Business Finance Tips

Microsoft recently introduced a new way for its Hotmail webmail client to interact with email content. The feature is called Active View, a major update that has the potential to change email as we know it. In this article, we will discuss Active more in depth, and explain how small businesses can take advantage.

Dynamic Content in the Inbox
The days of text-only email are long gone. Today, just about every message a user receives is in the form of HTML, a richer format that is used to be build most of the internet’s websites.
While HTML certainly has its advantages, it is often at a disadvantage in the email domain.
No matter how beautiful it looks, it is still a static technology. This means that when a user opens their email, the content remains the same. So that sales offer you sent to one of your prospects could expire by the time they actually open the message.

Microsoft appears to be on a mission to solve this problem with Active View, a solution that brings dynamic content to the inbox.

It has long been possible to incorporate many of the dynamic elements you find on the web in an email message, but it has been forbidden due to the high level of security risks involved. ISPs realize that allowing Javascript and other programming languages could compromise the integrity of the entire email system. For this reason, any such scripts that are embedded in an email are often stripped before being delivered to the recipient. The Hotmail Active View feature enables code to be delivered in a secure manner as it is based on authentication and a system that only allows approved parties to send messages.

Putting Active View to Work
A small business could leverage Hotmail Active View in a variety of ways. For example, instead of providing a link to your PDF report, you could send it an attachment and give subscribers an opportunity to read it directly from their inbox. If you are using your latest YouTube video as marketing content, you could include the link in your message and allow subscribers to view it from Hotmail. The Active View feature already supports a broad range of interactions, and that number is rapidly increasing.

Microsoft has teamed up with a few brands in an effort to take the Active View concept to another level. Some of its partners include Orbitz, Monster.com, and LinkedIn, all of which are approved to deliver dynamic, interactive content to the platform. Orbitz is sending travel offers, Monster is promoting career opportunities, and LinkedIn is providing real-time status updates. Active View is another step forward in the mission to recreate the web experience in the inbox. It will be interesting to see which webmail service provider is next to follow the trend, and if smaller businesses will receive marketing opportunities such as these select brands.