Well, as a silent reader of this group for several months now, this one was
just too good to pass up... 

Vin has some outstanding points below, and I can vouch for the value of
customized e-mail. My company, Mercury Mail, just recently flew past the
100,000 active subscriptions mark and is sending out over 200,000 customized
e-mail messages a day (current run-rate is consequently over 5 million
impressions/page views per month -- how does your web-site compare to
that?). Outside of Outing's outstanding Stop the Presses! column, Mercury
Mail pretty much delivers on the Vin's version of customized e-mail, and
whether it's sports, stocks, news, weather or entertainment, we deliver
exactly what you ask for, WHEN you ask for it. You pick only what's
important to you and that's all we deliver -- no junk, no extra content,
nothing but what YOU want. We also are the only company in the world (that
we know of) delivering HTML mail today (our WeatherVane product). Our
customers have said time after time that the push aspect of e-mail,
particularly when customized, is far superior to the pull of the web. It's a
simple function of utility -- we make consuming content easier.

That is NOT to say that the web doesn't shine for deeper content and when
you want to do reference-type activity; however, for the normal, recurring
content needs that can be anticipated, e-mail is ideal. E-mail isn't as sexy
as the web just yet, and some folks find PointCast and personalized
web-services meet their needs -- but e-mail has the largest electronic
footprint available today, and I think that with the impending developments
with HMTL mail, you'll soon see a much stronger integration (substitution?)
between e-mail and the web. Publishers that aren't exploring (and
exploiting) e-mail will be playing catchup to companies like Mercury Mail
that make consuming content as easy as opening your mailbox.

Eric- while local content has some unique challenges, your unsupported
assertions seem overwhelmed by our experience. We get a 30%-40% response
rate on product surveys and our churn rate is 5% YEAR-TO-DATE(!) -- people
sure read our mail. Tell you what, try our services and then see if you stop
reading your mail :-)

John Funk
President & CEO
Mercury Mail, Inc.
http://www.merc.com

At 02:58 PM 9/18/96 -0400, Vin Crosbie wrote:
>In a discussion about whether more people would prefer to receive news by
>email than by accessing a website, Eric Meyer  at 07:56
>PM 9/17/96 -0500, wrote:
>
>>They would indeed -- for a while. At least that's what I found when
>>I looked into this about a year and a half ago. Eventually, people
>>stop opening up the e-mail message, too, particularly if they get a
>>lot of e-mail. Most get deleted unread.
>
>Please explain your methodology, Eric. My company spent 2-1/2 years
>researching this issue and came to a quite different conclusion -- so
>different a conclusion that the company switched from working on web-based
>to email-based content services, at expenses of several million dollars.
>
>As for whether or not people stop opening emailed content, that is generally
>true in two cases -- both mistakes on the part of the emailing company:
>
>1) When the content that you send them is too broad, not individualized to
>their own interests. What's the point of offering people the top world and
>national news headlines or briefs by email? They might initially enjoy that
>for a few days or weeks because of (as you pointed out) the novelty of
>receiving these in a new medium, but they'll soon realize that they can get
>this news more quickly on radio & TV and in more detail by reading a newspaper.
>
>2) When the frequency of emailing is improperly chosen for the type of
>content. For examples, if a consumer requests emailed local weather
>forecasts, but gets sent an updated forecast every hour, that consumer is
>going to get aggravated. However, if that consumer requests any business
>stories or press releases concerning a stock the consumer holds, that
>consumer will prefer to receive each stories or press releases right away
>(when he can call his broker), rather all in a group that evening or the
>next day.
>
>Individualization (packaging) is vital. I'd be bored receiving the day's top
>world news stories by email, but if you email to me SIMBA Media Daily,
>Outing's Stop the Presses!, Computer News Daily, all sports stories about
>the Boston Red Sox, the Boston weather forecast, and any stories or press
>releases about the stocks I hold, then you'll have an avid reader and have
>saved me the work and time of navigating to these things online,
>particularly on most days when I don't have time to websurf.
>
>And the timing of each of those individualized transmissions has to fit both
>the nature of the content and the usage a person would make of the content.
>A general rule of thumb: email naturally fits *between* broadcast and print
>media. Email can't deliver news as quickly as can a broadcast or in as much
>detail as can a publication (or a website), but it can certainly deliver
>news more quickly than the next morning's newspaper and in more detail than
>a broadcast. That is email's natural content habitat.
>
>_________________________________________________
>Vin Crosbie         Freemark Communications, Inc.
>        Director of Content Development
>crosbie@freemark.com      125 CambridgePark Drive
>(617) 492-6600 x211       Cambridge, MA 02140 USA
>(617) 492-6622 fax        http://www.freemark.com
>-------------------------------------------------
>
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>
>

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