Posts by "SntCasado"

Email

19 Ideas to Improve User Onboarding in Webmail Services

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More active users—this is the goal. However, we forget that before they can run, the users have to learn to crawl. The first step towards getting more active users is to figure out the users’ first interactions with the service.

Billions of Users… But a Lot to Improve

In spite of email’s status as one of the most popular online services and a mature product in terms of user interface and features, email providers have a lot to improve on in terms of user onboarding. So what are the key factors in a user onboarding process for an email service? What are the best practices if we want to improve the user experience?

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Cloud

Digital transformation is badly speeding up, so pace yourself for sanity’s sake

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Soon a whole array of technologies will appear at companies, quickly transforming the business world. The pace promises to be frenetic. In 2021, the revenues of companies dedicated to digital commerce that have redesigned their websites to respond to searches by image and voice will increase by 30%. That same year more than 50% of companies will invest more money in the development of bots and chatbots than in the creation of more traditional mobile apps. And by then Artificial Intelligence will create 2.3 million jobs, more than it will destroy (1.8 million).

These are just some of the predictions in the IT sphere issued by the company Gartner for 2018. The rise of cryptocurrencies based on blockchain, the conversion of 95% of electronic products into connected devices, and the transformation of technological equipment, which will have to be much more to be versatile, are other forecasts from the company.

Forrester also believes that Artificial Intelligence will play a fundamental role, auguring that this year 20% of  companies will implement this technology for decision-making. In addition, according to this consultancy, 50% of companies will assign priority to the public cloud (that in which the supplier of services provides the applications and the storage) to carry out analyses with massive amounts of data.

The importance of using technological tools developed by third parties is clear, considering, for example, the incredible increase in technological services geared towards marketing; according to a detailed analysis by the website Chiefmartech.com, they have gone from 110 in 2011 to more than 5,000 in 2017.  

Digital innovation is a train that never stops, so companies have an infinity of technological tools to improve their business processes and better serve their customers. However, it is necessary to remember that they cannot all be adopted at the same time, and much less can they be developed with internal resources alone.

Thus, it is advisable for IT leaders at companies to develop their digital strategies centring on the adoption of certain technologies the market offers, and come up with a plan to adapt to changes without haste, but without dragging their feet either. Nothing suggests that machines are going to surpass human intelligence in the short term – an event that some experts predict will happen, eventually, and that is known as technological singularity – so it will have to be human professionals who use them in the business world for the time being.

Focus on some strategies….

Since it is impossible to keep up with the current rate of innovation, it is a good idea to study which technological trends a company can implement, and focus on the main ones. Now, what are the trends not to be overlooked in 2018?

  • The necessary digital transformation. Addressing digital transformation is vital for all companies today. In this regard, digitising all corporate assets and implementing SaaS (Software as a Service); that is, trusting services based on a website offered by a third party, is fundamental.
  • The importance of data. Big Data is another one of the great technological trends in recent years, as the enormous amount of data that a company has can yield valuable lessons. It is necessary, however, to have enough capacity to store and to process that great amount of information, such that turning to the Cloud is essential.
  • APIs. Using APIs from third parties – a series of rules that allow applications to communicate – can be very useful. For example, a company can use one or more APIs to develop its own product, as well as create its own API so that other developers use its data.

  • Chatbots. Artificial Intelligence not only makes it possible to optimise companies’ business processes, but also to open up new communication channels with customers. In this regard, bots are going to become more and more popular; conversational interfaces that respond to users’ requests automatically, any time of day, via text or voice.
  • Compliance with regulations. It is necessary to know the law when storing data and auditing processes, as well as to monitor for compliance with it. Of special note is the entry into force of the new General Data Protection Law of 25 May, which, as we have already told you, obliges all companies that operate in the European Union to comply with a series of measures designed to give citizens greater control over their digital information.
  • A change in thinking. The role of IT directors at companies has been changing in recent years. For example, instead of centring on making decisions, a CIO must adopt a more collaborative role, concerning himself with the global results of the company, and not only with those of his department.
  • Technologies that set one apart. Each company must ask itself which technologies set it apart from the competition. Business Intelligence through the help of analytics, Digital Marketing, solutions in the Cloud, mobile applications, the Internet of Things, and Artificial Intelligence are, in that order, some of the 2,834 technologies that CIOs interviewed by Gartner think will help their companies to differentiate themselves.

