Ask YC: The art of invitation design?

I'm curious... Where does your assertion that "invitations from linkedin work quite effectively" come from? Is this an assumption or something that has been proven?<p>Subject line most definitely has a lot to getting any email read, regardless of whether it's an invitation to use a service or attend a webinar or an event.<p>When it comes to users inviting users, LinkedIn keeps the standard template message very short. First time you get this invite, you're not sure if it was a template or hand written by whoever is inviting you.<p>The relationship with the inviter is also critical. My guess is responding to emails from people you have had a business relationship might seem more urgent/important than responding to a personal email.<p>Just some thoughts.

Lets say if it spreads from single member to friends with bubble effect; then having name of the member(preferably genuine name otherwise userid/handle) in subject line can help in long way. e.g. morbidkk wants to keep up with you on Twitter<p>I personally dont even read invitation mails from strangers.<p>1) so avoid generic subject line. - A friend invites you to xyz 2) Also check shelfari invite mail; which is very impressive as it just introuduces everything what can be done on shelfari in small but concise mail.

Some email companies allow you to do A/B testing on-the-fly. For a list of 10,000 users, they'll send out 100 of subject line "A" and 100 of subject line "B". They'll pause, wait to see what the reaction is, and then send the remaining 9800 emails using whichever was shown to be the most popular. I don't know if that helps you but it's how companies with budgets/time do it.

As LinkedIn is a professionals networking site, people probably take invitations recieved more seriously.