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

Comments

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 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!