The nerds over in MailChimp Labs have built a working prototype for an iPad app that we hope to launch very soon. The idea is that you can place an iPad next to your store register, and run this app to let people subscribe to your list. Given how new and magical the iPad is right now, it’s a great gimmick for getting signups. While our crew was filming the demo below at Octane Coffee, customers kept volunteering to sign up.
The app is still under development (but very far along). We’re wrapping up some code and will submit it to Apple soon (wish us luck). You can sign up to this email list if you’d like an update when it’s available.
How about an app for the Android phones where we can do the same thing. What if I meet someone at the store and I want to invite them to my newsletter? How easy would it be to simply be able to enter their email address and have it sync with my account and they receive the confirmation email before they even get home?!? I think that would be VERY cool and you would now be catering to other people besides iPad users.
No worries, Andy. Android love is also coming soon.
I completely agree! It’s a shame that there isn’t one yet. I was researching just now to see if there was. sigh. Does anyone know if chimpadeedoo has now been released?
Chimpadeedoo is indeed live. You can find it here: http://blog.mailchimp.com/mobile/
This is slick, great work! Makes me want to buy an iPad and a coffee shop to go along with it!
wow… you made the magic of turning iPad useful.
congrats!
ANDROID YES…. ipad… BOOOOOO
Wow – we were already thinking about using the I-pad for this very thing. Can’t wait to get our hands on this app.
Yay! What an awesome idea to come out of MailChimp!
In fact, this is such a great idea that the only thing I’m concerned about is leaving the iPad on my retail counter where it could easily be stolen! :-/
In any case, for those people above who are clamoring about the Android over iPhone OS, they clearly haven’t read my comparison chart here:
iPhone vs. Android Comparison Chart
Great idea! I never thought of iPads potential for use in a retail environment!
Where do you draw the line between e-mail marketing and spam?
We subscribe to Spamhaus’ definition of spam: http://www.spamhaus.org/definition.html
Ironically, I am unable to view the video above from my iPad, but it sounds neat!
Nick, that IS ironic. thanks for the laugh. They use Blip.tv to embed their videos – it’s flash.
Ironic indeed! Got a good laugh myself. I should just link to our Youtube version instead (I think that worked on my iPad, but can’t remember) but we’ve actually experimenting with something else first. Vzaar just recently announced an integration with MailChimp, and we wanted to try hosting it with them so that we could collect signups at the end. Alas, they use Flash too. Sigh.
FYI – Vzaar allows you to encode your videos to be compatible with the iPhone and iPad.
Chimpadeedoo looks amazing!
Oh, we’ll definitely need to look into that option, then. Thanks!
Very cool… with the plethora of tablets coming out this year I’m looking forward to it! Hoping that an Adobe Air App is also on your list.
Suggestion (if not already implemented): lock the device so that people can’t exit out and get into anything else unless you have a master password.
Great work as usual!
I don’t think apps can prevent use of the home or sleep button, but some company definitely should make a kiosk harness of some sort for ipads that would physically block the buttons
Perhaps you could also upgrade the video on your site to HTML5? I can’t view the above video on my iPad.
Chimpadeedoooooo!
Your videos are always great!
Chimpadeedoodah, Chimpadeedaaaay!! Woohoo! I really needed this. &8=]
Using some kiosk software currently (old G4 Mac laptops) for sign ups in store and other than the foot print it works great.
I second the comment by Lise above- needs to be locked down.
Ben, when do you expect to release this app?
I like this app. Waiting for ipad to launch in this part of world. would like to try this app.. Cheers – PJ
I wish i could have an iPad to collect all the addresess I need in a TradeShow that i have last week!…
Hey Ben,
I’ve got to go with Lise on this one. Would love to use this at various trade shows we present at. Would prefer to use it on a MacBook or iMac so we didn’t have to buy the iPad just for this (though it’s a very tempting idea)
Is there any chance an iPhone chimpadeedoo app will make it to reality? I too LOVE the idea of passing around a little device for folks to input their own info, but our little nonprofit doesn’t have the kind of cash for an iPad…
Logan – We did launch a free iPhone app the other day. We’ve only announced on twitter, and in an email newsletter so far. The app has the ability to add people to your list. It’s not the same kind of thing as Chimpadeedoo, but you might give it a try.
