| LED Digest 1943: Happy B-day .com Domains! |
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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 10, 2005 Issue #1943 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Creating HTML Ezines ==-- ~ Martha Retallick "...using software on your [computer] to send issues is not the best use of your time." --== RSS Feeds, Spam, and The Future of Publishing ==-- ~ David Yancey "...the blogging phenomenon is comparable to the explosion in 'home pages'..." ~ Steve Pronger "...that window of opportunity will not last forever." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Happy B-day to .Com Domains ==-- ~ Dejan Bizinger --== Blocking Email Forwarding ==-- ~ John "zeke" Brumage ~ Noah Price --== Working with Framed Sites ==-- ~ Tom Aman ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Martha Retallick Subject: HTML ezines > I'm interested to hear more of the nuts and bolts > of how to build an HTML e-zine. Can anyone > recommend sites that show how to do this. - Sascha Hewitt, LED 1941 Another tip for all publishers and would-be publishers of e-zines: Unless your e-zine's mailing list is very small, using software on your PC (or Mac) to send e-zine issues is not the best use of your time. Reason: You'll find that handling subscribes, unsubscribes and bounces will be something that you'll have to do by hand. And that can easily eat up several hours of non-revenue-producing time. Instead, I recommend that you outsource your list hosting. I've been using Databack Systems for this task since 2002. They were recommended to me by a client, who had heard about them from someone she was using as a consultant. Databack can handle both HTML and plain text e-zines. They also do autoresponders. Details at: http://www.databack.com/ Hope this helps! Martha Retallick, Publisher Postcard Marketing Secrets e-zine http://www.postcardmarketingsecrets.com ------- new post - new topic -------- From: David Yancey Subject: RSS and more Thanks to Tom Aman [issue 1941], for a responsibly realistic post detailing the ins and outs of RSS from a pragmatic point of view. His several examples where standards are lacking are particularly telling. The current messiness and platform immaturities of RSS are the principle reasons most epublishers are dubious that RSS-driven blogs etc will ever be a viable substitute for email. The lack of enthusiasm on the part of "average" or typical readers for blogged newsletters is another major obstacle, as Martha Retallick has pointed out. Add to these my argument that hundreds of millions of users regard email -- for all its own messiness and SPAMmy shortcomings -- as their most vital form of communication, and hence find little incentive to master the new skills and deal with the uncertainties of RSS readers. Tom's other primary point, namely that the quality of most feeds is of dubious value (to the majority prospective readers) is possibly more important than anything said in this thread so far, IMO. While it's true that back-linking via RSS-distributed posts can help in the never-ending battle to raise a site's ranking in the search engines, that potential benefit means nothing to readers. Nor do they care that epublishers have far less hassles with RSS than with email. Nor do they care, for that matter, that the costs to "fix" email are huge and not yet funded; they assume that this is something the industry and web-based publishers will take care of, and why shouldn't they assume this? After all, we have conditioned them to think email letters should be free -- and we are doing the very same thing with blogged content... With all these user education barriers to overcome, it seems likely to say that it will take time for RSS to be a truly effective publishing alternative to email. But it does *not* mean that RSS is unimportant to publishers. In several key ways, the blogging phenomenon is comparable to the explosion in "home pages" that occurred just after the web reached critical mass. In 1997, users could establish their own mini-site in hosted "communities" like Geocities and Tripod. They could create a site using simple tools, and host it for free. They could then load it up with all sorts of personal stuff, from rants to really valuable specialized information to pictures of grandma's house. For a time, it seemed to many that in a few short years we would all have a home page, and we would all spend all our time reading the home pages of others. Democracy would be saved, the media megamonsters would be undermined, and anyone who wished to get rich could have an online business, one that would reach all the millions using the web. The venture capitalists added millions of dollars in backing for this rosy vision. Reality set in fairly quickly, of course, but that is another story, for another thread. In fact, however, all of this premature enthusiasm and hype *did* help create the foundation for today's solidly-grounded e-conomy. In similar ways. the millions of blogs being authored and published by individuals, the hundreds of blogging tool kits and services, the dozens of RSS readers being created - - all mimic the homepage frenzy. It's easy to discount the quality or usefulness of 99% of blogged content, and it's obvious that 75% of the tools and techniques now being touted will not make the cut, ultimately. But it would be foolish IMO to assume that RSS will not mature, and do so quickly. Certainly the venture capitalists are believers, based on recent investments in blog-related startups. Have they learned anything in the last five years? Why this newly restored confidence? Just as with email and the web itself, there are real underlying economies and tangible benefits with RSS-based publishing. I suggest that we'll soon much more substantive examples of this. I'll add that many of these examples will be highly commercial in nature and/or sponsorship. We are already seeing new blog advertising networks every month or so. Very quickly, blogging will sort itself into a small class of sponsored or marketing-driven blogs, and a huge under-class of personal journals. So what else is new? RSS is a coming thing, in short, one that epublishers can use *now* to extend their readership reach, and, in a few years, possibly use as a primary delivery channel for their monetized content. Blogs are also useful *now* to deliver commercial messages for products and services, especially for products that involve educating prospective buyers over a long period, in advance of a sale. But even when RSS and blogging is truly "mainstream", I predict that for every reader who chooses to get their econtent via a news reader, at least five more will still prefer to get that same content via email. Not because (by then, we must hope) RSS will still be so hassle-prone; it will simply be more convenient to scan newsletters in their (by then, we must hope) nearly SPAM-free inbox. David Yancey http://www.vivante.