** Sometime around 01:04 -0400 04/11/1999, David Sharp said:
>What's the catch with these free email hosting services?
First-born child. No, they don't want to take it from you; you just have
to name it after their service. Personally, I'd rather have a kid called
"Topica" than "eGroups," but that's just me.
>I'm involved in Jliste, a mailing list for journalists here in France
>(<http://lists.lyris.net/jliste/> - sorry, it's all in French!), and we're
>currently looking around at possibilities for moving to a new kind of
>hosting service.
In its defense, Lyris.net *does* provide a top-notch hosting service. I
have awhole slew of lists there -- a large announcement list and a bunch of
good-sized discussion lists -- and they have always done a superb job. (No,
I'm not directly affiliated with them, except that I have a bunch of lists
hosted there and I really like the service a lot.)
>We find ourselves faced with a choice between paid services, most of which
>will involve our costs zooming up towards the $500 a month mark in the
>forseeable future, and an array of free services such as Topica and Onelist.
[..]
>In view of the costs of a paid service - list traffic more than doubled
>last month, so the Lyris bill did as well - some of those members are
>telling us: "Why don't you just put the list onto a free service?"
>
>Our reply to date has been:
>
>A: Because we have made a principled decision not to rely on advertising
>B: Because we want to be sure that member information remains confidential, and
>C: Because with a free service there's no guarantee of a reliable service.
>
>-- Concerning point A, I note that on Onelist, the only direct advertising
>placed on the bottom of messages, for the moment at least, is for the
>services of Onelist itself. (I haven't yet had direct experience of a
>Topica list).
This is also the case with Topica (with whom I *am* affiliated, BTW; I do
not and can not speak for them, but I am a technical advisor for them);
they insert a single tag line, like "Make mailing lists work for you,"
with their URL.
>But I don't see anything that would prevent them, if they
>wanted, from putting ads for third-party products or services on the bottom
>of messages.
Topica's policy is that they will *not* insert advertising into list
messages without your permission. Which, of course, begs the question,
"Who in his right mind would *voluntarily* give permission for a third
aprty to advertise on his mailing list if he didn't have to?" Good
question, David <g> -- the answer is that Topica plans to provide
"incentives" in exchange for your opting-in to advertising. The nature
of those incentives is left as an exercise for the reader; the point,
though, is that advertising on the list will be purely voluntary.
>-- On point B, Onelist explain in their terms of service that they won't
>hand out members' email addresses, although they do reserve the right to
>exploit other info. This sounds ominous to me: they must be exploiting
>member information in some way or other.
I can tell you that Topica takes member privacy *very* seriously. They
have engaged in discussions with several of us on various privacy fronts,
to ensure that their membership policies address even the a skittish
list owner like me. You can check out their privacy statement here:
<http://www.topica.com/pop/index.html?mode=privacy>
In short, member information will be used to compile demographics info,
but will never be used in any capacity other than that. (For example the
demographics info could be used -- in the form of statistical summaries,
not individual data -- to acquire advertising on the site.)
Topica also allows you to "hide" your list archives from non-subscribers,
and also allows you to hide the very existence of the mailing list (i.e.,
you can choose to *not* have it listed in the directory). In all, Topica
takes privacy very seriously.
>-- Regarding point C, I've noticed a few glitches with Onelist services,
>including not only long delays but lost messages. However opinions seem to
>diverge on that question. Needless to say, the people advocating a "free"
>solution are also the ones who haven't noticed any problems.
I can assue you that Topica has quite a good deal of capacity, including a
*lot* of reserve capacity. I am running several active discussion lists
over there, including one that I launched even before they went public, and
have not had a single glitch on any of them. Feedback from my subscribers
is that they love the web interface -- which is good news for me, since I
had received scores of complaints about the web interface on the previous
hosting service.
I had also used OneList about a year ago, and had noticed some glitches
at that time. My impression is that they have worked very hard to fix the
problems they'd had earlier, and reports that I've heard recently
regarding OneList is that the service has improved dramatically.
>To cut a long story short, I find it hard to believe that commercial
>undertakings such as Onelist and Topica are spending all that money on
>server capacity and jazzy hosting features just for the greater good of
>humanity.
>
>So what's the deal?
Money. :-)
>Are we at Jliste crazy to be considering staying with a paid service?
No, not at all. For some, a paid service is the right way to go; for others,
a free service is the right choice. It seems to come down to whether you
want to pay for the right to not have a "tag line" inserted a the bottom of
the list messages, or banner advertising on the web site. For many, that's
a small price to pay (or not pay, as the case may be <g.). Others prefer to
have complete control over the content of the list messages and web site.
It really comes down to what works best with your list.
>If we are, how come the paid services are staying in business?
They are staying in business because they are presumably providing an
excellent service (such a lyris.net), and because there will always be
list owners who want to have 100% control of everything that appears in
messages on their lists and on their web sites. And please don't
misconstrue my point -- there is nothing wrong with wanting to have 100%
control over the content of your list and web site. But what works or is
deemed necessary by one list owner might be entirely unacceptable (or just
the wrong business model) to another.
It really all comes down to a combination of personal preference and the
expectations of your list members. And only you can guage those; we can't
help you there. ;-)
Best of luck with the list, David.
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