Adam and Logan, There are other solutions till mailchimp codes some awsome new product. you can look into FLUID app. You have ability to view websites in mobile version or any browser. You caould then setup mailchimp in mobile mode or iphone safari on your computer and then have your company website in side window. This would give a nice presentation on a single screen. I love fluid app. I put mailchimp in it all day long.
Thanks Randall. I love FLUID and use it every single day for Mailchimp, Basecamp, Freshbooks and anything else I happen to use 24/7.
Never thought to use it that way though. We could even code a special embedded form and then run it though FLUID. That way it’s fully branded for our trade shows.
Thanks for the idea.
When will you make this sort of thing for a PC or a Mac? That way I can load it up on to our laptop to take to trade shows as mentioned or special events and gather emails and then sync them up when I connect back to the internet. As wireless isn’t always available. A certain competitor has this I am sure you can do it too.
Any suggestions in the mean time?
Thanks,
It’s on the roadmap. No ETA, though.
I’m sure you’ve considered that this is a holy grail for touring bands at their merch tables. This app will sell very well among bands and musicians.
I’m hoping there is a version without the heavy-lifting features that would require my band to pay a monthly subscription fee, and just give me access to the contacts.
But you guys know what you’re doing!
We originally built it for storefronts, but we’re hearing from all kinds of different people who want to use it for stuff we never imagined. So we’re kind of excited about this, and will be developing more functionality into Chimpadeedoo soon. The iPad app is actually free, as well as MailChimp (up to 500 subscribers).
I just installed Chimpadeedoo on my iPad. Once it is all setup, I can’t figure out how the heck to get back to the option screen to change the settings! I realize you don’t want a store’s customers fiddling with settings, but the store owner still needs some way to change the settings. If we can’t change setting directly in the App, I figured it must be in the iPad’s “Settings”, but there’s not Chimpadeedoo listed there either. I’m puzzled. Please tell me how to change my options.
Hi David, tap the top right corner of the screen. That’s the “hot corner.” I believe an upcoming version will address this.
I just wish that both this app and the one for the laptop had more than an email field for data fill-in. I am the alumni director for a university and we like to track location and graduation year and segment our emails accordingly. Chimpadeedoo needs to let us choose which fields we want displayed on the screen.
how can i get this for the iphone? I have a need to install this on 35 phones right away.
Can you use this app to create and send emails using the ipad? or just sign up new contacts? Please confirm
It’s just for signups.
I couldn’t imagine putting together an entire email newsletter from my iPad. Then again, I barely get to use my iPad anymore, since my 2yr old boy has taken it over.
But if you have a simple draft that you want to get into MailChimp while you’re working remote on your iPad, you could “beam” it via iPad’s Apple Mail: http://blip.tv/file/2047688
Ben, my 2.5 year old is ADDICTED to the iPad. I hear ya.
Andy: at night, bedtime stories have been replaced with “let’s find and learn a new app, daddy.”
And my son looks at my laptop’s trackpad and computer’s mouse like they’re from the stone age. “I can’t just touch and move things on the screen?”
Natalie, at MailChimp we’re investing seriously in the iPad and all mobile devices. Our newest engineer, Eric, has Androoid and Blackberry dev experience. And we’ve started up a MobileLab here (Amro and Drew are heading that up), and they’re building updates to Chimpadeedoo, they’ve got another cool app they’re about to finish, and they’ve also been discussing some way to let people create or edit campaigns on the iPad. I mentioned them all here — http://eepurl.com/LHxv in case you’re interested.
We’d like a mounting kit accessory that bolts to the counter top, has an arm like a monitor display arm, and a locking steel frame around the ipod so it’s up at eye level, and the home button is blocked and the iPad is safe.
Any suggestions?
I’ve got Chimpadeedoo on my iPad, but how do I configure a form so that people can enter their first & last names rather than just their email address? The confirmation email that they get shows blanks for these.
Ta,
Nick
Hi, I have got chimpadeedoo installed on my ipad and have setup a signup option to our compnay newletter.
