UPDATED September 26, 2008 I was told this week that BlueTie/Excite is working to address the issues raised here and are also currently in the process of implementing feedback loop services. Thanks to everyone who posted!
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Sorry folks…I have been missing for a bit. I was on a long EU trip (few weeks) and am just now getting unburied from email and projects now back in the states.
This was some news posted to an email group we are a part of. We have permission to re-post the thoughts here. I did edit it down and used those blurry TV pixles to protect the innocent 
The good news:
Some of you know that our friends at Excite have been operating without an email department and without any dedicated resources which has necessitated duck-taping and band-aiding all of our issues for years. Today, Excite is in the process of outsourcing their webmail to a company by the name of BlueTie.
We don’t know how many of you have heard of them, so they included the following links to us:
http://bluetie.com/aboutus/index.php
http://bluetie.com/aboutus/pressroom/pr2008-04-16-01.php
Our friends there are very happy about this news and to have dedicating time and effort into improving and running their webmail.
The bad news:
That being said, they wanted to let us know some of the changes. BlueTie will host Excite’s mail servers and the web pages. They will NOT handle their abuse or customer service. This will be maintained by Excite. They will be handling their spam filtering and white/black list. They do not have any details as to how they do this other than it is proprietary to BlueTie We do know, however, they do NOT have a feedback loop program. Excite has recommended that BlueTie do so and that it be in ARF format, but do not know if they will heed this advice. They have also advised them to look into joining the many people that participate in many of the anti-spam groups.
Therefore, as of the cut-over date, anyone who currently is whitelisted with Excite will no longer have this benefit. In addition, all feedback loops will cease. To date, Excite has received only an email address that I can NOT share here for email admins to send their wishes to. They expect email to start moving over within the next few days and it will take about a month to move everything. This, of course, depends on how smoothly it all goes. If you have a feedback loop today, Excite plans on sending a similar letter to everyone that is currently on their feedback loop.
If you feel the need to send an email over to BlueTie and are NOT an email admin, feel free to post your comments/wishes here to tell them they NEED to have a feedback loop. We here at deliveryability.com will then compile all of these and send them over.
-Dennis
Eloqua
Hi Dennis,
I would argue that BlueTie needs to provide a Feedback Loop mechanism (ideally in ARF format) to the sender community for the following reasons:
FBL data provides senders with visibility and ultimately the more visibility ISP's / receivers provide to senders regarding their recipient complaints, the greater the understanding the sender community has of why they are facing email deliverability challenges. The knock on effect of all this is that by suppressing complaining parties from their databases, senders no longer annoy the complaining parties and their overall email deliverability improves….well…as long as they’re following all of the other best practices!
Furthermore, complaining parties are happy that they are no longer receiving email communications from senders that they either did not sign up to or that were lacking relevancy.
Ultimately the receiver is happy with the level of service and security provided by the ISP and as a result maintains their relationship with the ISP on an ongoing basis.
Everyone's a winner!
Kind Regards,
Chris Nixon.
As current members of the Excite FBL, this is definitely important information. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Dennis,
Thank you for this information.
I'm concerned that if clients are not receiving FBL data they will start to see an increase in deliverability issues at Excite.
It would be ideal if Bluetie could implement a feedback loop in ARF format so that clients can remove recipients that wish to unsubscribe from their lists.
Additionally, any guidelines and/or links to webforms or information on this topic that Bluetie can share would be greatly appreciated.
Kindest Regards,
Josie Walls
I sent an email from a gmail account to my excite account a few hours ago, and haven't received anything.
I wonder if this trade will works for me :S
I'm sure that if BlueTie decide against implementing a FBL system then our friends at ReturnPath will 'grab a hold of the reins' so to speak.
I'm confused as to what a FBL and ARB is.
I'm writing as an excite email user. I do not at all like this blue tie switch. This past Fri 4 July 8 the inbox changed. I dont like it at all. It looks like Microsoft Outlook which I dont like either. Multiple messages can no longer be sorted, moved or deleted because the boxes on the left are gone. Instead each individual message must be right clicked. I have no mouse so this is very very tedious!
Any chance to end this?
i cant access my excite email at all.
anyone with me?
i cant access my excite email at all.
anyone with me?
You don't have to worry about deliverablity issues with the migration to BlueTie. The migration is not smooth and the new email client/server is a mess. I doubt they will ever put humpty dumpty together again.
I can't get Excite email to load since the change to the Blue Tie system.
One would think that some system testing would have taken place.
