Guest Post
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Guest post: SendGrid takes the Cake[PHP] when it comes to SMTP
56 days ago by Tim Falls
The following is a guest blog post from one of our customers and community members, Dave Loftis. Dave is an independent developer, and co-founder of VarVee.com and MyD8.net. You can check out his blog at blog.lofdev.com.

If you’re a PHP developer who is building a large Internet application, or even a small one, using CakePHP, you have undoubtedly taken a look at Cake’s built-in Mail component. The built-in component is simple and powerful, and it works well for most things you might do. It’s really great for sending “welcome-to-X” or “forgot-your-password” emails. But, once you deploy and start using things in the real world, you’re going to run into some very real issues. If someone requests a password reset, they expect that email to arrive to their inbox within seconds. No one wants to search their SPAM filters for a password reminder message from a site they use. And, heaven forbid if you have a few thousand users and want to integrate mailing list management, or track the status of your messages in real time.
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Leveraging SendGrid’s Event API
97 days ago by H. Wade Minter
This guest post is from H. Wade Minter at TeamSnap, a SendGrid customer.
TeamSnap is a web/mobile tool to help keep sports teams and social groups organized. With that mission, email deliverability is critical. Our users send a lot of email, most of it important team-related business We need to make sure that the email gets delivered, as well as watch out for bouncing addresses or spam complaints. We don’t want to get blamed when someone shows up at the wrong field because they didn’t get the email that their coach sent out. Keeping our deliverability numbers high is paramount, as well as making sure we’re only send email out to people who should be receiving it. read more
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NYT’s Study Showcases the Importance of Email Infrastructure
122 days ago by BlogMutt
Exactly how and why do we share online content? That is what the New York Times and Latitude Research set out to discover in their 2011 study, “The Psychology of Sharing.”
Surprisingly, during their survey of 2,500 self-described “medium-to-heavy content sharers” they found that good, old fashion email continues to be the number one sharing tool. Yes, the younger you are the more likely you are to utilize Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or something similar as a communications tool, but email for the most part remains the most popular way users choose to share news. read more
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Vanilla Forums: Parse API FTW!
154 days ago by Tim Falls
This is a guest post from one of our users, Tim Gunter, Senior Systems Analyst at Vanilla Forums. Tim caught my attention with a recent tweet that read (and I quote), “I. Love. @SendGrid. Parse API so damned fantastic, I want to get an “I <3 Parse API” tattoo on my FREAKING FACE!” Later that night, our API had Tim feeling like the “Lord of the internets”.
As soon as I saw this, I had to learn more about the experience that inspired such excitement, and within hours Tim had sent me the story below…
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Ecquire and SendGrid team up to make productivity happen
170 days ago by Elmer Thomas
This is a guest post written by Tal Raviv, Chief Bug Creator at Ecquire
At Ecquire we believe the most important measure of a product is its referability. We don’t use words like “finished” or “minimum viable product” or “good enough”
It’s either referable or it’s not. A user either feels confident enough to put their reputation on the line for your product – or your marketing is going to be very expensive.
How do you measure referability? Aside from metrics like retention and observing growth and sources of growth – there’s an extremely direct way to do this… let your customers refer their friends right inside your app!
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Wedgi.es – Simple Surveys That Use SendGrid
202 days ago by Brandon West
Back in September, at the fantastic ReCommerce Hackday, I hung out with Jimmy Jacobson and Porter Haney, the guys behind Wedgi.es. Wedgi.es is a lightweight social application that lets you easily poll your friends via twitter. Porter told me he was addicted to the Wedgi.es email updates that they had implemented using SendGrid, so I asked Jimmy and Porter if they’d write about their application and experience for our blog. They obliged, so we are very pleased to present a guest blog post from Wedgi.es!
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TheBirdy.com: using email for personal finance management
264 days ago by Tim Falls
A few weeks ago, Brandon and I went to New York City for Startup Weekend. I had stopped by the previous SW NYC when I was there for Internet Week and API Hackday, and I was instantly impressed. I’ve been to a few Startup Weekends in Boulder and Denver, but never had I seen a crowd this large. Nor had I witnessed the level of energy that was in the General Assembly office that Friday evening.
As I walked out of the event that night, I decided we would definitely be back for the next SW in the city.
It was a good decision. Not only did we get to chill at the GA digs for a good chunk of Fri/Sat/Sun, but we worked with closely with a number of teams: Brandon rocked some code, we had some great discussions on app infrastructure, I mentored some pitch practice sessions, and, above all, we met a bunch of awesome people.
Corey Maass is one of those awesome people. And below is a story that he told us, which we thought would be fun to share with the rest of our community.