Trust solutions provided by others

Keeping up with the current pace of innovation is hard. Thus, instead of rushing and scrambling to follow every technological trend, it is far better for IT departments to focus on just some, and adopt their own rate of implementation. In this regard, trusting the technological solutions that the market already offers – for example, public Cloud services like the one from ShuttleCloud – will help them to quickly adapt to changes.

Gmail

Best Enterprise Email Providers in 2019

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Email is today an essential tool for both internal and external communication in companies of all sizes. Whether you are a freelancer or operate a 100,000-employee company, you need a good email provider. Here, we present you with the top email providers for enterprise and business users in 2019.

Need to migrate between providers? ShuttleCloud is the leading email migration provider, and can help you seamlessly copy all your emails onto your new provider.

1. G Suite by Google

Gmail is widely recognized as the undisputed champion in consumer email. But Gmail, as a product, is also used it in organizations of all sizes, from one-person companies to big banks with thousands of employees.

G Suite packs Gmail, Google Drive (with Spreadsheets, Docs, file storage and sharing, and more), Google Calendar and many more products and features — all under your own company’s domain, white-label branding, and an extensive array of management settings and features for advanced enterprise usage.

Pricing starts at US $ 6 / month / account for the Basic plan. Depending on your requirements, especially regarding data retention and other advanced features, you may need the Business plan, which starts at US $ 12 / month / account.

Whether you need a certified G Suite partner to ensure a smooth operation within G Suite, or are looking for help migrating emails from any provider into G Suite, ShuttleCloud has a solution for you.

2. Office 365

Office 365 is the answer to G Suite by Microsoft. While the email product is not as advanced as Google’s offering, its strong selling point is the inclusion of the quintessential Microsoft Office suite —including Word, Excel and more— in most of the plans. In addition to the licenses for desktop software, Office 365 also works with Exchange access (useful if you live and breathe Outlook!), and comes with browser-based versions of Excel and Word, as well as OneDrive, for enhanced collaboration, file storage and sharing.

Pricing starts at US $ 150 / year / account (with a 1-year commitment, or $ 15 / month without commitment). While the pricing is not as competitive as Google’s, Office 365 is a great option if you are coming from a hosted or in-house Exchange solution and need an easy migration path to the cloud, or if you rely heavily on Microsoft Office licenses for desktop software and want to leverage this new licensing model.

3. Zoho Mail

If you are looking for the most affordable solution that will enable you to send and receive email with your own domain, then Zoho Mail, which starts at US $ 12 / year / account, is undoubtedly the most affordable option in the market. Zoho Mail also includes Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Tasks and Bookmarks.

However, unlike with Office 365 and G Suite, office automation is not included in the most basic package—but you can switch to Zoho Workplace, including email and productivity tools, for only US $ 36 / year / account (or US $ 4 / month / account).

4. FastMail for Business

If you’re looking for only contacts, calendar and email in a hosted cloud —with no productivity suites and no cloud-storage offerings alongside—, and value a strong focus on privacy and security, then FastMail is a good choice for you. Starts at $ 50 / year / account (or $ 5 / month / account) for an account with a custom domain.

5. ONLYOFFICE

While its offering is heavily focused on office productivity, including very advanced Word, Excel and PowerPoint browser-based competitors, ONLYOFFICE’s cloud-based offering also includes email with your own domain. Price varies depending on the number of accounts and your commitment, however, you can expect to pay around US $ 36 / year / account, and includes email, document management, cloud-based office suite, calendar, CRM and more.