This had better get fied really quickly.
I have 3 excite accounts, 2 of them I use for business, and I haven't been able to access them all day today. I have been with Excite for a long time, and like that I rarely get junk mail with them, but this may be the last straw. If this isn't fixed soon, I am leaving for good. I use FireFox, if that means anything.
I can't get into my email either. The change over is a nightmare. After years with excite, I'll probably leave because of this.
I also haven't been able to access my Excite email since Sunday morning.
What a terrible mess!
But of course, have you ever known anything good to come from OUTSOURCING anything!
I've been unable to access my excite account for two days. I wrote to Excite on their help page, and went to http://www.bluetie.com and as a first introduction to their company, I'm not impressed. I asked them for a reply, then hahaha of course I can't read my email. Just like the poster above, I've had enough of Excite. Sure, we get what we pay for, but Excite is paid based on being able to advertise to me. The revenue stream is stopped for two days (so far), both Excite and Blue Tie have bad press, and the user community is experiencing varying degrees of displeasure, with the ultimate on the horizon – abandoning Excite.
After a decade with Excite Mail I may be calling it quits. I don't think I want to live with this "Blue-Tie" thingy. I want to continue with a free web-based Email system that I can use w/o a hitch anywhere in the world. I'll look at Foxfire as suggested above. Any others?
Same problems with the new Excite as everyone else. Today has been a 'little' better in that I have been able to get in and see my emails listed and actually read 1 or 2 before it locks up. I have tried IE and Firefox and it doesn't make a difference. I got a new ymail account since yahoo opened up a new domain I was able to get my same prefix. I am starting the migration over to them and changing my subscriptions and once I can actually get into excite I will move my contacts. Been with excite for over 10 years but I am done with them now. I can't stand the new interface either. Is there a way to switch back to 'classic' excite mode or anything like there is with yahoo or hotmail?
Excite's new email system is awful, and a primary example of the old adage 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. They have violated what should be the most important guideline of software design: usability. Keep it simple, stupid. This is slow, clumsy, takes up too much real estate, and has bells and whistles I don't care about or need. It is also a security risk, as there seems to be no way to delete an email without 'previewing' it.
I don't have the time to learn how to use their new system. If it doesn't revert back in a week I'll get rid of my account and use gmail.
Spike
I can get into the new e-mail system, but there is no mail flowing into my inbox. I have not received an e-mail since July 4 at 9:00 AM. That makes it 123 hours without any mail.
The worst part is there is no one to "talk" to about the problem. I really hole all the incoming mail is being spooled for delivery.
Cliff
Please I want my old format Excite email. I still in disbelieve that Excite did not even made a beta to share with us and to use it as a tool for real improvement with satisfaction of all of us.
Can I get back to the old format PLEASE?
BlueTie… you are a f***ing disgrace. Gee… I really hated being able to check and manage all my email accounts through excite flawlessly for 12+ years. I'm so "excite"d to have all my customers emails bouncing back to them and having websites I do business with alerting me that my email account is no longer valid. I'd recommend switching over to a much better and more reliable yahoo… or set up forwarding there.. but they'll probably get bought out and microsfot will ruin that too. Excite, for you todo this to your loyal supporters makes you the worst, most irresponsible company in the history of the net. The new email system sucks worse than hearing Celine Dion sing. I can't think of a worse analogy.
You HAVE friends at Excite? Ouch. That's GOT to be about the WORST company ever. Absolutely useless followers that fail on ever front. And I was part of the key team that developed the initial branding – they were poor then and only got worse over time. The only thing amazing about them is that they still exist.
Oh, and please don't bother trying to respond to me for a response, I'm using unreachable excitemail.
I also have been using excite mail for a looooong time. It is hard for me to swtich to new address since this is THE main email address for me. The new excite mail sucks. Whenre should I start? I can only see 50 mails per page. It is slow. When i click to one email, the new window opens. I hate it. Whoever decided to do this, I hate you too!
I can not understand how Excite made such a monumental blunder by changing up their mail service. For a tech company to make a untested change in such a critical service is not acceptable. All of the business cards, letterheads and other email records are now rendered useless.
It wasn't broke. They "fixed" it. The e-mail system, to me, was always excite's strongest feature. It loaded quickly, was easy to use, even had a fairly effective spam block system. It worked in Opera. I had no trouble loading it on my linux box. It even pulled up relatively swiftly on dial-up. Now…
My excite email HAS BEEN my primary email account since 1997. Since the change over, I won't even use it. It SUCKS big time. I can't stand it. The Excite folks need to hear us LOUD & CLEAR or else Excite will be the next IndyMac!
