Scott on Writing

# re: The Internet Eats 1.57% of Emails 9/20/2004 6:23 AM Dave Minter

I know that anecdote != data, but for whatever its worth this does not gel with my experience with email.

I can't recall an occasion on which an email has gone astray for any reason other than user error. My peer group contains more than its fair share of technophiles, but even so they're usually sending email from systems tended by third parties.

So I wonder what the details of the methods used here were. Did they send the emails manually ? Did the check the recipient accounts manually ? If yes in either case, I'd be inclined to ascribe a large part of that failed delivery quota to mistyped addresses.

I own the site paPerstack.com, and I get about ten emails every month for paCerstack.com (note the C) so this is (again anecdotally) pretty common.

If their tests used an automated system, it raises concerns about either the standards of the academic system used to dispatch the data or the free services receiving it. This seems unlikely; most academic systems I've used have been just as solid as the corporate ones, and I'd expect to hear the free services crowing that 'mine is more reliable than thine' in a PR frenzy!

Are there any other avenues that I've not considered ?

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