Gmail

Breve historia de la arroba (@)

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La arroba era una medida de peso y volumen en la Edad Media. En Castilla equivalía a 30 libras y en Aragón a 36, es decir, a la cuarta parte de un quintal en ambos reinos. Un quintal, por su parte, valía unos 46 kgs. Luego de la Revolución Francesa se establecería el quintal métrico, dándole un valor de cien kgs. La arroba se identificó posteriormente con el símbolo @, parece que como una derivación de la antigua medida griega llamada ánfora. La fecha tal vez más antigua de que tenemos constancia es la que aparece en un documento de un mercader que envió su mercancía de Sevilla a Roma el año 1536. En su documento de entrega hizo constar que “una @ de vino, que es la treceava parte de un barril¸ vale setenta u ochenta ducados”. Alguien ha encontrado que la fecha pudo ser anterior: en 1448.

Sea de ello lo que fuere, tal símbolo casi olvidado en los anales de los reinos antiguos ha vuelto a la arena desde que Ray Tomlinson, el programador norteamericano que puso en funcionamiento el primer sistema de correo electrónico, comprendiendo que no debía utilizar ningún carácter que estuviera presente en los nombres de las personas o las empresas, dio en hacer uso de la @ de arroba. Así apareció la primera dirección de correo electrónico: tomlinson@bbn-tenexa.

Tomlinson dio el primer paso el año 1971. Él no pudo imaginar entonces lo que vendría después. Ahora sabemos que hace cuatro años, el 2015, había más de dos mil seiscientos millones (2.600.000.000) de direcciones de correo electrónico, entre particulares y empresas, cada una de las cuales constaba de una @ entre el término que identifica al usuario y el host servidor. Se pensaba entonces que el número se incrementaría en unos trescientos mil (300.000) al año, de manera que en este año 2019 habría llegado a tres mil setecientos millones (3.700.000.000), pero esta cifra se superó con creces hace dos años, en el 2017, cuando sobrepasó los cuatro mil millones (4.000.000.000), un número superior a la mitad de la población del planeta, que ronda los siete mil seiscientos millones (7.600.000.000). El flujo diario de mensajes entre esos usuarios del correo electrónico superaba entonces los doscientos sesenta mil millones (260.000.000.000), que pasaron a más de doscientos ochenta mil millones (280.000.000.000) el año pasado (2018) y seguramente superarán los trescientos mil millones este año 2019.

Gmail

Origen etimológico del email

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Email es abreviación de electronic mail, que significa correo electrónico.

La palabra correo procede del latín currere, que significa correr. De ella proceden otras como corso, corsario, discurrir, concurrir, recorrer, socorrer, etc., y está emparentada de cerca con otras más, como carro, cargar y carroza. Todas ellas hacen referencia a un sujeto que ejecuta una acción. El correo era el hombre que, primero a pie y luego a caballo o en algún carruaje, llevaba una misiva de una persona a otra.

Un correo renombrado que la historia recuerda es el soldado ateniense de nombre Filípides que el año 490 a. C. corrió sin descansar 40 kilómetros y 195 metros, la distancia que separa a Maratón de Atenas, logrando pronunciar las palabras “¡Nike, Nike, Nike! (“¡Victoria, Victoria, Victoria!”), justo antes de caer exhausto y morir. La guerra había sido declarada a los griegos por el Imperio Persa.

Otro fue Miguel Strogoff, el correo del Zar de Rusia, que hubo de recorrer unas dos mil quinientas verstas, unos dos mil seiscientos sesenta kilómetros, para ir de Moscú a Irkutsk, capital de la Siberia Oriental. Por el camino tuvo tiempo de declarar su amor a una mujer, visitar a su madre, sufrir torturas, etc. La gesta fue novelada por Julio Verne.

Recorrido de Strogoff

Luego se entendió que el correo era el contenido del mensaje, que ahora viaja a la velocidad de la luz sin necesidad de mensajeros que lo lleven de un lugar a otro.

Hoy no es posible declarar la guerra ni el amor. No hay tiempo.

ShuttleCloud

How the GDPR and data portability impacts email providers

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2018, now underway, will be marked at the corporate level by the incipient application of the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. May 25th is the deadline by which all EU Member States, institutions and companies must comply with this new and demanding piece of legislation, binding on any European citizen having control over personal digital information.

To this end, the regulation requires that all companies operating in the European Union establish security controls in order to protect the storage of their customers’ data. The law also recognises users’ right to have their data erased, and a new right to data portability.

