I found an article about the death of email marketing, and since I do a lot of email marketing I was interested on what this specific one has to say. I have read a lot about the death of email marketing. Like the Rise of RSS and the Death of eMail, yet eMails still plays an important role in marketing.

With that said here is their big headline from the landing page I was forwarded to:

Google eLerts Are a NEW And Unique Line of Communication Enabling YOU to Receive FREE Information on a Myriad of Subjects, From Fishing to Car Racing and From Fashion to Celebrity News Making it BIG in Business…

Google eLert Gadget, what is that?

• This Gadget will enable you to subscribe to any of the eLerts contained within the Community section of the eLibrary – you can add any number of eLerts and these will all be delivered to the same eLert Gadget
• These Gadgets are exclusive to a publisher. For example if you just wish to subscribe to eLerts from ‘Bill Gates’ you would download Bill’s Gadget and you will only ever receive eLerts from Bill Gates, no Spam EVER!

The landing page describes it briefly as:

Google eLert Gadget – A Revolution in Communication
THE NEW WAY TO GET THE ESSENTIAL INFORMATION YOU WANT

It uses the power of Google Desktop to deliver the alerts to the user, in a little window. You can see the screenshot below. This looks very simple to a normal alert from Google Desktop, but interacts as they call an eLibrary to provide you the information.

User Benefit from:

1. Ability to receive the information YOU want
2. Ability to subscribe and unsubscribe from eLerts at will
3. eLerts do not contain advertising and are FREE… we do not subsidise the eLert service with paid advertising
4. Receive specialist information via eLert Gadget experts from making cakes to making $$$millions on the financial markets
5. Receive exclusive information not available elsewhere
6. Never miss an important news story, financial eLert or newsletter information, unlike email, eLerts will never get lost within the information laden highways of the internet used by traditional email

eLert says they will create a junk free and clean enviroment. Which might be hard for marketers to tackle? They combat spam by user base, leaving feedback and rating an eLert service, subscribers will ensure quality and relevant information providers are rewarded by higher rankings within their database.

Combating this issue by user base is very powerful. They give warning for those publishers who attempt to abuse the system, those who think they can endure the practices of junk and unsolicited promotions of the bad old days: TEN negatives in a set period and a service is highlighted to admin who then investigate; and should the need arise, deactivate the offending account.

I think the feedback system will definitely hurt marketers, unless there is a keen way to tackle this without getting points, because 10 points can go real quick from one alert if every user of Google Desktop Gets this new plugin.

How do I feel about this especially that I am an email marketer? Well I do not think email marketing will ever die, everyday user optin to join new communities, services, plans, free downloads etc. It is how I will tackle email marketing, and I do it in a good way where I do not spam my users or solicitate to them often. I have conversations with them.

Email marketing is all about relationships and gaining trust. Just like the concept of eLert Gadget they gain popularity by trust in the eLert Gadget, assuring no spam will ever get through. I think this may be another google use especially for eMail marketers as myself but the new spam combat might be hard to bypass because 10 warnings is very little since there are thousands of Google Desktop Users. Plus, the registrsation is $77 dollars so I think I might just have to let this pass and stick to my eMail Marketing.

I will continue to email my users without hassles and follow this new eLert Gadget, seeing that it will succeed or just another hype of the Death Series.

You Can Read a More about eLert Gadget