MailPoet News

• The MailPoet Sending Service is finally available to use (for MailPoet 3 users)! After over a year of hard work, we will now send your emails. We've built the entire system in-house, ensuring that your newsletters reach your subscribers' inboxes.
  
  Plus, it's lightning-fast: you can now send over 100,000 emails per hour, a huge improvement over previous third-party options! In fact, we sent this monthly newsletter to our 25,000 subscribers in less than 15 minutes.
  
  Intrigued? Plans start at $5 per month. Simply click the button below to sign up.

• Want to improve the quality of the English writing in your email newsletters? Check out our list of useful tips and tricks for improving the English in your newsletters.
• It's time for a history lesson! As a MailPoet user, you’re no doubt familiar with email. But do you know who invented it? Find out in our brief (but entertaining!) history of email.
• Are you a PHP / JavaScript developer? We're hiring! View the job description.
• The MailPoet team had a bi-annual retreat in Sicily, Italy, where we learned about teamwork, technology, and most importantly, Sicilian booze.

WordPress and Technology

• What's the best way to end an email? Boomerang looked at over 350,000 email closings and discovered that certain phrases had better response rates. Their conclusion? Saying thanks helps, a lot.
• Talk about customer service skills! Back in 1989, Bill Gates, then CEO of Microsoft, was on a tour of the new product support offices. Gates decided to answer one of the incoming support calls, only identifying himself as "William." Gates did such a good job that the customer later called back asking for help from that "nice man named William." Not bad for a billionare CEO.
• Looking for email design inspiration? Check out some really good emails at ReallyGoodEmails.com.
• Fallen out of love with WordPress? Try these 8 ways to fall in love with WordPress again. The article is cheesy but suprisingly substantial.
• WordPress site running slow lately? Speed matters. ManageWP is here to help. Read their lengthy guide to optimizing your website. Our favorite tip: use a caching plugin. It's easy but effective.
• The WordPress community needs to focus more on content, according to Reid Peifer. In this super detailed post on WP Tavern, Peifer lays out a bevy of suggestions for improving the content-creation experience in WordPress.
• Disqus will soon start displaying ads. Using Disqus to power your WordPress comments system? You may want to switch - starting in March, you'll need to pay a monthly fee to remove ads from your site's comments section.

Writing and Productivity

• Launched a product recently? You may find this post by Opps Daily inspiring yet reassuring. Their first month's revenue? A completely reasonable $90. A great success story and far more relatable than those of founders in Silicon Valley.
• Coffee keeps us productive. Coffee kept the famous writer Honoré de Balzac productive too - although at 50 cups a day, perhaps a bit too productive. Read Balzac's 1830 report on the effects of coffee.
  
  Interested in the history of the contemporary coffee movement? Check out this interview with George Howell, The Coffee Shaman.
• Yan Lhert only works remotely. Here at MailPoet, so do we. Citing open-office distractions, arbitrary work hours, and misguided management strategies, Lhert makes a convincing case for ditching the physical office.

Randomly Interesting

• Two of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger, had an obsession with architecture. This article from the Financial Times explores how the philosophies of the men were reflected in their built structures.
• Tired of fast-paced, attention-grabbing modern television? Try Slow TV. The Norwegian project features hours of simple, uncluttered television. The subjects include long train rides, hours of fly fishing, singing choirs, and more. Perfect for a relaxing Sunday afternoon.