In essence, the latter will allow users to receive the personal information that they have provided a service if they so wish and, in addition, dispose of them in a format apt for their transmission to a different service.

Logically, email providers are among the companies that are to send this information to users so that it can be easily transferred to a third party. We explain in detail what this right to portability consists of, and how ShuttleCloud can help any email provider meet its obligation.

What is the right to portability?

The right to portability that companies responsible for data processing must guarantee before mid 2018 is set down in Article 20 of the GDPR as follows:

The data subject shall have the right to receive the personal data concerning him or her, which he or she has provided to a controller, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those data to another controller without hindrance from the controller to which the personal data have been provided, where (…) the processing is carried out by automated means.

In exercising his or her right to data portability (…), the data subject shall have the right to have the personal data transmitted directly from one controller to another, where technically feasible. 

In essence, the right to portability provides users with the ability to obtain and reuse their data in different services, such that they can move, copy or transfer personal information unimpeded.

This right encompasses, therefore, two different aspects that companies have to take into account. Firstly, users have the right to receive that information in a “structured, of common use and in mechanical reading” format so that they can store it on their device and manage it in a simple way. Second, they must be able to transmit their personal information from one company to another “without impediment”.

Now, what companies have to comply with the requirements of the GDPR and, in particular, manage the personal data of an individual in a usable and transferable way? A report published in the European Journal of Law and Technology states that the right to portability will apply to social networks, search engines, and online stores, in addition to photo storage and email services; everything from large companies (such as banks, pharmaceutical firms and airlines) to the smallest enterprises must meet these requirements.

In fact, violating the requirements of the GDPR can cost organisations dearly, as one of the major developments in the new regulation is the toughening of sanctions.

They will be divided into two ranges. Fines could reach up to 20 million euros, or the equivalent of 4% of corporate turnover the previous year (whichever is larger) for the most serious infractions, such as not having sufficient consent from customers to process their data, or not meeting Privacy by Design requirements.

The law calls for fines of up to 10 million euros, or 2% of the company’s revenue, for those that break rules such as not having their records in order, not informing the supervisory authority of a security breach, or not conducting impact evaluations.

How ShuttleCloud helps you comply with the GDPR

The new data protection regulations, thus, empowers EU citizens: if a user has a virtual mailbox with a certain email provider, and wants to switch to another, the new provider contracted must be able to ask the first for his stored information, in order to be able to transfer it to the second one in a simple way, without losing contacts or emails along the way.

ShuttleCloud, thanks to its email and data migration technology, can help email providers that operate in Europe comply with the new GDPR. But, what can we offer to ensure that email providers comply with the law’s data portability provision?

Thanks to our current technology, a user who wants to transfer his data (emails and contacts) from email provider A to a new one, B, must simply provide us with the data on the new provider. You can check it out on the following email migration portal that ShuttleCloud has developed for Stanford University: the client just indicates the username and password of his old email service.

With these credentials, ShuttleCloud will be responsible for accessing the service (provider B) and will automatically migrate to the provider, on its own and in a secure manner, all the content stored by the user in his email into his new mailbox, along with his contact list, through our API.

Here you can see the complete process to migrate emails and contacts from other providers to Gmail using our technology. For more information on how ShuttleCloud integrates into the services of different clients, see this article.

With this simple procedure and ShuttleCloud’s technology, any email service provider can fully comply with the portability regulation governing this type of data as set out in Article 20 of the new European GDPR law. We guarantee the integration and migration of over 200 email providers around the world, and our clients include some of the most important email services in the world and on the US market, such as Gmail and Comcast. 

If you are an email provider operating in the European Union, you must take action to comply with the GDPR. You will have to meet the requirements allowing your clients to enjoy the right to data portability, and ShuttleCloud can help you do this.

Are you an email provider that needs help with data portability and the GDPR? Contact us. We will be happy to help you so that you can comply with the European regulations entering into force on May 25. Write to us at: sales@shuttlecloud.com.

Image: Pixabay.

