Marketing & SEO Discussion List - LED Digest

Please note: this is a rather long and detailed piece. If you're just interested in the brass tacks - like what the LED Digest is and how it works - you can find that information more quickly in our FAQ section. However, if you're looking for detailed historical information, then please read on.

The History of Business Email Lists and the Rise of the LED Digest

The British writer Lytton Strachey summed up the problem of historiography (the art of writing history) quite well. He described, in essence, how any attempt to reconstruct the past is necessarily subjective: we row our little boat upon the vast ocean of historical material and drop in a bucket. Such an image is certainly revealing. Historical reconstructions are limited undertakings – limited by personal perspectives and biases, among many other factors.

So what does this have to do with the history of the LED Digest? Well, when I set out to review the history of this discussion list, I realized that doing so in the vacuum of my own interests would never do justice to the account it deserved. The LED has been, and no doubt always will be, about people. It exists today as the product of patient years of collective sharing by its members, and in its modern form still reflects the open, non-biased communal spirit of interaction that formed its origins. As such, an honest account of the LED must include a history of its predecessors and its founders, and an acknowledgement to the climate in which they existed.

To stay faithful to its tradition, this history aims to survey the dawning of business email discussion lists and the LED’s place within that field. It can never be an exhaustive account – I’m still rowing my little boat out and dropping in a bucket – but I hope those limitations won’t handicap its usefulness, and will instead narrow and clarify its focus. After all, this is the LED site and this article is about its story.

One disclaimer: as the son of John Audette, I find it hard to be objective about his contributions to this field. As such, this account is completely biased; a fault I disclose from the beginning. However, since my father’s past efforts have been pivotal in the cooperative creation of ecommerce lists generally, and the formation of the LED Digest specifically, I hope you’ll allow me this indulgence.

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Next: The First Business Email Discussion List