• by November 8, 2000

I knew it was too good to be true. As excited as I was about the useful content at Web Marketing 2000 in New Orleans last week, this week's granddaddy of all online advertising conferences - @d:Tech - is back to the same format we should all be used to.

I did, however, find something on the trade show floor late yesterday night that made me actually say that most childish phrase out loud - "This is SO COOL!"

The company in question is Radical Communication, formerly RadicalMail, which yesterday launched the first of its kind "Buy Within the Email" service.

This thing actually allows consumers to purchase products, register for events, make donations and perform other e- commerce transactions right in the body of an email - whether online or off.

Your target gets an email advertising your client's upcoming conference, for example (to stay somewhat on the subject here), reads it and decides to attend. Right then and there in the email he can enter his contact and credit card information as well as anything else required, and click "send." The order is immediately sent back to you, complete with credit card authorization.

Radical says they're also thinking of making the process even more simple in the future by automatically filling out some of the required fields (if the clients so desire), but that's only on the drawing board right now.

Whether this will catch on with consumers and marketers still remains to be seen, but talk about tracking response! Is this an endorsement? Not until I see proof that it works. Is it worth watching? You bet.