Behind The API Inside of ShuttleCloud

How ShuttleCloud technology is integrated into our clients’ user interfaces

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All users harbour valuable information in their email, from contacts to messages containing important data. That’s why, if you want to start using another email provider, you will want to migrate all that information to your new account, although you will need a simple process to do so.

ShuttleCloud can allow your company to offer new users the option of transferring those valuable emails and contacts from another provider to yours, easily.

We offer to our customers integration with more than 200 email providers, including Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo, which already allow their users to transfer that personal data. ShuttleCloud helps companies with a large client base to increase the growth of their users, as well as their commitment over time, allowing them to import emails, contacts or other data from another provider in a simple, scalable and secure way.

Integration as if by magic

At ShuttleCloud we work with the leading email and address book providers on the market. In fact, the ShuttleCloud migration platform makes it possible to migrate 30 million emails and more than 3 million contacts from dozens of providers each day.

If you are also interested in offering your users the possibility of migrating their personal data from more than 200 providers, you’re probably wondering if the integration of our technology with your user interface will be simple and accurate. The truth is that our technology adapts easily. Later we will show you that integration in the interfaces of some of our clients, to prove it to you.

Thanks to this the user experience is enhanced, minimising possible hassles when changing email systems. At the same time, you will maintain complete control over the user interface during migration. In the same way, this perfect integration makes it possible to improve user activation when importing contacts from a virtual address book.

In this way you will bolster the use of your service by users (by having all the data in one place, they will stay longer in it) and your user cancellation rate will decrease.

Some examples of integration

So you can check out how ShuttleCloud integrates with some of our partners, it is best if you see for yourself. Let’s start by showing you how easy it is to import emails and contacts using ShuttleCloud technology within Gmail. The integration of Gmail with our API is such that it guarantees us that users do not abandon the Gmail experience. No wonder hundreds of thousands of Gmail users import their data via ShuttleCloud every month.

For a user to import all he has to do is click on the sprocket on the right side of his inbox, and then on Settings. Once there he goes to Accounts, Import, and then Import Emails and Contacts. When this option is selected he will be able, for example, to transfer emails from an Outlook account.

For this he will first have to indicate his email address and password. The process is automatic, and ShuttleCloud uses SSL and/or Auth security standards to guarantee security. When the process is finished the user will receive an email notifying him. At that time he will find a new folder in the left column of Gmail with all the emails that he has migrated.

In this video you will appreciate even better how ShuttleCloud technology is perfectly integrated into the Gmail interface, so that importing contacts and emails is very simple:

Transferring contacts from Google’s address book is also very easy. The user only has to access Google Contacts, click More in the column on the left, and then click on Import, without leaving the platform.

ShuttleCloud has also launched an integration for transferring of contacts into Yahoo that allows users to increase the number of providers from which they can import information. Again, the user interface has been respected, in this case that of Yahoo, thanks to our API.

These are not the only examples. Here you can appreciate the email migration portal for Comcast Xfinity created by ShuttleCloud. This portal eliminates the complex management of email transfers and also includes top-notch support so that everything goes smoothly.

By filling in the fields Transfer From This Email and Transfer to this Comcast Account, the user can conveniently start the migration. Just as easy is the process to migrate contacts from Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook to Comcast through the portal hosted by ShuttleCloud.

You can also visit the “previous” migration portals of the prestigious universities such as Harvard and Stanford universities. In both cases, the process to carry out the migration through ShuttleCloud is the same (enter the credentials of the origin and destination accounts, wait for the migration to take place, and receive an alert when it finishes). Even the design is similar, but we have adapted the portals to each university to tailor them perfectly to their specific designs and user interfaces.

Do you want to enjoy ShuttleCloud?

ShuttleCloud can help your users easily migrate emails and contacts from more than 200 providers. Thanks to it you can increase the commitment and retention of your users by improving their experience through an impeccable integration between ShuttleCloud and your interface.

Contact us if you want to increase the value of your service for your clients through our technology. Do you need help? Visit our support forum.

