| LED Digest 1938: More on Email Delivery Alternatives |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. March 1, 2005 Issue #1938 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== RSS Feeds, Spam, and The Future of Publishing ==-- ~ Martha Retallick "...there are only so many hours in the business day..." ~ Joe Halbrook "...this is one of the first posts that I've seen with strong arguments for moving away from email..." ~ Ken Evoy "We will stop mass-mailing in all forms. Not worth the hassle." ~ Kathryn Martyn "I still prefer e-mail...because I like the delivery system." --== Site Building Software ==-- ~ Robert Marlbrough, Jr. "...a good alternative is a reseller account with a web hosting provider..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== ITSafe Launched in UK ==-- ~ James Miller --== MSN Search ==-- ~ Michael Martinez ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Martha Retallick Subject: RSS and blogs Not too long ago, an LED Digest post urged e-zine publishers like me to set up an RSS feed ASAP. So, I asked the owner of my e-zine's list hosting service if he could set up an RSS feed for me. He told me that I was the first customer -- and he has many -- to ask for such a thing. Then he asked me if I had received any requests for an RSS feed. I had to tell him the truth: I hadn't. And I still haven't. So much for RSS-ing and Martha. Then there is the matter of the blog. I had one -- briefly. But it seemed like a rather time-consuming exercise in busywork. So I dropped it. Since my Brief Foray Into Blog-dom, I've heard a lot of ballyhoo about blogging. But I have yet to meet anyone who can tell me that the blog is a money-maker for their business. Despite the fact that there's a lot more shh-pam around than when I first started publishing it back in 2002, my e-zine still pulls in sales. So, I think I'll stick to it and other tried-and-true things that make me money and bring in business. After all, there are only so many hours in the business day.... Martha Retallick "The Passionate Postcarder" http://www.postcardmarketingsecrets.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Joe Halbrook Subject: RSS and curing spam > If legitimate publishers stop publishing in bulk email spam will > still exist, but it would now be contained within a clearly defined > "trash channel". - Phil Tanny, LED 1936 Phil makes some powerful statements regarding spam and the obvious wisdom in moving to RSS. I admire Phil's thinking, as this is one of the first posts that I've seen with strong arguments for moving away from email, toward new technologies that puts the control firmly in the hands of the reader. But, we simply can't forget about the percentage of readers out there who's preferred delivery mechanism is indeed via email, and who have no problems whatsoever receiving the email publications they want, using whitelists or whatever it takes to insure that such publications are never filtered. I think the answer is to offer your readers choice -- email , RSS, direct-to-desktop, etc. -- the delivery mechanism they prefer and choose. Spammers will always tarnish the email delivery mechanism, but that doesn't make the mechanism unusable for those who prefer it and make it work for them. By offering choice in delivery, legitimate publishers don't isolate readers who's preference may not seem logical to them. And, they allow their readers to retain control. I see email publishers rapidly moving toward this model. They will deliver content via email, RSS feeds, direct-to-desktop applications, and other forms of delivery that will naturally evolve over time. Successful publishers will allow their readers to make the choice in how they receive content, and will accommodate those choices. Joe Halbrook Permission Technologies http://www.ez-feeds.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Ken Evoy Subject: RSS and more Hi to all, Yes, I too believe that RSS will return e-mail to what it was originally meant to be... one-to-one correspondence that is not in a special hurry. Our 1-2 year window, totally dependent on the "tipping point" of RSS software usage, which is not near (ask the regular surfer-on-the-street what RSS is to see what I mean), is to move our entire e-zine base to RSS. We will stop mass-mailing in all forms. Not worth the hassle. We've always held that Content rules. RSS is both the ultimate proof of that, and the test of whether you can deliver. Our SiteSell Sites Updates feed... http://rss.sitesell.com/sitesell-rss-feeds.html .. alone generates over 1,000 visitors per day, with a surge every time we announce a site update and why we did it. Not much by our standards, but it's the beginning that shows me this is just the beginning. If you examine the XML source of our most popular feed, which updates readers about site changes and why we make them... http://rss.sitesell.com/sites.rss .. you'll see that we set tracking links for each post. That lets us know what interests people the most, as well as overall interest. We'll migrate tracking to all feeds, the zines one being next. There's no rush. My guess is that given the normal cycles of the propagation of innovation, the tipping point is still more than a year away. Which means... It's time for us to be taking those steps now. Mass e-mail's death knell is audible. The only question is when. All the best, Ken Evoy http://rss.sitesell.com/ ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Kathryn Martyn Subject: RSS I still prefer e-mail, despite the spam because I like the delivery system. I turn it on, and it's delivered. I don't have to open another program or visit another site to read my RSS feeds. I realize I can do this with an RSS reader program, but then, I'm switching back and