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Steve Pronger Subject: RSS and more > I downloaded and installed an RSS Reader and have tested > RSS for over a month now. I am removing the software from > my system as I find it more trouble than it is worth. - Tom Aman, LED 1941 > I, too, have installed an RSS Reader and am removing it from > my system. It doesn't add convenience, and I prefer to receive > my information via e-mail. - Ronni Rhodes, LED 1942 Interesting comments from Tom and Ronni, and they do illustrate the fact that not everyone will have the same user experience with RSS. I have an RSS reader installed and it has been no trouble whatsoever. It works flawlessly and I have found it hugely convenient. When I find information I want, a couple of clicks will add it to my list of feeds. If I want to stop receiving it, a few more clicks will remove it. No subscribe, confirm, whitelist, unsubscribe etc etc. Wade though tons of spam or have the information I want delivered straight to my desktop. I know which I prefer. Ronni, I tried a little experiment. After checking out your site (very nice BTW) I went to My Yahoo and did a feed search for "streaming audio". There were 3 feeds listed. I also tried "video encoding services". There were none. So, if you were to start a blog that targeted the same keywords that your site does, your feed (blog) could be the ONLY one that comes up when a feed search is done. And remember folks, this isn't some unheard of directory. This is Yahoo! If you don't see opportunity here... No doubt there are technical issues to resolve, as Tom points out. And until RSS is fully integrated into IE and Netscape (Firefox already has it) there will be resistance to installing new software and many end users will choose not to embrace it. That's fine. But if you're a marketer that window of opportunity will not last forever. Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Dejan Bizinger Subject: Happy birthday .com domains Hey, LED-ers! I decided to write this article because according to Jottings list at the March, 15 will be 20 years since the first .com domain name was registered. The first .com on that list is symbolics.com If you want to see the complete list of 100 oldest .com domains go to: http://www.jottings.com/100-oldest-dot-com-domains.htm Best regards, Dejan Bizinger, Internet producer http://dejan.bizinger.biz ------- new post - new topic -------- From: John Brumage Subject: Forwarding email > My ISP recently started blocking mail that is 'relayed' > to them. For years I've been using the mail forward > function with my various web hosting accounts and > having all mail sent to the ISP account. - Kevin Decker, LED 1941 There is no reason to send site-related email to the same host as your website, the MX (mail exchanger) records can be pointed directly to any email server, and an account on that server can then be aliased or forwarded to a single inbox. On the other hand, checking multiple accounts should not be an issue.. in outlook express, at startup or at send/receive, all accounts are checked. We (and a zillion other providers) sell POP 3 mail boxes, and can configure aliases and forwarding however needed. John "zeke" Brumage john,brumage.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Noah Price Subject: Forwarding email Your ISP may be using Sender Policy Framework (SPF) to determine the server or servers authorized to send mail for the domain, and only accepting mail from those servers (see more on this at http://spf.pobox.com/). The "relayed" mail may be redirected maintaining the same sender (the "MAIL FROM" address passed between servers using SMTP). This won't match the sending server required by the sending domain, and will fail the SPF checks. Unfortunately many forwarding services suffer in this way, so blocking based solely on SPF verification results in many false rejections as you're experiencing. Forwarding is also a problem for email service providers because the forwarding system is often "blamed" for spam forwarded at the user's direction. > I feel like I'm stuck between the proverbial rock and > a hard place. Anyone else having similar problems? > Any recommendations? I avoid forwarding problems in my mail services by offering mail aggregation by a "pull" method rather than "push" using forwarders. This is done by allowing my customers to retrieve mail from outside POP accounts on a regular basis at the mail server. Another method to avoid forwarding problems is to use the domain's DNS to direct mail for all the domains to the same server (with the "MX" record), and configure that server to accept mail for all domains to the same accounts. In our system, multiple domains can be associated with the same set of accounts. Likewise, you are not bound to keep your mail and web service together. Even if you require a variety of web servers to meet different needs, you can use the domain's MX record to direct mail to an entirely different server, keeping all your email in one place. You're welcome to reach me for further assistance using the "contact us" link on my site, below. Noah Price prxy Internet Services http://www.prxy.com/ ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Frames > How do search engines feel about frames? - Nancy Cardinali, LED 1940 Quick frames tutorial, Nancy. When you View/Source from the browser menu, all you see is the HTML for the FRAMESET, that code that specifies the frames layout for the browser plus the URLs of the content to be placed in those frames. Using the site in question, and stripping all the extraneous stuff out, the source shows: <.frameset rows='100%, *' frameborder=no framespacing=0 border=0> - start of set of frames, tells how to layout the frames <.frame src="http://stevekukla.bizland.com/index.htm" name=mainwindow frameborder=no framespacing=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0><./frame> - gives the content of the first frame (http://stevekukla.bizland.com/index.htm) - also the name to be used for it (so other links can "target" it for other content). <.frame src="/?a8734haka8dr781346=true" NAME=a33 frameborder=no framespacing=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0><./frame> - content, etc. of second frame <./frameset> - end of set of frames <.noframes> .. <./noframes> - Info to be displayed by browsers that do not support frames. If you are working on this site and have never worked with frames, take time to learn about them. Aside from other problems, one of the reasons they got such a bad name is because there were so many bad implementations. Aside from that, I would be interested in comments from other LEDers. Seems to me that, although a few sites still use them, frames have lost a lot of their popularity. (Or designers have gotten so good with them that their use is mostly invisible) Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform." - Bertrand Russell |