Am sitting here thinking am the only one in this mess. I hate the new system, it sucks and just like most people here, am thinking of quitting excite very soon
The "new" excite is soooo bad that I can't even grab my contact list to move it to my new home over at Hotmail. After 10+ years with excite I'm leaving. This mess they call improvement is a catastrophy! When I complained about the new look they answered that they would not have "Classic" email. I imagine that people are abandoning excite by the thousands. It's just sad that they didn't care enough about us long time users. Someone in charge over there needs to be fired.
Although Excite wasn't my primary e-mail address I liked it features. The new configuration is Tongue-and Hog(Blue)Tied. It has lost its appeal and flexibility.
And based on several other comments, it has lost many of its subscribers. It is no longer "Excite"ing.
This is just horrible. Lost most of the information in my contacts list. The least EXCITE could have done was warned us and let us backup our email contact info.
GMAIL is starting to look really nice.
What unwise "okay IDIOTS" made this decision?
The new Excite mail probgram is a total disaster. I don't see anything about it that I like, nothing. In fact, it could not be worse. I am an eBay seller and am now in a living nightmare with all my eBay messages in a mess. The recent ones I've
checked so far have no reply/return addresses, there is no subject, there is no longer a body
message and they are marked as being sent as an attachemtn where none of these was ever sent as an attachemnt. That is just one problem. When I get over this shock I will be out of there.
What a HORRIBLE new system. I have been with excite for… wow… probably 10+ years. This new e-mail apllication takes forever to load, is awkward to use, and the e-mail viewing box is soo small, you need to constantly move the mouse to figure out what's going on. Plus, when you decide to read an e-mail, it either takes forever to load or doesn't load at all (an error message comes up). Are we back to 1995 or is this 2008?!?!? This is the worst switch I've ever seen in the history of the internet and needs to be fixed or Excite is doomed.
I HATE the new excite! I've used excite since I first got online, it was my first privet email, that wasn't my dad's email account. I've been happy with excite since I was 12, and now the bastards turn on me! I can't read a single thing with the tiny windows, to be able to read anything I have to click and open a new window, and I hate that! WTF is wrong with them?! There was nothing wrong! It worked fine! I clicked a email, the email opened! End of story! No fucking tiny little unusable windows and popup windows!
It's like outlook, I HATE outlook! Yahoo tried to do this to me too, but at least they let me keep the normal, sane interface! What the HELL was excite thinking doing this?!
Hi Dennis,
Thankyou for the pointers to Blue Tie. Wandering through their site and a few spare hours searching the net has proved educational, to say the least.
Not withstanding your amusing comment on Excite's patching up of its email system over the years, it has always been my experience that no matter to what far-flung and wretched hole on this earth my job would take me, as long as I could get some form of useable dialup service I could always connect to Excite's email system. This could not be said of Netscape, Yahoo or Hotmail, so this is mainly why I have stayed with Excite through some 10 years.
So these past couple of weeks have in a way been kinda sad as it has marked the end of my ties with Excite.
With my few hours of research on Blue Tie it was simply a no-brainer for me to transfer my contacts (always backed-up to my Palm) to other email servers.
For those Excite members who are complaining about the slow loading, it appears that you will always be downloading some 1.4mb of code each time you attempt to access you Excite email account.
For those members who's computers continue to refuse to load the email application you should take comfort in the knowledge that your security software is doing its job. This appears to be the basic reason the application will not load on Macs.
For those members who do not like the new email application for whatever reason, I suggest you do what I have done and simply abandon Excite to the tides of fate. Life is too short to get upset at the results of bumbling and incompetent management of an internet portal.
Thanks again Dennis for your links and the space to comment.
Have a great day,
Shaun.
I HATE THIS FORMAT. I DON'T GET HALF MY MAIL NOW!!! I WILL CHANGE MY EMAIL TO ANOTHER EMAIL SYSTEM. I WANT MY OLD EMAIL FORMAT BACK NOW!!!
I have had the new email for about a week. The first day, I couldn't load the application at all, despite (reluctantly ) adjusting my security settings even more than usual. Excite is not liked by Spyareblaster and Spybot Search and Destroy in the first place! Today, "the application" will not load beyond 48% at all. I'm awaiting important mail, and now, after 12 years with this email account, I, too, will be ditching it. Can't believe they did this without beta testing widely first, and it just happened to me without warning. I'm disgusted. I've already sent some form with my comments, to get a message saying that I won't be replied to. Sheesh!