Gmail

The success of the API economy: how they are driving new businesses

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A system able to automatically recognise any object in a video and describe it with words so that anyone can find the frames by looking for those terms. This is how API (Application Programming Interface) Video Intelligence works, which Google has launched this year for developers to design their own applications using the method. The giant based in Mountain View also invites third parties into it by opening up other doors for them via other APIs: any app can tell the user how to get to a destination using Google Maps, or use the capabilities of Google Translate.

Other big-name companies are also building bridges to third parties thanks to their APIs, which we can define, in simplified terms, as sets of rules that allow applications to communicate with each other (one opens the door and the other enters, to “chat”). Facebook makes it possible to create chatbots in Facebook Messenger, Twitter has just revised its API platform to better offer all its functionalities, and Amazon has even created a platform so that anyone can publish its own APIs.

However, it is not only the goliaths that are generating new business opportunities in the “API economy“. According to Programmable Web, a page that counts them, there are already more than 18,000 APIs.

And ShuttleCloud is one of them. Using our API, interested companies can offer their new users the chance to migrate all the information from one email account to another. In this way these users can transfer the personal data stored in their email accounts, from more than 200 providers (including Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo) in a simple and secure way.

Monetization strategies

“We already live in an API economy where CIOs must look beyond APIs as technology and instead build their company’s business models, digital strategies and ecosystems on them”. Paolo Malinverno, Vice-president of Research at the tech-focused consultancy Gartner, spoke of the need for companies not only to see API’s as a tool, but also to realise the business opportunity entailed by opening up their doors to other companies, instead of locking up their functionalities and data or using those of others to improve their service.

More and more companies seem to be aware of the advantages offered by these interfaces. In fact, some have already called 2017 the year of the API economy, although forecasts call for them to increase even further in the coming years.

The most common business model, as reflected in the IBM report on the API economy, is direct consumption: an organisation develops an API and offers developers the ability to use it. However, there are different ways to monetize an API:

  • Indirect or intangible monetization. This is the strategy followed by Google or Facebook: they allow the free use of their APIs in order to increase their presence on the market. Despite this, some companies place certain limits on the free use of their APIs. For example, they can charge the developers of an app when the API receives too many visits from its service, like Google Translator does.

Allowing an API to be used completely free of charge (Dropbox’s strategy) also has benefits for the company: users continue to use the platform, even if it is not directly through their website, and that makes them use their storage space, whose expansion does require payment.

  • Transactional monetization. Under this model the API developer receives benefits through direct use: it establishes an amount that the people responsible for an application have to pay based on the volume of API use, receiving revenue based on it.
  • Monetization based on the product. In this case the price is based on the estimated value of the service offered to the company using the API. For example, this monetization can be determined by a fixed rate, or an amount can be established based on the revenue of the company that uses the API.

Although it is, obviously, necessary to devise a strategy to monetize APIs and for their creators to benefit from making them available to developers, those who use them also benefit greatly.

After all, a developer can create an application in a short time and without too much effort by accessing programs and data that he otherwise would not have been able to. In this way a company can launch a product using one or more APIs and focus on designing a feature that sets its app apart.

Sometimes APIs arise from an alliance between two different services, and end up offering functionalities not only to end users, but also to companies that can benefit from the alliance. A case in point is Shopify, an e-commerce platform that joined forces with Facebook to create stores integrated into the social network. Now thousands of businesses sell their items and offer customer service directly from Facebook, thanks to it.

As is clear, Application Programming Interfaces have advantages for different parties, both for those who choose to share information, and those who borrow it, making things easy for the end user. Thus, it seems only logical that the API economy will continue to pick up steam. ShuttleCloud is one more actor in this new economy, as an API facilitating the migration of email between the major providers. Check out ShuttleCloud and our clients.

Gmail Meter Product ShuttleCloud

Gmail Meter, the Main Tool in a Business Insider Report About Email Analytics

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Last month, the Australian edition of the news website Business Insider (BI) published an interesting report analyzing how Venture Capitalists (VCs) manage their email inboxes.

To make the report, BI contacted UK-based VC Christian Hernandez, cofounder and managing partner of London-based White Star Capital. To track Hernandez’s email inbox, they used Gmail Meter, the email analytics tool developed by ShuttleCloud.

GmailMeter Continue reading →