[Discussion/Announcement] Trackpads Premium Email and Member Groups

[Hannibal]

All;

Our current email service has really been broke in some areas for a while and about two weeks ago I began negotiating with a new service provider to renovate and migrate our email service. I am also looking at more ways to increase revenue on the site that doesnt require crap like advertising etc. I would rather close the site than allow commercial banners and I hope you agree. I feel that a paid membership system would allow a much more stable influx as well as a membership more intuned with the happenings on the site.

This is a really bad time with me being in school and still working on my masters etc but it has to be done. The new service is MUCH better and includes many, many serious options and services that no other email service provides for free. Also, even if you have free email with your Internet Providor, imagine a service that you can use anywhere and then come home, press a button and sync your desktop within seconds. That is what we are getting. Got a mobile phone or PDA? You can even use them to check your email soon as well!

Ok, bottom line up front. Its gonna cost. It has already cost me quite a few smackers to pay for it to be added but if Trackpads is ever going to be a serious site then we need to move in that direction. I have completed a comparison between our new email service and Yahoo, Hotmail and Army AKO and attached it to this discussion.

What is the cost going to be? I was thinking nothing more than $5 smackers for a basic account with all the bennies. These accounts would be tied to the main site and have some other benefits such as rank, tbucks, privledges etc.

Here is an intitial thought, let me know what else would be good to throw in with each level. For all of these I am making something to display in your postbit under your avatar to show off your support.

1. Basic Membership - Free (Doesnt include email. This would be comparitive to our current enlisted rank.

2. Bronze Membership (NCO) - $5/yr. Get some extra Tbucks upfront, standard email account etc. Privledges equal to that of a NCO Rank.

3. Silver Membership (JR Officer) - $25/yr. Bigger email service that would include more space etc. Tbucks and privledges equal to that of the Jr Officer Rank.

4. Gold Membership (SR Officer) - $50/yr. Large Email Storage and features. Tbucks and privledges equal to that of the Sr Officer Rank.

As far as payment I have never had to consider but paypal seems to be pretty touchy with some folks but we could use it and a few others. Either way we choose I will not be personnaly taking credit card information nor will personal financial details ever be stored on this site. For folks really timid about internet security you would be able to snail mail me payments via check or MO.

Ok, so what is the new system going to look like and what cool features will it have? Here they are:

Here is a list of companies that use this software: http://www.atmail.com/index.ehtml?p=...&s=clients&b=4


Features:

Groupware-

Groupware combines the ability to share Address-book and Calendar Items/Tasks among groups of users with optional permission levels (Read/Write and Read-Only) .
The system provides a complete Web-based Groupware system for users within your organization. Optionally, the Groupware module provides a Outlook to Web-based synchronization utility, allowing Contacts and Calendar data to be shared between Outlook 2003/2000 and the Web-client.

Outlook Synchronization-

The Sync Utility allows users to synchronize Outlook 2000/2003 Contact, Calendar and Task data with any email-account hosted by the WebMail server. The synchronization is initiated by the client (Outlook).

POP3 Support-

Allows you to check your email with any pop3 client.

Virus Scanning-

All incoming and outgoing email will be scanned for virus's.

Spam Blocking-

Spam blocked at the server and also many rules to help with any that get through.

More-

Start Page
After logging into your email account, view a summary via the start page. Here you can check new messages, calendar entries, tasks and recent log ins. This is a great place for placing company news, advertisement, banners or logos.

Tabbed Email Browsing
Emails can now be viewed within a tabbed pane below the message-list. Messages can be reviewed much faster due to the navigation buttons, allowing you to scroll through your email archives quickly.

Tree-style Folder Menu
Email-folders are now accessible via a tree-menu, making it easy to categorize folders and access them again quickly. Sub-folders can be created by right-clicking on a Folder. To move a message into a folder, simply 'drag and drop' the message into the desired folder.

Enhanced Address Book
@Mail's new Enhanced Address Book functionality allows users to import and export contacts from/to CSV (Comma Separated Values) file format. Search and import functionality via LDAP is also provided. Users and administrators can utilize the powerful permissions-based tabbed interface of the Address Book to create shared contacts, controlling which contacts are visible to or editable by other users. The Address Book can also be configured to disallow permissions controls for all users (useful for free email services where global address book access is not desired).

Enhanced Scheduler (Calendar)
The improved Scheduler interface allows users to manage appointments (tasks) on a quarterly, annual, or daily basis. Utilizing a permissions-based task-assignment system, tasks can be shared with and assigned to other users or groups of users within your organization, controlling to whom each task is editable and visible.

Multi-account Support
From within the @Mail interface(s), users can access any number of external email accounts via POP3 or IMAP.

