Comments on: The implication of Amazon SES, a new bulk email service

By: John Alessi

John Alessi — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:37:00 +0000

It will work great for some people, but not all. SES is simple if you are a developer. At SocketLabs we help many developers send email, but we also help an overwhelming number of not-so-technical business people who send email which is equally as important. They need a little more hand-holding and support. These people are much more motivated by our ability to fully solve their email problems, than they are about comparing pennies to dimes.

By: Kim Wright

Kim Wright — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 16:58:00 +0000

Thanks for this article. I work for JangoSMTP, which will be somewhat of a competitor to Amazon SES. From what we have seen, it does look like Amazon SES is very basic – it just sends emails, which is why the price is so low.
Clients often come to us from other minimalist transactional email services, because they need more than just the ability to send email.Those who decide to use Amazon SES will need to have the resources to implement their own list management, campaign management, DKIM signing, reporting, etc. If they don’t have this, then using a company like JangoSMTP makes sense. We offer strong deliverability, advanced reporting, bounce and complaint management, the choice between using an SMTP server and an API to send transactional emails, and a smart, responsive customer service team.
There is a lot of room in this industry and there many different service levels out there. Amazon SES will certainly be attractive to some, but it won’t be for everyone.

By: Chris Wheeler

Chris Wheeler — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:27:00 +0000

In reply to Anonymous.

No. 🙂 They can be outsourced to SES, but let me add senders are always in control of what the recipient level impact is. SES can handle the technical heavy lifting and enable a sender to do just that – send.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:47:00 +0000

In reply to Chris Wheeler. Hi Chris, great of you to comment. We removed the "[through Amazon SES]". So is what you are actually saying, that those steps (getting your house in order) can be skipped when using Amazon SES?

By: Chris Wheeler

Chris Wheeler — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:37:00 +0000

Thanks for the writeup, Jordie. It will be interesting to see how disruptive Amazon SES is to the market and what lies in store next.
Also, you misquoted me. 🙂 Drop the “[through Amazon SES]” since I was saying if you don’t send through us, you must get your own infrastructure set up. By sending through Amazon SES, you don’t have to worry about that piece of the equation any longer. You can focus on content and sending strategies instead of the low level heavy lifting.

By: Cathymark

Cathymark — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:00:00 +0000

If you run your life based on lowest price, then I guess you drive a Honda Fit or Hyundai Accent? Oh, you say you don’t? Me neither because I need premium value in parts of my life. And so do most businesses. There is a market for this service, but premium it is not.

By: Andrew Bonar

Andrew Bonar — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 14:40:00 +0000

In reply to Andy T. Bang on Andy :)

By: Andy T

Andy T — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 14:32:00 +0000

I have a feeling that ESPs may have to make themselves compatible with this in the future.
We will probably see a whole new generation of ESPs and web agencies building their own interface and using this as their MTA – that could be a problem to ESPs, but only time will tell!

By: Andrew Bonar

Andrew Bonar — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 09:54:00 +0000

Having spent the last 12 hours with it, I certainly think it will have a bigger impact than some ESP’s may think, much lesser impact than others may fear. Most of the feedback I am getting is “off the record” as people want a chance to use it themselves before commenting, understandable.
It is not simple to setup, you want to send email ‘right’ so you need to include DKIM signing, that means you have to use the API, so not as simple as plugging in your email providers smtp address and user/pwd combination as you would with smtp.com
On the other hand it does more than just help you get your mail delivered it does give you access to FBL information too.” I have been speaking to Chris Wheeler over at Amazon and my gut feeling is they have a good idea how to manage operations to be able to minimise its abuse by spammers.