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Did someone order 500 copies of our newsletter?

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Updated.This morning, we had an unexpected issue with our bulk mail server and inadvertently sent a massive amount of our weekly email newsletters out to people, perhaps to people who don’t even subscribe to the newsletter in the first place. We have halted the email delivery and won’t turn it back on until we understand and can fix what happened.

For those whose inboxes we flooded, we’re sorry. Those whose mobile phones are blowing up, we’re really sorry. Our development team tells me that a few straggler emails may get through, but the bulk of the mail has been turned off as of 6:53am PST.

We will update this post if we expect or experience any more oddness, and we continue to value our trusted relationship with you, our readers.

Update: MailChimp has gotten to the bottom of the problem, and posted an explanation (and apology) on Twitter and on their blog. Thanks, guys.

Update 12/13/2011: We’ve spent the past 5 days working with our email service provider to correct the error that caused our newsletter distribution lists to go haywire: the culprit was an errant piece of code that misinterpreted recipients’ newsletter preferences, and sent multiple versions of our newsletter to the same address. We are now confident that this error has been fixed, and will be re-starting the delivery of our daily newsletters as of today.

The GigaOM community has shown incredible patience over the past week, and we’re truly grateful to have such understanding and loyal readers. Thanks again for sticking with us, and if you experience any additional newsletter wonkiness, let us know via email.

20 Responses to “Did someone order 500 copies of our newsletter?”

  2. Greg Kostello

    Glitches happen. Every the service I use – AWS, Apple, Ebay, Facebook have had problems at one time or another. I wasn’t worried when I saw all the emails. I figured that you would be on it quickly. Even if it happens again (as it does sometimes in these cases), I’m sure your team and (mail chimp)will address it. Keep those emails coming (but just one at a time).

    December 13, 2011 at 12:03 pm