This new email service is horrible. I've had email accounts with Excite for 9 years and NO PROBLEMS. Now, there are nothing but problems. I cannot download anything and YES, my connection is fine. And NO, it is not because of Zone Alarm. Yes, Excite is at fault and NO, they do not respond to my queries or comments. I can neither receive or retrieve emails and if this isn't fixed soon, I'm dumping Excite permanently. What a disappointment!
This is the most frustrating and useless exercise I've ever seen. They should fire the IDIOTS who suggested, planned, and implemented this stupid idea, and anyone who objected should be promoted to stop the stupidity. How f**king stupid can these people be? I'm leaving excite. I cannot get to me email (now they f**ked up the pws). I'm calling everyone who used that email and telling them my new gmail account. What a complete waste of my time. I haven't been able to access excite for over a week. Garbage, garbage. This is the end of excite. Someone should anonymously publish the names of the idiots who allowed this to happen so if they apply to our companies, we can stop them from destroying our systems next.
This is the real story.
And yes IWon and MyWay are screwed too.
Here is an example list of the sites that these morons are…recognise any virus laden/over advertising/plain old scumbags on the list? I sure do!
Zwinky
Smiley Central
Webfetti
Popular Screensavers
My Fun Cards
Cursor Mania
Can you say Fisher-Price?
Read for yourself:
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS193135+16-Apr-2008+BW20080416
Wanna let yourself be heard?
These are the two circus tents…
BlueTie, Inc.
Jennifer Balon, 585-586-2000 x1076
jbalon@bluetie.com
IAC Consumer Applications & Portals
Tim Allen, 914-826-2532
tallen@iacccap.com
It chews! I'm in "dial-up hell" and this is just a slap in the face. My family was using it, not anymore.
It usually boils down to saving a dollar, but with crap like this they will probably lose more.
I now have to figure out how to retrieve what I was keeping.
If I don't do it soon enough I will lose it all. Nice system, 10 years of promoting their great email has come around to kick me in the head.
Any suggestions for a new "dial-up" friendly email?
I agree with all these comments. I can't believe that excite would not run anything by its faithful users before completely raping them. I sent an email to excite (more like a "feedback" type of form) and the next page that opened up said something to the effect of "we've been getting a lot of emails, and may not be able to respond to all of them. Excite has changed it's email system and there will be no way to switch between the old interface and the new."
-Nice thinking on your part, excite.
After being with Excite for over 5 years, spending 5 minutes on this poor excuse for an upgrade is more than enough. The old layout was much more preferable with easy ways to personalise your pages and deal with spam emails. This new one is just a total mess trying to navigate around it. It's so bad i've decided to delete my addresses and switch to gmail instead.
I've had an excite account for years and fear I'm going to have to move. The interface is terrible.
agghhhhh
This new email by Excite is crappola — totally unusable and crowded and slow as hell!! I hate it!!! I use Mozilla and it will not download it — I have to use Internet Explorer to get my mail…and then you have to wait while it loads each page. I have DSL and it's even slow — Can't even imagine dial up users — they may never get their mail. I say Excite — this BITES!!!
The new excite format sucks! I tried to access my email tonight and it required my to enter a password, at first it told me I timed out so I tried again and it told me my password was incorrect and I know it is not! I made the mistake of signing off my personal excite home page and now I can't get back on because my password is incorrect. So I can't not only access my email but I also can't access my personal home page. Get with it Excite…I have vital information contained within your website that I need…what a total cluster F@#K this upgrade has been.
I have been a long time excite email user. I agree with everyone else on here. The new service is horrendous. It is extremely slow and takes forever to load. If this isnt reverted back to the previous or more acceptable mode, I too, will move on to using another service for my email despite the inconvenience it will cause to change.
I, too, have been using excite mail since 1998 and have many important personal and business folders and accounts. After having problems loading e-mail, accessing the page at all — today I tried to empty the trash and it emptied my in box. I have sent feedback to their forms, but they come back undelivered.
This is not good.
I have used excite mail for over a decade but after this latest snafu I'm gone. What a pain it will be to tell all my contacts about a new email.
I guess all good things must come to an end.
I use Excite for my business, but now I lost all my messages from my Inbox and all my folders. I had huge amounts of business correspondence in their, now it is GONE!!! I am pi*******ssed