POP3 and IMAP Server
@Mail accounts are POP3 and IMAP compatible, allowing users to access their email with standalone clients such as OutLook or Eudora.

SMS Alerts
Configure your account to automatically alert you of incoming email messages. You can customize the service so you can receive SMS messages when an incoming email matches a specific email address or subject.


Mail Encryption
Keep your mail private by enabling mail encryption. Options range from commercial to military grade encryption (4096 bit) for outgoing email-messages. Mail can be automatically signed with your encryption key, allowing other users to send encrypted messages to you.

Spam and Antivirus Filtering
Incoming email messages are scanned for viruses and undesirable or unsolicited (SPAM) content. Users can configure their own whitelists and blacklists. Administrators can filter SPAM behind the scened, using the integrated SpamAssassin, Bayesian filtering, and RBL support.

Support for wireless devices
Mobile phones and PDA's that support the WAP/XHTML protocol can access email resources. @Mail provides an interface via XHTML, allowing users to send & receive email directly from their mobile device.

Outlook-to-Webmail Sync
Microsoft Outlook can be synchronized with your WebMail account so that Contacts and Scheduler data can be shared between a desktop and Webmail client. If a user adds a new appointment/task or contact while using Outlook or @Mail, the data will be automatically synchronized between the applications.

Message Templates
Commonly known as "stationery". The new Message Templating Wizard allows users to add images and enhanced HTML formatting to outgoing messages. After generating a template, the source HTML can be edited manually.

User Mailbox Management
Accounts hosted by the @Mail system can have disk quotas applied to the account, ensuring that the user can not exceed a specified amount of disk space. Accounts that have not been accessed for a given time period can be removed.

Folder Management Utility
Messages received by @Mail can be moved between different folders for sorting and archiving purposes. New folders and subfolders can be added and deleted, allowing users to categorize emails received.

Mailbox Sorting & Searching
Messages contained in a user's Inbox can be sorted by Subject, Date, or Email Address. Users can search their mailbox for messages containing matches of the user-specified string, allowing quick and easy access to stored email.

Lastly, Basic membership on the site will always remain free. This is only an effort to being to raise a membership so that the site will always be self suffeicient and responsive to our users. If the users are the main source of income on any site then they are the ones with the biggest voice in the future of the site/community. That is my goal. Please let me know what you think and what I can do to make this better.

-Jason

[Hannibal]

Forgot. What about current email users?

All email users already in the system will be given a 30 trial period of the basic service. After that they will either need to upgrade or have their accounts removed. This will only effect about 100 users and I apologize in advance for any inconvenience.

I am working with the company to get the current email system converted and once I have more info I will post it aswell in this thread.

Thanks again,

-Jason

[GoddessLindsey]

Jason-

If it's costing you some money, then it's only fair to ask for help in return. I've used Paypal through Ebay in the past, and I've been pretty happy with it.

[ghostrider]

Likewise. The biggest pay-off would be just as you said Jason. A site run by people and supported by people. The only downside I see is the steep jump from basic to mid-level. Hopefully once we get enough user signed-up the cost would go down. Sorta like a probation period type of thing. Just a thought. Other then that it looks good and it's exactly what we need to advance to the next level.

[82nd Airborne Dad]

I have used PayPal for over 1000 sales and purchases on ebay and the Internet, as well as donations to charities, and payments to friends, and loans to my son. I have never found them to be anything but 100% honest, and upfront and easy to use.

I don't have credit cards, because they are why bigger rip offs than PayPal ever could be, and I would never give a card number online ever. There are many more issues with secure purchases using a credit card then PayPal ever had. I guess that is why I don't understand the problem.

They have several million members at PayPal, and what maybe a couple hundred let's say even a few thousand that might have had an issue. WTF? You couldn't please everyone if you tried . . . I know I won't buy anything online if they don't have PayPal. Credit card numbers are easily stolen and more easily used. Authorizations on PayPal, are more secure than logging into TrackPads. I mean how many times have people logged into your TrackPads account.

As far as email goes, I have up to 10 accounts with my ISP, and they don't require a separate login, they don't take "extremely long bites of my time" to empty the trash, plus I have full virus protection. I only used trackpads email because it was suppose to be easy: it wasn't. I wasn't impressed, and probably would have cancelled it soon anyway.

I basically read the subject lines in my control panel to see if there is anything I haven't read in the forums, or via PM's. There has been a total of 3 messages out of a few hundred that were something new. One from Chris 2 from Cal-Dreaming. I would be more than happy to just use my own. As it is, I am only using 4 of the 10 email mail boxes that I could have with my ISP.

So it is cool how you wanna proceed, myself I will use my own system.

[Woodmonkey]

I'm going to stay no matter what because I love this place. That said, what about staff, Jason? Would staff get a break on membership?