Guest post: SendGrid takes the Cake[PHP] when it comes to SMTP
56 days ago by Tim Falls
The following is a guest blog post from one of our customers and community members, Dave Loftis. Dave is an independent developer, and co-founder of VarVee.com and MyD8.net. You can check out his blog at blog.lofdev.com.

If you’re a PHP developer who is building a large Internet application, or even a small one, using CakePHP, you have undoubtedly taken a look at Cake’s built-in Mail component. The built-in component is simple and powerful, and it works well for most things you might do. It’s really great for sending “welcome-to-X” or “forgot-your-password” emails. But, once you deploy and start using things in the real world, you’re going to run into some very real issues. If someone requests a password reset, they expect that email to arrive to their inbox within seconds. No one wants to search their SPAM filters for a password reminder message from a site they use. And, heaven forbid if you have a few thousand users and want to integrate mailing list management, or track the status of your messages in real time.
Leveraging SendGrid’s Event API
97 days ago by H. Wade Minter
This guest post is from H. Wade Minter at TeamSnap, a SendGrid customer.
TeamSnap is a web/mobile tool to help keep sports teams and social groups organized. With that mission, email deliverability is critical. Our users send a lot of email, most of it important team-related business We need to make sure that the email gets delivered, as well as watch out for bouncing addresses or spam complaints. We don’t want to get blamed when someone shows up at the wrong field because they didn’t get the email that their coach sent out. Keeping our deliverability numbers high is paramount, as well as making sure we’re only send email out to people who should be receiving it. read more
NYT’s Study Showcases the Importance of Email Infrastructure
122 days ago by BlogMutt
Exactly how and why do we share online content? That is what the New York Times and Latitude Research set out to discover in their 2011 study, “The Psychology of Sharing.”
Surprisingly, during their survey of 2,500 self-described “medium-to-heavy content sharers” they found that good, old fashion email continues to be the number one sharing tool. Yes, the younger you are the more likely you are to utilize Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or something similar as a communications tool, but email for the most part remains the most popular way users choose to share news. read more
Vanilla Forums: Parse API FTW!
154 days ago by Tim Falls
This is a guest post from one of our users, Tim Gunter, Senior Systems Analyst at Vanilla Forums. Tim caught my attention with a recent tweet that read (and I quote), “I. Love. @SendGrid. Parse API so damned fantastic, I want to get an “I <3 Parse API” tattoo on my FREAKING FACE!” Later that night, our API had Tim feeling like the “Lord of the internets”.
As soon as I saw this, I had to learn more about the experience that inspired such excitement, and within hours Tim had sent me the story below…
Ecquire and SendGrid team up to make productivity happen
170 days ago by Elmer Thomas
This is a guest post written by Tal Raviv, Chief Bug Creator at Ecquire
At Ecquire we believe the most important measure of a product is its referability. We don’t use words like “finished” or “minimum viable product” or “good enough”
It’s either referable or it’s not. A user either feels confident enough to put their reputation on the line for your product – or your marketing is going to be very expensive.
How do you measure referability? Aside from metrics like retention and observing growth and sources of growth – there’s an extremely direct way to do this… let your customers refer their friends right inside your app!
Wedgi.es – Simple Surveys That Use SendGrid
202 days ago by Brandon West
Back in September, at the fantastic ReCommerce Hackday, I hung out with Jimmy Jacobson and Porter Haney, the guys behind Wedgi.es. Wedgi.es is a lightweight social application that lets you easily poll your friends via twitter. Porter told me he was addicted to the Wedgi.es email updates that they had implemented using SendGrid, so I asked Jimmy and Porter if they’d write about their application and experience for our blog. They obliged, so we are very pleased to present a guest blog post from Wedgi.es!
TheBirdy.com: using email for personal finance management
264 days ago by Tim Falls
A few weeks ago, Brandon and I went to New York City for Startup Weekend. I had stopped by the previous SW NYC when I was there for Internet Week and API Hackday, and I was instantly impressed. I’ve been to a few Startup Weekends in Boulder and Denver, but never had I seen a crowd this large. Nor had I witnessed the level of energy that was in the General Assembly office that Friday evening.
As I walked out of the event that night, I decided we would definitely be back for the next SW in the city.
It was a good decision. Not only did we get to chill at the GA digs for a good chunk of Fri/Sat/Sun, but we worked with closely with a number of teams: Brandon rocked some code, we had some great discussions on app infrastructure, I mentored some pitch practice sessions, and, above all, we met a bunch of awesome people.
Corey Maass is one of those awesome people. And below is a story that he told us, which we thought would be fun to share with the rest of our community.
