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Email vs. RSS
I use a service on this blog called Bloglet.
It powers the "subscribe to this via email" field on the upper left of my blog.
Everyday 780 people get an email from Bloglet telling them about any new posts on my blog (see my Changing Web post for more on this stuff). That number goes up by anywhere from 2 to 5 people a day and has been since I started this blog.
It's clearly not the most popular way to subscribe to my blog since over 4300 people have subscribed to one of my three RSS feeds.
But the 780 people who get an email from me are probably a different kind of reader.
My bet is that most of them don't use an RSS reader which means they are not blog enthusiasts and probably only read a couple of blogs a day.
They also click thru to my blog much more often than the RSS readers do since I put the entire post into my feeds and I don't do that with Bloglet.
I understand all the reasons that RSS is a better way to subscribe to blogs, but I also think you can't ignore email.
Email is an everyday application for hundreds of millions of people. RSS is at least one order of magnitude less and proabably two orders of magnitude less than that.
And subscribing via email is easy to do for most people.
So if you are looking to build lasting relationships with your readers, don't forget about email.
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Posted June 10, 2005 in Venture Capital and TechnologyComments
Tony and I don't even know what the hell RSS stands for, much les what it is, but don't mistake the facts - WE ARE VERY ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT BLOGS AND BLOGGING! Just because I only read about six or seven blogs regularly doesn't mean I'm some sort of amature or part time blogger. I'm just VERY BUSY DAMMIT!
Posted by: jackson | Jun 10, 2005 9:14:32 AM
Did you do a custom template to accommodate the Bloglet HTML code? I wasn't able to get it to work as a simple TypeList.
Posted by: D. C. | Jun 10, 2005 12:59:31 PM
About 300 customers use our service to send approximately 1 million emails to their supporters, members, readers, etc.
We've only just started to have our first customers switch from newsletters to RSS feeds and only about 15 of the 300 use RSS.
As a newsletter service provider - I can't wait till they all switch to RSS. Email delievery is such a pain in the a*s with all the spam these days.
Posted by: Rick Stratton | Jun 10, 2005 2:31:05 PM
I read that somebodys wife got an answer from Meg Whiteman regarding PayPal so I decided to write too. I am so disguested with this bunch. I can't sign-in, I can't get any help that makes sense and when I call them I keep getting switched from person to person. I have made five calls to them and was sent a letter telling me how to log in which I can't do because me password is not working and they have the wrong email address. I have money in my account and can't get at it because I can't sign-in, I can't withdraw it or have them send me a check because there is too much money in there. The person who said they opened a new account did you have money in there and were you able to get it. Customer Service is useless. My next option is to call the government and request assistance.
Posted by: duchess | Jun 10, 2005 8:36:07 PM
Rick - email delivery is only a pain in the ass when folks use spam assassin as their anti-spam solution.
"Email is an everyday application for hundreds of millions of people.
So if you are looking to build lasting relationships with your readers, don't forget about email."
The truth in that statement is why we're in business. We beleive that email is still the killer app and we not only solved the spam problem but also solved the email delivery issue caused by anti-spam as well.
Who do we target with these solutions? Enterprise? Nope - Small to medium businesses. We're attacking the market from the bottom up, not the top down. After all, there are a heck of a lot more mailboxes (ie. paying customers) this route than going at it from the top down.
Posted by: David | Jun 11, 2005 8:48:18 AM
I think you're fooling yourself. The concensus is that Bloglet doesn't actually work anymore and is no longer supported.
Posted by: Randy Charles Morin | Jun 11, 2005 8:15:00 PM
I'm an email subscriber, and a blog enthusiast -- but I don't track very many on a regular basis (I just click through most blogs once a week or so). I like reading blog posts in the context of other posts.
Most of the ones I track via email are ones that also have links to a bunch of other blogs I like to read, so the update notices from your blog remind me to go to other ones and catch up every once in a while when I have time. Some of those are ones I wouldn't subscribe to and would probably just forget about otherwise.
Although I've worked with technology for a very long time, I've learned that there's nothing wrong with sticking with what's working (sorry to hear bloglet isn't supported anymore).
Posted by: Christy | Jun 13, 2005 8:50:01 AM
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