iZachy

This is my fourth in a series of reviews on email broadcasting service. This will be last email review for a while. Today's focus is Squeet. Like the other three services reviewed so far, Squeet is a free web-hosted service. The main difference is that Squeet gives most of the control to subscribers instead of to publishers. Subscribers can set the delivery frequency, delivery time, and delivery day.

Feed Set-up

Setting up the feed source with Squeet requires an extra step. After you enter the url for the feed, you have to insert a comment snippet into a recent post entry. If you skip this step, you won't be able to have access to the publisher's stats. I have two issues with this. First, publishers already have to log in, so I'm not why the verification code needs to be inserted into a post to gain access to the stats. Second, I could not get my feed verified for some unknown reason. I copied and pasted the code as instructed. After I clicked on the "confirm now" button, I got an "unable to confirm your feed" error message. I checked my source code; the snippet was in there. I saw the post listed on Squeet's preview of my site. I tried again, same result. I waited a couple of hours and tried again. Same result, but this time I saw that the verification code has changed. I tried the new code and got the same error.

Subscription Form

To create the sign-up form, you just copy and paste the Squeet-provided code to your site. Like FeedBlitz, you have the option to use an alternate url in place of a form. However, in order to get the code for the alternate url, you have to re-enter the feed url via the promote tab. I'm not sure why Squeet can't use the information I already gave them. The end result is the code for a Squeet-branded button. There's no option for a text link, however, you can change the html code to suite your needs.

Subscribing

Squeet requires the most work for subscribers. After submitting my email address, Squeet then asks me for my first name, last name, time zone, password, and hair color. Then I am shown a screen with a bunch of feeds I can subscribe to. There's a message, "Select the feeds (or entire groups of feeds) you would like to subscribe to below." I looked at the list and I couldn't find the feed I was trying to subscribe to. Huh??? Finally, I concluded that the list must be additional feeds I could subscribe to. Couldn't Squeet say something like, "You have subscribed to yourfeedwhatever. Would you like to subscribe to the feeds on this list?"

Import/Export

Squeet gives you the ability to import lists by manually entering them into a box or uploading a csv file. In addition to email address, Squeet can also import first name and last name. After you import the list, you have the option of having the list automatically approved or requiring an opt-in request be sent to each member of the imported subscription list. With either option, Squeet needs to approve the import list. However, Squeet is more likely to approve the list if you select the "send opt-in notice" option.

As far as I can tell, Squeet does not seem to have the ability to export your list. If you leave for another service, you might have to rebuild your subscribers' list.

Reports

As I mentioned previously, I can't get my feed verified so I don't have access to my stats. However, according to Squeet's brochureware, publishers can get the data they need and instantly retrieve on-the-fly data about how their feed is performing. The key is being able to get your feed verified. Without that, you might as well make up your own stats to suit your ego. I did notice some sort of error on the stats page. There's a yellow box with the words, "Series S1 value of x (required for style block) is not known. Blah, blah…"

Features

There does not appear to be a lot of features for publishers. Squeet appears to be catering to subscribers. As I stated previously, subscribers can set the delivery frequency, delivery time, and delivery day. Publishers can just sit on their hands.

Branding

Squeet doesn't have their name all over the email, but I still found the email annoying. First, the from field is "DoNotReply@squeet.com." I see the "do not reply" in my inbox and I'm thinking it must be spam and I should blow it up as soon as possible. The second thing that bothers me is the "buzz it" stuff after each post. Can we get that to buzz off? A big annoyance is the ad Squeet inserts at the bottom of each email. I know someone has to pay the bill, but isn't there another way to keep this a free service without ads in the emails?

Turning Squeet Off

Surprisingly, it's not easy to turn off the service. I signed up for it originally via FeedBurner. I deactivated Squeet in FeedBurner, but I kept getting Squeet emails in my test accounts. Next I logged in as a publisher at the Squeet site and deleted the feed. Still got emails from Squeet. Finally, I logged in as a subscriber and deleted the feed from the reader's menu. That worked. No more Squeet emails.

Conclusion

I would not recommend Squeet unless you want to give your readers the ability to set their own broadcast schedule. Otherwise, you are better off with Zookoda, FeedBurner, or FeedBlitz.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 9th, 2006 at 12:05 am and is filed under Reviews, Tools. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.