On February 1st, I used a new account to sign up for email from 25 potential prez candidates from both parties to study their use of the medium. Here is a summary of what I've found:

1. Most of the candidates have studied how email was used in the 2004 prez campaigns and have adopted elements that worked

2. Just like with their websites, nobody has offered anything innovative or interesting. (If even to engage the press or DC insiders only, you would think they would be putting more attention and energy into their mass emails)

3. Few candidates appear to have a calculated email strategy where they've asked themselves: Who are we targeting? What do we want them to take away from reading our messages? When should we send? How often should we reach them?

4. Nobody has been balancing message, money and mobilization, and from the content and design of the messages, you can tell which division(s) holds the email reins within the campaign. For example:

Clinton -- Policy/Communications (very policy heavy)
Edwards -- Policy/Communications (same here)
Obama -- Political (recruitement is the focus)
Romney -- Communications (announcements of his TV appearances)
Giuliani -- Strategy (polling numbers are the focus)
McCain -- Finance (though this has changed since new site launch)

As for numbers, McCain and Biden are tied with sending 6 messages since February 1st, an average of 2/week, with Vilsack following with 4 messages. At this point in the campaign, the candidates should have enough of a message and grassroots and finance benchmarks to use a weekly email to help accomplish their goals, and the only candidates who appear to be sending one message per week are the three cited above + Romney.

I can only chock this up to a lack of organization and failure to work as a team to decide what they want to communicate to and get from their supporters.

Finally, nobody appears to be segmenting their list and strategically targeting messages to email recipients by donor/non-donor, geography, or interest area ... yet. It will be interesting to see who starts to use email more effectively over the coming weeks as we monitor the candidates' progress.

I'll continue weighin' in on the topic of email here ... join me.