A TED Speaker's Worst Nightmare

Enjoy this short mid-day diversion from TED and Improv Everywhere.

Posted by Mail Chimp
 

MailChimps at the Zendesk Customer Service Hero Tour

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We were happy to send some of our amazing MailChimp customer support team members to the west coast this week for the Zendesk Customer Service Hero Tour events. One of our chimps even won a Kindle, courtesy of Podio. Thanks guys!

Posted by Mail Chimp
 

Creative Mornings • Ben Chestnut

CreativeMornings is a free monthly breakfast lecture series for creative types started by Tina Roth Eisenberg (aka @swissmiss). An Atlanta chapter of the event series sprang up a few months ago, and In December, Ben Chestnut (MailChimp's Co-Founder and CEO) presented a talk about controlled chaos and creative business environments. 

No matter your profession (creative or otherwise), we think you'll thoroughly enjoy a peek inside one of the minds behind MailChimp.

2011/12 Creative Mornings with Ben Chestnut from CreativeMornings/Atlanta on Vimeo.

Posted by Mail Chimp
 

Friday Morning Coffee Hour With Tim Hwang

As you may or may not know, most Friday mornings we have a coffee hour here at MailChimp HQ. It gives us a chance to get together, chat and learn something new.

This morning we had the pleasure of welcoming Tim Hwang, Chief Scientist of the Pacific Social Architecting Corporation. (You may also know him as the Co-Founder of ROFLCon and The Awesome Foundation.)

In addition to being both charming AND handsome, Tim is a really interesting guy. He spoke about, "some recent research into the use of swarms of realistic-looking bot identities on social platforms to invisibly shape the behavior and patterns of relationships of large communities of users online." Whew, that was a mouthful. Essentially, he and his partners at the Pacific Social Architecting Corporation are interested in learning how bots can infiltrate, interact with and influence social network dynamics.

It was a lot to take in so early in the morning, but well worth it. You can read more about Tim's research here and here.

(download)

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Google tests direct email subscription in search results with Honda

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Expanding Google Adwords services beyond the regular ads, the service is now running tests with Honda that includes a direct email subscription option (prefilled apparently if you’re a logged in Gmail user) in the search results.[via]

This could have interesting implications for the future of email marketing. If you or your company currently run ads on the Google Adwords platform, do you think this is something you'd be willing to try?

Posted by Mail Chimp
 

Anatomy of Facebook | Facebook Data Team

 

Yesterday Facebook released two studies of the Facebook social graph, completed in collaboration with researchers at the Università degli Studi di Milano. These studies examined 721 million active Facebook users (more than 10% of the global population), with 69 billion friendships among them. According to Facebook, these are the largest social network studies ever released.

 

First, we measured how many friends people have, and found that this distribution differs significantly from previous studies of large-scale social networks. Second, we found that the degrees of separation between any two Facebook users is smaller than the commonly cited six degrees, and has been shrinking over the past three years as Facebook has grown. Finally, we observed that while the entire world is only a few degrees away, a user’s friends are most likely to be of a similar age and come from the same country.

 

If you're a data nerd or just someone interested in social network research, this post is not to be missed. The full text of the two studies is also available for download, and you'll find links to that content in the Conclusion section of the post.

 

Posted by Mail Chimp
 

Universal Twelve Step Business Plan

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Don't miss out on this essential business knowledge; see it full size here for premium readibility.

(via lunchbreath on Flickr)

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Check Out Our New 20,000 Sq. Foot Annex!

MailChimp is well over 1 million users strong, and that means we're continuing to grow our team. MUST HAVE MOAR SPACE!!

Here are some photos of our new 20,000 square foot annex in the early stages of construction.

(download)

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The first email was sent 40 years ago this month | The Next Web

It’s become a firm fixture of everyday life, loathed by some but essential to nearly all of us, and yet its future is far from certain. Email is forty years old this month, with the first message having been sent in October 1971.

Love it or hate it, email is here to stay. It'll be interesting to see what the next 40 years hold.

Posted by Mail Chimp