Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 13:22:05 -0700
Sender: owner-online-news@marketplace.com
Precedence: bulk
Status: RO
X-Status:
On 9/12/96, Alan Flippen wrote:
>Here's the reason I find e-mail appealing: it comes to me without being
>prompted. I read Steve Outing's column as religiously as I read anything on
>the Web, which is to say, I remember to go look for it once every two weeks
>or so (sorry, Steve). If it were delivered to me by e-mail, I would read it
>the day of publication every time without fail.
I've long recognized that problem, and hear this repeatedly. There should be
an e-mail version of my Stop The Presses! column soon. (For those willing to
read it on the Web, the URL is in my sig. ;)
>A newsletter (or whatever)
>delivered by e-mail is a subscription that people want -- and that you'd
>probably have a much easier time collecting money from them for (again, I'd
>pay a small sum to have Steve's column delivered to me in my e-mail-box
>regularly, when I might well balk at paying the saame sum to access him on
>the Web. Go figure.)
Yep, this is the problem many of us are having with Web sites. When we can
deliver content of our Web sites, prying money out of Internet users will
get a little bit easier for certain types of content (especially narrow-
market newsletters and columns; consumer content will probably still need
to be free even when "pushed").
>As the techies develop ways to make copy delivered by
>e-mail a lot prettier, I'd bet we'll see a resurgence in this medium.
>Thoughts, anyone?
>
I think that's absolutely correct, and it's a big part of the reason that
two of my current consulting clients are e-mail publishing companies. Take
a look at Netscape Inbox Direct (*not* a client) for an early indication of
where this is going. The problem I have with Inbox is that readers must use
Netscape as their mail reader to received Web pages as e-mail. (No way am I
going to give up Eudora.) This should be solved soon enough when MS Explorer
mail feature, Eudora and other major mail apps will support reading HTML
directly. I think Mercury Mail (they *are* a client)
is on the right track here. Check out their WeatherVane service, where you
specify what mail reader you use and receive daily messages formated
according to your app's capabilities.
IMO, e-mail is going to "get prettier" in the next year and we'll see a
resurgence of interest in personalized e-mail. I'm surprised that this seems
to be low on many publishers' priority lists. This will change soon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Outing Planetary News
steve@planetarynews.com Boulder, Colorado, USA
owner-online-newspapers@planetarynews.com voice: 303-543-7810
owner-online-news@planetarynews.com fax: 303-543-1059
*Consulting services for the newspaper new media industry*
http://www.planetarynews.com/
Read my Stop The Presses! column on E&P Interactive:
------- http://www.mediainfo.com/ephome/news/newshtm/stop/stop.htm -------
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
This message was posted to ONLINE-NEWS. http://www.planetarynews.com/o-n.html
From owner-online-news@marketplace.com Thu Sep 12 21:02:48 1996
Received: from marketplace.com (majordom@marketplace.com [206.168.5.232]) by cnj.digex.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA00260 ; for ; Thu, 12 Sep 1996 21:02:48 -0400
Received: (from majordom@localhost) by marketplace.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA04258 for online-news-outgoing; Thu, 12 Sep 1996 14:23:09 -0600
Received: from server.indra.com (server.indra.com [204.144.142.2]) by marketplace.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA04246 for ; Thu, 12 Sep 1996 14:23:03 -0600
Received: from indra.com by server.indra.com (8.7.4/Spike-8-1.0)
id OAA17234; Thu, 12 Sep 1996 14:08:10 -0600 (MDT)
Received: from sb.aol.com by indra.com (8.7.4/Spike-8-1.0)
id OAA06831; Thu, 12 Sep 1996 14:08:08 -0600 (MDT)
Received: from geek.navisoft.com (geek.navisoft.com [152.163.236.133]) by sb.aol.com (8.7.1/8.7.1) with ESMTP id NAA08301 for ; Thu, 12 Sep 1996 13:01:40 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by geek.navisoft.com (8.7.1/8.7.1) with SMTP id MAA08741 for ; Thu, 12 Sep 1996 12:51:06 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <199609121951.MAA08741@geek.navisoft.com>
X-Authentication-Warning: geek.navisoft.com: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol
To: online-news@planetarynews.com
Subject: Re: AOL v. Cyber Promotions From: Steve Outing Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 13:22:05 -0700
How the Web Was Won
Subject: Re: AOL v. Cyber Promotions
From: Steve Outing
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 13:22:05 -0700
In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 12 Sep 1996 12:12:44 EDT."
<2.2.32.19960912161244.006b3a04@mail.freemark.com>