forth between two programs for messages, not just one. I prefer having one. Sadly, I tried the RSS via Outlook route and didn't like it. I like to view messages and then move them out of the inbox into categories, etc., and the RSS integration didn't seem to do much more than create a huge list of messages that I wasn't sure if I'd read or not. It was also messy. I don't like messy. I like organized. Maybe I didn't use it correctly, I don't know. I don't have lots of time to figure it all out, and I imagine neither do millions of other people. Frankly, if we are still not sure how it (RSS) works, I doubt the majority of the people we hope to reach are either. It's going to be some time before we see RSS go mainstream, and meanwhile, any list owner who plans to switch completely from e-mail is going to miss out on a lot of potential clients / customers / visitors, etc. I agree with David Yancy that the issue is still spam and how to stop it, or at least stem the tide. Why not go straight after those selling goods and services via the spammers? If a spammer advertises a product, then the company selling that product is the one to target. Why are those companies not being penalized? Can they innocently claim they didn't know? "Honest, officer, we didn't know Joe Spammer was selling our widgets." If I'm selling a product, and I know Joe Spammer will take a smaller cut and bring me lots of customers, I'm probably going to look the other way when he's hired to do just that, but if there were compelling reasons why this wouldn't be such a good idea... So who's protecting the company owners who are behind all the spam? Let's start naming names. Some news paper could do an indept story, buy lots of products and then just see who's creating those products -- it wouldn't take that much effort to find out who owns these companies and then expose them for causing all this grief, could it? The little fellow will never go away -- he's just trying to make a buck like anyone else, but the drug lord? He's the one hurting society and he's the one we should be going after. Kathryn Martyn, M.NLP Ending Emotional Eating, One Bite at a Time http://www.onemorebite-weightloss.com ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Rob Marlbrough Subject: Site builders > I have a client that wants to set up a service whereby > people can come to [them], buy a domain name, and > purchase a website template they can populate their > new site with. - Lew Wurdeman, LED 1936 Regarding Site Building software, the one I personally use is called Site Studio, a tool made by PSoft, which was recently acquired by Comodo. Details at http://www.psoft.net/SS/site_studio_info.html The tool is browser-based, where you choose a template, a color and style, and can then create as many pages as you like by choosing a page type, filling in simple forms, and Publish the site, which generates all graphics and buttons, and lays out the pages within minutes. It also includes Flash-based splash pages, which generate Flash animation with your text embedded in it. It's easy enough for newbies to use, yet full featured enough for complex sites or advanced features like password protected pages, SSL, Flash, etc. If your client is interested in selling a service like hosting and domain name registration, perhaps a good alternative is looking into getting a reseller account with a web hosting provider that offers reselling solutions. There are many web hosts that offer private-label solutions, where the client can build custom hosting plans, with their own pricing, disk space, and offer advanced features like Site Studio for free or at additional cost. The H-Sphere reseller platform is very popular, and is a complete hosting automation suite which includes multiple server clustering and control of resources on various servers, integrated billing system with support for various merchant accounts, integrated trouble ticket system, and of course the Site Studio browser-based tool. Thanks, Robert Marlbrough, Jr. http://www.WebWizards.Net/ ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: James Miller Subject: ITSafe The UK Government has just launched a system called ITSafe at www.itsafe.org.uk. It is basically an independent virus and security threat bulletin and alert system. Whether it is any good is difficult to say as it has just been launched. But, it uses what it called a ITSafe word which is unique to each user and is added to each of the messages it sends so that you know the message is coming from where you think it is. It is about time PayPal and the banks used a similar procedure. Very simple but it kills the phishers stone dead. James Miller Daisy Analysis: www.daisy.co.uk ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: MSN > ... it appears that the new MSN search is not taking > organic (unpaid) feeds from anyone, doing all its > crawling on its own, so the algorithm it uses is not > yet as well known "guessed" as the older engines. - Dave Starr, LED 1937 Actually, MSN is indeed taking unpaid submissions. They use a qualifying input box based on the Altavista model (a lot of services now use these boxes): http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx MSN is being strongly impacted by link popularity and traditional Google bombing tactics. I hope they improve their system quickly, although it has given me some unexpected rankings. I am still not seeing much traffic from MSN, so people need to be mindful that the three major search services (Google, Yahoo!, MSN) represent different kinds of markets. Michael Martinez, Author http://www.michael-martinez.com/ ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains © Copyright 1995-2005 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage." - Lao-Tzu |
