The consensus among the Email Marketing Insider Summit "Journey Mapping" panelists is that email marketing's tried-and-true method of "batch and blast" still dominates most email marketing strategies, but it is starting to give way to more nuanced behavioral targeting methods. InterContinental Hotels Group's Kevin Hickey said the chain still uses "batch and blast" about three-quarters of the time, but behavioral targeting now comprises about "25% to 30%" of its email campaigns.

So what exactly was the first email sent in 1971 and who sent it? That's what Email Marketing Insider Summit chair Gord Hotchkiss asked attendees after his opening remark. "Al Gore," quipped one attendee, leading Hotchkiss to add, "right after he invented the Internet." Seriously, Hotchkiss said was Ray Tomlinson, someone who actually had a hand in inventing the Internet, or at least the part we use to communicate peer-to-peer, you know, email.

There were a couple of unusual things about the start of the Email Marketing Insider Summit in Park City, UT, this morning. One was who opened it -- Gord Hotchkiss, who is better known for his role as a Search Marketing Insider, and more recently vis a vis MediaPost's Online Spin Board. The second, was the musical accompaniment he used to open the introductory remarks.