I don’t know what I would do withut Google. It already tells me what Web sites I want to view and what products I want to buy, and now it will even look out for me when I’m tempted to send ill-advised drunk emails to ex-girlfriends.

Google unveiled Mail Goggles this week, a gmail option that you can set to operate at any time of day or night, though it defaults to Friday and Saturday nights. If the user tries to send an e-mail during the preset time period, a pop-up will present an assortment of arithmetic problems and a timer. If you can’t solve the math problem in time, presumably because you are too drunk to open the calculator accessory on your desktop, you can’t send an email until the preset time period ends.

Google clearly knows that we piddling humans can’t be trusted left to our own devices, and is looking out for our best interests. Now if only Verizon could keep me from drunk dialing…

Not content with reaching your children through movies, television, CDs and a billion pieces of hot pink merchandise, Miley Cyrus and her Disney handlers have found a way to take over your home phone.
As part of a back-to-school merchandise tie-in with Wal-Mart, Disney is offering “phone calls” from Miley (stage name: Hannah Montana) that will encourage kids to get out of bed, go to band practice and practice their vocab words.
Parents just log on to the microsite — which conveniently links to the Wal-Mart/Hannah Montana back to school store — type in some basic information and choose to receive a wake-up call or a reminder for a certain activity. Then, through the magic of the Internet, a lucky kid gets a call from Hannah. The parent, meanwhile, gets a confirmation e-mail, complete with reminders to buy more Hannah Montana gear at Wal-Mart.
Yeah, it’s a little creepy, but you have to be impressed with the creativity. In a market saturated in Cyrus, finding a new, exciting channel to push her name is quite the feat. Getting permission, on top of that, to send thousands of targeted marketing e-mails as part of the “service” is pretty brilliant.

As a big fan of the British humorist Stephen Fry, I’d be remiss to point out an interesting Sound Off that CNN has posted borrowing his witticism: “The e-mail of the species is deadlier than the mail.”

It notes that e-mail and other electronic communication has taken a bite out of the postcard mail stream and asks readers to share their own postcard experiences. Personally, I still enjoy getting the printed piece to hang up and envy from my peripatetic friends - however I get an equal number of blog updates or mass e-mails.

For marketers travel correspondence via the Web has made these consumers more accessible. In fact, Dianna Dilworth recently looked into trends around social networking and travel for a DMNews article, noting that before a trip marketers can use the travel plan chatter to target would-be vacationers.

We’ve yet to report on examples of the marketing that takes place while consumers are on a trip, but it’s not difficult to image receiving a targeted Gmail ad next to a friend’s trip update from Austria with a “Cheap flights to Vienna” link. How are you reaching buyers with wanderlust?

In a meeting with a digital agency last week, talk turned to e-mail marketing. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that the term “e-mail marketing” was officially passé. No one thought of communication with customers happening strictly through e-mail anymore, said the CEO. After all, what about texting? Or instant messaging?

However, a replacement term didn’t seem perfectly clear – “relationship marketing” appeared to be the closest thing that would be commonly used.

Is the term “e-mail marketing” hopelessly Web 1.0? What do you think?

This week’s AOTA conference was a meeting of minds for online marketers who specialize in security and online trust. As consumers get more tools in their hands to create and communicate on the Web, so too do the bad guys.

And the main consensus at the show is that there are a lot of bad guys out there. But still more good guys, which is where the industry meetings come in. The industry is doing a lot to work together to police these issues. And while it is a dangerous world, technology can help. Michael Barrett, chief information security officer at PayPal, equated these products to the seat belt. They don’t save every life, but they sure do help a lot.

One of the big issue that has really been discussed at this show is consumer education. If consumers knew that the IRS does not send e-mail, then they wouldn’t be opening e-mails from spammers dressed up in sheep’s clothing. (Especially those people excited about getting their stimulus checks). But the industry is starting to get involved. MySpace, Craigslist, eBay and PayPal are all actively trying to educate consumers in a move to build trust and safety online. Be it through technology, education and working with law enforcement, the Internet can still be a very safe place.

After a long day of talking about consumer trust and security, the AOTA cocktail had people loosening up. Though it is not a big show on attendees, maybe 200 people, the room filled up with tech people eating sushi and oysters and washing it all down with wine. The band played,  the AOTA team got up on stage and  we all clapped. I think I missed why. I was talking to David Daniels of Jupiter, who sits on the AOTA board and was wondering if he was supposed to go up front or not. Not too worried, he just told me how great everyone up on the stage is.

