on Digital Marketing

All Those E-mails From Pinterest Are Very Good For This Guy

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/all-those-e-mails-from-pinterest-are-very-good-for-this-guy-2012-3

SendGrid has sent 30 billion e-mails in the three years it’s been in business — and none of them are spam.

SendGrid is an e-mail cloud service hired by Pinterest, Foursquare, Hootsuite, Spotify, job sites, daily deal sites and many other companies.

About 40,000 Web applications use SendGrid, says its CEO  — and Boulder startup icon — Jim Franklin. And none of it is spam because users sign up these e-mails, such as job openings, friend requests and the like.

Franklin says it even coaches its customers on how to do e-mail so people don’t report it as spam.

“One person sending e-mail to another is easy. But an app sending out e-mail is hard. E-mail is a problem for developers,” explains Franklin.

So it’s no surprise that SendGrid is growing at 10% annually — it now sends out more than 3 billion emails per month – and it recently landed Microsoft Azure as a partner. SendGrid will now be the default e-mail service for any app using Microsoft’s cloud, Franklin says. New Azure developers qualify for 25,000 free e-mails a month.

The company is one of the shining stars of the blossoming Boulder startup scene. It began in Boulder’s TechStars accelerator program in 2009 and has boomed from there. It recently landed raised $21 million in Series B funding in January — for a total of $27 million raised so far

As SendGrid uses Rackspace, Web apps that also use Rackspace qualify for 40,000 free e-mails per month.

All who know SendGrid are expecting an IPO in as little three years. One of its VCs, Bessemer Venture Partners, has done over 100 IPOs, notes Franklin. That’s if the company doesn’t accept an acquisition offer before then, says Franklin. 

And if you’re interested in one of the 30 job openings at the company, you might also want to know that the company motto is the 4H’s: Honest, hungry, humble, happy.

Please follow SAI: Enterprise on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The Least Stealthy Startup In The Valley Has Officially Launched
• This Stealth Startup Aims To Solve One Of The Biggest Problems With Online Gaming
• These Former Google And Cisco Engineers Want To Change Online Marketing

When news spread Saturday night of Whitney Houston‘s passing, it was the AP who had the first official statement from Houston’s publicist confirming the singer’s death.

But an entire hour before that, Twitter user Brittany J. Pullard (aka @BarBeeBrit) was the first person to tweet the news, according to the below graph posted by Twitter, courtesy of @isaach.

@BarBeeBritt, who resides in Los Angeles and enjoys the Hollywood club scene, as evident by her Twitter feed, tweeted at 4:02pm PST to her then-799 followers:

The tweet only received three retweets and @BarBreeBritt never revealed how exactly she heard the news, but Twitter user @AjaDiorNavy quickly had specific details of Houston’s passing at 4:15pm PST that weren’t released to the public until nearly 24 hours after the initial incident.

Once the AP tweeted the official statement from Houston’s publicist at 4:57pm PST, rapper Lil Wayne quickly expressed his condolences and received 29,000 retweets, according to Mediabistro.

Other celebrities voiced their sympathies as well, but after Lil Wayne, the top tweets went to:

Justin Bieber (15,000 retweets): “just heard the news. so crazy. One of the GREATEST VOICES EVER just passed. RIP Whitney Houston. My prayers go out to her friends and family.”

Nicki Minaj (9,000 retweets): “Jesus Christ, not Whitney Houston. Greatest of all time,” as well as tweeting a vintage photo of the late singer alongside Michael Jackson.

Katy Perry (8,000 retweets): “So devastating. We will always love you Whitney, R.I.P.”

As if there were any doubt, it appears Twitter truly is the fastest news source. Sorry, TMZ, solid effort.

Please follow The Wire on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• 48 Years In The Legendary Life Of Whitney Houston
• WATCH: Whitney Houston’s Final Performance
• Here’s A Breakdown Of Whitney Houston’s Finances—And How Her Estate Will Benefit Posthumously

There’s fascinating disconnect between which advertisers the media thinks did well on last night’s Super Bowl and what the research says was effective.

To hear the business press tell it, Clint Eastwood’s “Halftime in America” spot rocked the house. It was indeed a great spot from a creative point of view.

But it didn’t even show up in the Ace Metrix Top 10. Ace Metrix measures a panel of 500 consumers who watch ads and rate them for effectiveness. That research says Doritos’ sling baby ad won the night.

It was also a big night for dogs. Volkswagen’s much anticipated follow-up to its little Darth Vader spot from last year used an obese dog getting in shape to gets its revenge on a VW it wanted to chase down the street (and then somehow ended up in the Star Wars cantina scene).

Skechers used a dog — Mr. Quiggly — in a greyhound race.

As did Bud Light, whose appeal with Weego, a rescue dog, was heartwarming.

So did Doritos, in another comedic appeal revolving around the whole Dogs v. Cats war.

There weren’t any total disasters — last year both Groupon and HomeAway had to apologize for their ads — but there were some failures in the sense that clients ads bored people or went unnoticed.

Chase ran an ad that for the life of me I can’t recall even though I am paid to remember these things. And TaxACT’s ad, featuring a kid who urinates in a swmming pool, was disgusting.

Later today — much later — we’ll take a look at how B.I.’s readers judged the ads with the results of our Super Bowl ad readers’ poll. Vote early, and often!

Please follow Advertising on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• VOTE HERE: For The Best And Worst Super Bowl Ads
• SUPER BOWL ADS LIVE BLOG: Instant Reaction From Our Man With The Nachos!
• Here Are All Of This Year’s Super Bowl Ads