Suggestion for plugin: newsletter

[hgoor]

I have a suggestion for a plugin (well actually a friend of mine gave me the idea).

Make it possible to mail your blog as a newsletter (nice HTML layout and all) to subscribers

(ps: if there already is such a plugin: sorry I could not find it, I must have been looking in the wrong places)

[garvinhicking]

Newsletters are dead, since the advent/rise of RSS.

At least this is, what I think.

However, there is a serendipity_event_mailer plugin that can mail entries to people. You can configure it to use the address of a mailinglist easily. And you can adjust the code, if you want surrounding HTML layout.

That's all I can personally offer - I'm not going to develop any newsletter software or an interface to build a newsletter, because I really hate them.

Maybe some other developers think different, so if you want to have something like that, please go for it.

Best regards,
Garvin

[hgoor]

Newsletters are dead, since the advent/rise of RSS.

At least this is, what I think.

However, there is a serendipity_event_mailer plugin that can mail entries to people. You can configure it to use the address of a mailinglist easily. And you can adjust the code, if you want surrounding HTML layout.

That's all I can personally offer - I'm not going to develop any newsletter software or an interface to build a newsletter, because I really hate them.

Maybe some other developers think different, so if you want to have something like that, please go for it.

Best regards,
Garvin

Ok I will have a look at it.

Btw: I think you're dead wrong on newsletters being dead.

If you look at the figures, RSS still is pretty much unused! It is not as popular as you would like to believe. According to surveys 78% of people do not even know what RSS is. And of the 22% that does know, only 9% actually subscribes to it, whereas mailings still have a penetration of around 72%.

Off course I understand that you're a techie and as such like to be on the cutting edge, but believe me: people still like to receive mail.

- PS: figures are for European survey see US Nielsen in other post

[carl_galloway]

hgoor, sorry to say, I agree with Garvin.

Before starting my business blog I used a newsletter. My staff would mail it all around the world to clients and business colleagues. The cost of print and distribution averaged US$78k per annum. We moved to blogging on the recommendation of a former colleague and our print costs immediately halved, and have since dropped to zero as more and more recipients have opted out.

An Australian friend of mine sits in the House of Representatives and tells me that his MRO are consistently telling him he should drop the frequency of his newsletter and add more to his blog. Their research is finding that approximately 85-95% of his newsletter recipients are throwing them away unread.

Your blog may have a very loyal following, and your readers will probably take the time to seek out your opinion. So, this can only mean that you want a newsletter facility for people who aren't really interested anyway, and spamming a mailbox, even with the recipients consent, isn't going to win friends.

My recommendation would be;
1. Identify you blog audience by interest, amount of time available to them to pursue their interest, where they usually get their information, what type of information they are looking for etc.

2. Choose the direction your blog is going, and fill it with content that your intended audience want to read. Now you've got them.

3. Simply send a short announcement to half a dozen of the most active readers, I would pick the people who are most loud with their opinions (the people who seem active in forums, chatrooms, or whose blogs are well read), let them know what you're doing, and before long your entire audience will be slavishly devouring your content.

[hgoor]

hgoor, sorry to say, I agree with Garvin.

Before starting my business blog I used a newsletter. My staff would mail it all around the world to clients and business colleagues. The cost of print and distribution averaged US$78k per annum. We moved to blogging on the recommendation of a former colleague and our print costs immediately halved, and have since dropped to zero as more and more recipients have opted out.

An Australian friend of mine sits in the House of Representatives and tells me that his MRO are consistently telling him he should drop the frequency of his newsletter and add more to his blog. Their research is finding that approximately 85-95% of his newlsetter recipients are throwing them away unread.

Your blog may have a very loyal following, and your readers will probably take the time to seek out your opinion. So, this can only mean that you want a newsletter facility for people who aren't really interested anyway, and spamming a mailbox, even with the recipients consent, isn't going to win friends.

My recommendation would be;
1. Identify you blog audience by interest, amount of time available to them to pursue their interest, where they usually get their information, what type of information they are looking for etc.

2. Choose the direction your blog is going, and fill it with content that your intended audience want to read. Now you've got them.

3. Simply send a short announcement to half a dozen of the most active readers, I would pick the people who are most loud with their opinions (the people who seem active in forums, chatrooms, or whose blogs are well read), let them know what you're doing, and before long your entire audience will be slavishly devouring your content.

Uhm, I'm talking about a newletter by e-mail? Not print.

And I still - respectfully - disagree. The figures I gave you are for the UK, Holland, Belgium and France (I'm not sure about Germany).

It just depends on your target audience as you said.

RSS is nice but it is not a push medium. E-mail is.

I see the newsletter option as an addition to the blog. As with RSS you can publish just the first part of articles in it and have people visit your blog after they click on a/the link.

There are over > 7.5 million subscribers here in Holland alone to several newletters for news-sites and general blog-style websites (especially for blog-style websites about travel and commerce).