-Dianna Dilworth

…is probably through some combination of her stomach and her pocketbook. At least, that’s what it seems Dunkin’ Donuts is banking on. Just a month after its “free donut on tax day” promotion (which I almost blogged angrily about because I didn’t find out about it in time), the coffee and donuts chain is holding its second national Free Iced Coffee Day on May 15.

DD expects to hand out nearly 4 million cups of iced coffee tomorrow, and I’m sure it’s betting on seeing happy customers return for more. I admit to already being a won-over DD coffee fan, but even with the already-loyal, free iced coffee can help boost customer feelings about the brand (aw, they care!), cross-sell opportunities (now I have $1.50 to spend on a muffin!), and word of mouth promotions (our editorial assistant, knowing my coffee habits, sent the announcement to me this morning, and, hey, look, now I’m blogging about it!). For the non-fans, it can do everything listed above and, if it works the way it’s supposed to, win over some new converts.

I think the iced coffee is a particularly clever promotion: with the summer heat (finally) cranking up, the hot coffee for which the chain is better-known may lose some of its allure. Iced coffee also carries with it the sense of being a little more special or exotic than your everyday cup o’ joe, so consumers may feel like they’re getting extra-good treatment — for about the same price to the store as a cheap-o cup of the hot stuff.

If they’re particularly lucky, Dunkin’ may also be able to edge in on the same prospects that Starbucks is currently wooing with its free coffee promotion — happening every Wednesday this month. I’m not entirely sure how valuable the “we’ll go anywhere for free coffee” demographic is, but maybe for those undecided, it’s a good chance to let the taste speak for itself.

As e-mail delivery has become more about a good reputation than about subject lines in the past couple of years, Habeas has launched ReputationWiki.org, as a resource for on reputation services.

The ReputationWiki.org is “intended to be a primary resource for marketing, sales and brand professionals to expand their knowledge, contribute to relevant topics and interact with their peers on issues that are important to them.”

San Francisco’s primo e-mail marketing and DM service provider, VerticalResponse, won Blog of the Year at the 2006 Stevie Awards for Women in Business, presented March 8 at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, NYC.

VR’s “Email Marketing Blog” is penned by CEO/Blog Babe Janine Popick. AND I WUZ HER DATE! Cuz hubbie John “Footloose” Hingley of Crush Direct took Stanley to Tahoe for some recuperative snowboarding. Dress code…me: Dolce suit, white-stitched YSL shit-kickers and bowtie. JP: resplendent as ever, in a matte-black pilgrim-belt-buckled Ted Baker number that could be the new uniform for Christmas elves…if they worked for Satan instead of Santa.

The Stevie Awards honor women executives, entrepreneurs, and the companies they run, worldwide, and have been hailed as “the business world’s own Oscars” (New York Post, April 27, 2005). Nicknamed the Stevies after the Greek for “crowned,” more than 180 nominated women executives and entrepreneurs from the U.S. and several other countries attended. Finalists were chosen by business professionals worldwide during preliminary judging last fall.

Winning the Stevie, Popick’s blog was included with “The Budget Fashionista” and “eMoms at Home.” Janine was also named a finalist in the “Entrepreneur of the Year” category, and VR was honored in two additional categories: the “Best Overall Company of the Year” and “Fastest-Growing Company.” The elegant Stevie trophy was designed by R. S. Owens, the same company that makes the Oscar and the Emmy. But I noted to Janine that it was rather flat-chested. No boobies on an accolade for females? What a bust.

“We’ve built VerticalResponse to help businesses communicate with their target audiences easily and effectively, from traditional direct mail to e-mail marketing,” said Popick. “Blogging is another step. Our newsletter has become the ‘teaser’ for our blog posts, letting our users know that we’ve updated the information on our blog.”

2006 was a good year for VR. They placed #402 on the Inc. 500 List, which ranks the fastest-growing private companies in the country, and came in #37 on the San Francisco Business Times List of “Top 100 Fastest-Growing Private Companies.”

Oh, and small world…found out that, growing up, Janine hung out in MY birth-town of Hamden, CT. Home of the Sleeping Giant. And Thorton Wilder. And the now-defunct-but-legendary Bimonte’s Pizza.

–DM News Associate Publisher/Bon Vivant/Raconteur/Ombudsman Robert DiGioia