How do i select a different picture to be the background from my own pics. The pic I want to use is in the custom theme but it will not tick it or use it as a background.
How do I also get the sign up screen for show first name and last name as an option when people are signing up.
When people are signing up the confirmation email shows there email address, but nothing against name or last name as the option wasn’t there on sign up.
Hey Ben
Any feedback on the questions about the first and last name fields?
I’m going to a conference soon and would love to use this – ideally with custom fields that we could add – but first and last names would be a must as a minimum.
Thanks
It’s complicated than most people think (including myself), but that doesn’t make it less necessary. It’s definitely on our roadmap. Chimpadeedoo, being an iPhone app, will take longer to update than Chimpadeedee, our Adobe AIR version of the app. I would watch developments of both apps, because it’s likely “deedee” will move slightly faster. It’s just due to the nature of the dev platform.
I find that when I hand around the chimpadeedoo app at seminars, people click the home button, and then cannot find the app so they can hand it to the next person for email collection. Ofcourse we cannot disable the apple home button, but could we have options to rename the name of the app in settings so people might find the app easier?
Excellent App. I plan on using this for sign ups at our charity events but we really need the First name and Last name option like the video showed. When do you expect this to be available. Can’t really use it without those field options.
Thanks!
Going to a major conference on Saturday 9th October ( next weekend) and we reaaaaaaaaally want to use chimpadeedoo – but it’s useless without the ability to add first and last name, and ideally a free text field as well. Otherwise we’d have to ask people to enter their email address in Chimpadeedoo, and then fill in more details on another form – which kind of defeats the whole point of Chimpadeedoo!
Chimpadeeplease?
What I’ve decided to do until they fix this issue is use the sign up form I have on facebook. During an event, I log into my facebook page and navigate to the sign up form I have on facebook for our charity. From here, they can use the ipad to sign up with their First & Last name and their email address.
It’s a quick fix until Chimpadeedoo gets better. PLEASE FIX CHIMPADEEDOO!!!!
I tested chimpadeedoo on a health and wellness fair this weekend – 45 minutes and 30 signups indicates a strong concept
…however i noticed that a lot of the users kept tapping the email text in the input field. But tapping the text piece does not activate the field and creates some confusion and hampers the otherwise slick user experience.
Love the app, but we could really use fields for first and last name. In its current state, it just isn’t realistic for us to use. An update would make my life much easier!
I agree, we definitely want First and Last names…
But great app nonetheless!!!
Is there any way to change the App Name to be something more inline with mailing list? Or quite possibly giving us ability to name the app whatever we like?
@David
I think we’re going to end up having to create our own sign up page/app as well, as the missing fields and functionality mean that unfortunately chimpadeedoo doesn’t work for us at the moment.
Any news on updates anyone?
Try Wufoo forms- it integrates with Mailchimp and you can customize the fields as well as the CSS.
That’s very interesting, but what about the privacy? Is this really enough to exempt senders from any opt-in regulation?
Chimpadeedoo v2 was just submitted to the App store today. If it’s approved, it should be available soon. It has options for more fields, double opt-in, and more layout and design options.
We have our iPad built into a kiosk. It would be great to have the option to upload some still images for a slideshow promoting our business as an ‘attractor’ screen until the user touches. The CounterCultureApp does that well but unfortunately does not integrate with MailChimp (Yet!)
Hi there,
Is there any update on the ETA of the Android version of Chimpadeedoo?
Awesome! Thanks for V2!
I have a question, does this system allow for offline interaction. I have an event that we are coming up on and the internet access is limited there. But I would still like to use this application on the ipad, will it store the info locally and then once reconnected to the internet download all of the data into your database?
thanks!
Hi Jaclyn,
Yep, Chimpadeedoo does this but be sure to set up the app ahead of time.
awesome! thanks
Sounds exactly like what we need ….. Please keep me informed – I would gladly pay for this kind of app …. Thanks!
Ah, this is an old blog post. Since writing it, we’ve made Chimpadeedoo live (it’s actually up to v2 now).
You’ll find it, along with other mobile apps, here:
http://mailchimp.com/features/mobile/