A group of computer researchers have analyzed more than 10 million Yahoo! email exchanges to identify which countries are sending emails to each other. In the global landscape, people in countries with similar cultures and economic interests tend to email each other more frequently.

The United States Army Criminal Investigation Command, is warning consumers about a spam email that is going around pretending to be from the government agency. The email comes from the fake email address US-Army-Criminal-Investigation-Command@usa.com. ArmyTimes reports the spam message asks the recipient to share financial and personal information pretending that they have been the victim of a scam. If you get an email from this address, the agency would like you to report it.

Email volume was up 5 percent during the fourth quarter of 2012, according to new metrics from Experian Marketing Services. According to the report, consumers are quicker to respond to email than they have been in the past thanks to mobile phone adoption. Because of this, Peter DeNunzio, general manager of Experian Marketing Services, CheetahMail, recommends that marketers do real time testing.

A city councilman in Berkeley, CA has proposed that taxing email could help the government raise money to fund the USPS. The proposal will likely not see the light of day. Aside from being very difficult to swallow and having failed in the past, an email tax is actually banned by Congress, reports Berkeleyside.

Email as a new and sexy channel? It could be with this new iPad app from Incredimail. The app imagines a new possibility for the inbox on the iPad and makes the email experience more like the popular news app Flipboard than like your typical Web 1.0 mail list. The app lets users receive mail from multiple email accounts including their Facebook accounts and create photo inboxes that they can flip through with a touch interface.

Instead of getting hung up on open rates, email marketers should be measuring the "level of influence their campaign had across its duration," asserts Mark Ash, director of media at eCircle, in a column exploring the influence that email has over the purchase cycle. He argues that marketers need to think about email as part of a multichannel effort. Email works in tandem with social media, television, online ads and the in-store experience and while the email may not be the final driver of a sale, it is critical to the overall sales process.

Clean databases, consistent messaging, transparent opt-out functions and conversational copy are some ways to get your email noticed in the inbox, according to writer Claudia Somerfield. She has outlined ten tips for email marketers to "amplify" their "email marketing ripple effect." These tips are a good starting point for anyone new to email, as well as a good refresher for the seasoned email marketer.

It's true that employees spend a large portion of their day managing their inboxes. And not every company thinks that this is a good idea. A number of high tech firms at CeBIT, a global high-tech fair taking place in Germany this week, have been discussing the idea of getting rid of email at their companies. For example, the French IT company Atos is shifting its internal communications to a Facebook-like social networking platform.

Email CRM company Contactually has raised $1 million in venture capital funding from 500 Startups and from other angel investors. The company has also released a new API, giving third-party developers the ability to integrate contact information, email and social media history into their apps.

The point of creating an email marketing message is to get the recipient excited about your brand. It doesn't help your cause if it feels like your email is being sent by a robot. Creating a good email is a craft and requires some finesse. These 10 tips will help make your email feel like it was created by a person and not by a machine.