New York's Insight Venture Partners led a $62.2 million investment into Mimecast, a cloud-based email management service, a single platform combining archiving, anti-spam, security and other features. Mimecast is expected to finish the year with $50 million in revenues. 

A recent survey of 3,000 social media users reveals that the inbox remains a vibrant brand channel, with 61% responding that they read emails from brands and companies. The top reasons cited are discounts/deals/coupons (70%), learn about new products (53%) and news and information updates (41%). 

Iran's telecommunication minister says the government has blocked Google's Gmail service following a court order to bar access to the popular email service. Iranian authorities have warned in recent days that they would block access to Google services, including Gmail, in response to the anti-Islam film posted on YouTube, which is owned by Google.

Is the Obama campaign the most effective, sophisticated and powerful Internet-based money machine in history? Read some of the more poignant and gracefully crafted appeals for donations sent by the Obama campaign. 

Finding the right balance in an email program between the needs of the business and the interests of subscribers is an email marketer's ongoing challenge. Crossing the line results in unsubscribes. The most common mistakes are sending too many emails, not respecting preferences, a lack of perceived relevance and inconsistency. 

New research from Forrester's "The Purchase Path of Online Buyers in 2012" finds that paid search is the top performing tactic for acquiring new customers, while email has the greatest influence over driving repeat purchases. The report also indicates that social channels are not meaningful for driving sales.

New data from ExactTarget finds that the percentage of consumers who use email daily has risen to 91%, up from 85% in 2008. Yet this usage is evolving, as fewer consumers rely on email for personal communications. That figure has dropped from 66% in 2008 to 45% today. Text messaging and social networks have picked up the personal communications slack. 

SMS messaging is growing in popularity - both with marketers and consumers. To make the most of it, pay attention to timing and your call-to-action, and put a premium on targeting for relevance and tight, pithy copy. 

Email is arguably one of the most mission-critical pieces of software that can run within enterprise settings - often demanding 99.9% uptime, and warranting tactical attention and contingency planning. A cloud-based system can offer functional benefits including freedom from upgrades and patches and re-allocating IT staff to more operative uses, as well as financial benefits including financial transparency and scalability. 

A new report by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of the Japanese Ministry of Education has found that 66.5% of people are losing their ability to handwrite Japanese characters because computers and mobile devices write the kanji characters for them. This figure is up from 25.2% ten years ago, suggesting that the proliferation of mobile devices over the last decade has accelerated the erosion of Japanese penmanship.