OK, personal opinion only, but ...<p>I find this sort of thing annoying. It would be especially annoying if I bought more than one thing, unless they changed it every time. But that, in turn, would force me to read through the entire email every time just to make sure they really were just saying - it's shipped.<p>In short, life's short, and I've got better things to do than read through an entire, cutesy email to make sure that it's saying what I think it's saying, and not saying anything unexpected.<p>It's also lying. I bet they didn't do any of that.<p>"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" expresses clearly the difference between "Funny Always", "Funny Once", and "Funny Never". For me, this is somewhere between the last two. I hope it doesn't catch on.<p>And it's not "epic".<p></rant>
If anyone is ever struggling to translate that most idiomatic of british phrases, "taking the piss," this is pretty much a perfect example of one of its meanings.<p>EDIT: to expand on this, I don't see this as an attempt at humour through "cuteness," it comes across as sledgehammer-irony mocking the corporate world's shift towards conversational marketing since the 90s. Customers <i>know</i> that corporations aren't really that personally interested in them as a person, they can't be because of their scale. This is obvious. So I see this email as a nudge-wink from CDbaby to the customer, it allows them the benefits of conversational marketing without the downsides, because irony allows them to both "say it" and "not say it" at the same time.<p>Savvy.
I like Amazon's email. "We're writing you to let you know that your order 3984-39843234-23431-3413 has shipped. This shipment completes your order. Tracking number: 1Z2394829348938293."<p>That's all I need to know. I don't have time to read a novel every time I buy something.
Er, that post is from 2005. CDBaby has been sending emails like that since at least 2003. Maybe they still do.<p>That said, I think CDBaby was probably one of the first companies to engage in conversational marketing, which includes emails that look like they're written by actual human beings. (Even if they are (were?) a little over the top.)
Years ago I ordered a box set 20 Years of Dischord direct from Dischord Records. In the package was a hand written thank you note from the Dischord staff member who boxed it, who not coincidentally was one of the people included in the box set. Instant loyalty. Small and diy are strengths, not weaknesses.
My initial reaction was that they were trying to act like Derek was still there. Then confusion as I saw his signature (were they still sending out the same old emails?).<p>Please put the year in the title if the post is old. Thanks.
Personally I really like this - shows the human side to a company rather than the standard corporate spiel you receive on normal shipping notices. Agreed it could become tiresome 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc time but if they added some detection as to whether you were a first time customer - it could sway someone (such as me) to at least take notice they are that little bit different and if I received the product in a timely fashion it may prompt me to choose them again over another company. Would be something worthy of an A/B test at least - corporate vs non corporate.
I'm not sure it was a great idea. The email comes off as condescending if you aren't aware of Derek Siver's personality (he is a great guy & an HN member) or haven't seen his TED talks (<a href="http://www.ted.com/speakers/derek_sivers.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/speakers/derek_sivers.html</a>)