Comment by 6ren | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 6ren | Hacker News Reader

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OK, so I gave AppSumo my email because I trust patio, and they said they aren't spammers. Now they've sent me a welcome email, saying in part:

> We ONLY email you a few times a month about our exclusive deals for the best web applications.

There is no opt-out link. Going to my account on their website, there is no way delete my account or unsubscribe. So here's what's going to happen: they will email me. I will curse their name, mark it as spam (because that's what it is), and gmail will learn that they are spammers. But I'm scratching my head: why would they do such a thing? EDIT I've now marked their welcome message as spam, so hopefully that will save me the trouble of seeing their emails in future.

In addition, I can't access the video - it says something about share/tweet, but the buttons don't appear for me. I'm not even interested in doing this thing - just interested in learning what the basic idea is, especially since it's patio's.

Overall, I do not rate this experience highly. :/

Suffice it to say that they're substantially more aggressive with email capture and viral mechanics than I would be. All of their normal emails have unsubscribe links. It appears their automated welcome email doesn't -- that is probably a technical oversight, since it also misses all their normal templating, too.

They're almost certainly using a different service for transactional emails than they are for bulk emails.

I've used SendGrid and MailChimp together before, and while I'd avidly recommend either of them to people needing that sort of thing, my biggest pain point was always in the reconciliation between the two.

> In addition, I can't access the video - it says something about share/tweet

Yeah, you have to spam your friends with it in order to get the video.

Or share it only with yourself on Facebook.

Had they let me edit the tweet to something more reasonable without BIG CAPS (FREE!) letters I would have happily shared it with my friends and colleges. As it was, it wasn't the type of spam ad I'd like to be publicly associated with.

I've seen enough instances of this kind of thing now that I've got two facebook accounts - my real account and my spam account (just like I have two email addresses).

You have to share it to get it for free. You are free to purchase it privately after today.

Perhaps it's splitting hairs, but "have to" and "free" could be construed as being at odds with one another, in some contexts.

All things considered, it's not that high a price to pay, but it does feel like a bit of a bait and switch.

Further note: now it won't let me go back in and watch it again, it's asking for money. Oh well, I had already started downloading it, so I'll just do that.

Site crashed and I tweeted the big free and everything and I did not get a link to the video. It is not even in my app sumo account.

The resulting download URL is an unprotected S3 URL... Feel free to email me (in my profile) and I'll send it your way.

Deleted comment

Enough people have emailed me for the links that connecting the two isn't an issue, but I understand.

Yes, there is no free lunch. Patrick shares some really valuable info and shares his approach. Don't you find that valuable enough to share a tweet about, especially since you can delete the tweet right afterwards? If the tweet is too much, just wait and pay for it when it comes on sale for a price.

I highly recommend watching the videos.

My comment states that the buttons don't appear for me (and I don't have a twitter account anyway). I don't see anything wrong with viral mechanics (for example, I'm very impressed with how dropbox does it).

I'd feel more comfortable if this price was stated upfront, before harvesting my email. As it is, it seemed that giving up my email was the "price".

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