Greetings, readers! Welcome to the 4th anniversary edition of ZooNews. Yup, it's hard for me to fathom, but I've been putting out this newsletter for four years! I want to give a huge thank you to all of ZooNews's wonderful readers, with a special shout-out to those who've been loyal subscribers since the very first issue back in May 2005. I appreciate every bit of feedback, support and encouragement you've given me along the way. Thank you!

Do email addresses have personalities? I've been pondering this ever since a person I follow on Twitter jokingly said: "I'm prejudiced against people with Hotmail addresses." It made me realize that rightly or not, I really do make some unconscious judgments based on email addresses!

For example, here are a few connotations Hotmail addresses have, especially when used as a business email:

• old-fashioned
• spam-magnet
• amateur
• not tech-savvy
• temporary, throwaway – possibly even fly-by-night
• Microsoft (and all of its baggage!)

Other email addresses evoke their own associations – of course, yours may be completely different than mine! For example:

• Gmail.com: hip, techy
• AOL.com: stuck in the last century, stubbornly un-tech-savvy
• ISP email addresses (i.e. Videotron.ca, Rogers.com, Shaw.ca, etc): traditional, conservative, solid, in it for the long haul, somewhat uncool but reliable
• Email with your own domain name – professional, businesslike, trustworthy

I think a company's interests are almost always best served by using an email address with your own domain name in it, one that matches your Web address. It will stay with you if you change ISP and helps to brand your company with every message you send. Put this email address on your business cards, Web site, and all other marketing materials. Most hosting companies offer a Web-based interface for temporary access while travelling.

Let me know what you think!

I've been asked a couple of times lately what an API is. Since this term seems to be bandied about more and more, even outside heavily techy circles, I thought it would make a good Geek Speak candidate.

API stands for application programming interface. It's a set of technical building blocks (guidelines and code) offered by many services to allow third-party programmers to create tools that work in tandem with the service.

According to Twitter – one increasingly popular Web-based micro-blogging service – "an API is just a defined way for a program to accomplish a task, usually retrieving or modifying data." By using Twitter's API, programmers like Montreal's Felipe Coimbra are able to create a whole array of useful and fun services that tie into Twitter, from twtpoll's mini-surveys to twtvite's event-RSVP system, to a whimsical pet-cuteness ranking system, twtpets.

Got a technology term you'd like demystified in ZooNews? Send it to questions@zoonini.com.

If you saw last month's Do I Need a Flash Intro you may have noticed at the bottom of the page an uber-long, not-yet-live URL, WhenBadWebsitesHappenToGoodPeople.com. Feel free to take a peek at our new teaser page to get a small taste of what A.C. Riley Communications and I are cooking up. Our not-so-secret mission: to save good people from bad sites!

I wish all of you a fantastic upcoming month!

À la prochaine,

kp
aka Kathryn Presner