Ergo: there is no indication at all e-mail newsletters are dead.

I happen to be in the IT business myself as a project manager and at least twice a month a company asks me if we do e-mail newsletters as well.

You might want to hope for it to be different but the cold hard figures show you're all dead wrong...

[hgoor]

Table 1: Use of RSS Feeds, June 2005
Survey Response Percent of Respondents
I use feed aggregation software to monitor RSS feeds for blogs 4.9%
I use a feed aggregating Web site to monitor RSS feeds for blogs 6.4%
I've heard of RSS and know what it does but don't use RSS feeds 23.0%
I've heard of RSS but don't know what it does 15.7%
I've never heard of RSS before today 50.0%

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings Understanding the Blogosphere survey, August 2005 Note: 1,000 online U.S. MegaPanelists responded to the survey fielded in June 2005

[hgoor]

And to add:

NEW YORK (Adweek IQ) People still say they experience a greater connection and loyalty to companies through e-mail newsletters than is possible through Web sites or RSS, according to a recent study.

"Newsletters feel personal because they arrive in your e-mail inbox, and you have an ongoing relationship with them. In contrast, Web sites are things you glance at when you need to find an answer to a specific question," said Jakob Nielsen, principal of Nielsen Norman Group, a Freemont, Calif., research group that conducted the study. Nielsen Norman Group focuses on all aspects of consumers' interaction with a company.

The research also found that e-mail newsletters are seen as time savers because they pinpoint specific content or provide shortcuts to larger amounts of information. Therefore, newsletters should be conducive to scanning. In the study, 23% of the newsletters were read thoroughly, 50% were skimmed or partly read, and the remaining 27% were never opened.

While e-mail newsletters are enjoying some success, they are in danger of being associated with spam, or junk e-mail, according to the study. Nielsen recommended that companies avoid words like "free" and "debt" in their subject lines to distinguish their newsletters from spam.

[garvinhicking]

BTW, there are services that distribute RSS feeds via newsletter.

RSS is the superior format, it's easy to send newsletters based on RSS feeds - and actually, a "pull" medium for newsletters is quite a good thing because it enables the user to read what he wants at any time.

Of course, RSS needs to be spread more. But with IE7 and Windows Vista, this will be the way of the future, whereas newsletters are on the drop because they are technically and usability-wise inferior. Also spam is a large issue why many newsletters are no longer well-received.

Just my $0.02 of random noise

Regards,
Garvin

[hgoor]

BTW, there are services that distribute RSS feeds via newsletter.

RSS is the superior format, it's easy to send newsletters based on RSS feeds - and actually, a "pull" medium for newsletters is quite a good thing because it enables the user to read what he wants at any time.

Of course, RSS needs to be spread more. But with IE7 and Windows Vista, this will be the way of the future, whereas newsletters are on the drop because they are technically and usability-wise inferior. Also spam is a large issue why many newsletters are no longer well-received.

Just my $0.02 of random noise

Regards,
Garvin

Oh, I agree: RSS is so much better. Personally I rather use RSS.

But it's all about options and having a choice.

And as long as there are still loads of people out there that also would like e-mail newsletters I would just like to see a plugin for that.

RSS-style or not

[garvinhicking]

You did read about the mailer plugin, right? If you only know some basic PHP you can very easily wrap your HTML layout around it.

Thus I think an advanced plugin for that is only a waste of (at least my free) time )

Best regards,
Garvin

[hgoor]

You did read about the mailer plugin, right? If you only know some basic PHP you can very easily wrap your HTML layout around it.

Thus I think an advanced plugin for that is only a waste of (at least my free) time )

Best regards,
Garvin

Yeah I did read about it. And I am looking into it. Unfortunately I know jack about PHP unless it is spelled out to me what to do.

Also I guess it will be pretty basic?

What I was looking for was:

- option to "(Un)Subcribe to this Blog" (enter e-mail)
- Then the option to either mail them the short version or full version..

Basic stuff like that....

[carl_galloway]

hmm, sending an email does make a difference to print and distribution costs, you are correct in this instance. I assume also that you are not a financial services organisation and feel comfortable with sending an email to your readership.

Is your blog hosted on a dedicated or controlled server and are you comfortable with the additional overhead of sending emails? May I ask, were you intending to push your newsletter manually, ie you login and send, or were you planning to have this done automatically every time a post is published?

Also, you seem to want to wrap selected posts or summaries into the overall look and feel of the blog and send an html email. When the recipient opens the newsletter they would need a live connection so that images and stylesheets could be fetched. Am I missing something?

Newsletters as you say are push technology, and you bring to the discussion some impressive sounding figures. I am personally familiar with AC Nielsen and with the controversy surrounding this type of report. A small sample of 1000 is not representative of the blogosphere, and it does not take into consideration past or future trends.

A newsletter may not be the only solution for your needs. By answering my queries some of us may have other thoughts.