Re: AOL/Microsoft-Hotmail Preventing Delivery of Truthout Communications NOTE DUE TO THEIR REPUTATION djf

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "W.B. McNamara" <whitney () absono us>
Date: September 19, 2007 10:10:55 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:    AOL/Microsoft-Hotmail Preventing Delivery of  
Truthout Communications NOTE DUE TO THEIR REPUTATION djf


Dave, an additional note:

I probably fall pretty squarely into truthout's target group from  
whatever political, social, or economic perspective one chooses to  
take; after this thread started I signed up for their mailing list  
out of curiousity.  Here's the communication history thus far:

2007-09-17 2:20 PM:
Received confirmation request email (active confirmation required,  
good for them) and clicked link.

2007-09-17 2:20 PM:
Received "you're on the list now" email.  Not strictly necessary, but  
fine.

2007-09-17 6:45 PM: Received "don't forget to donate" email, noting  
their delivery problems as added incentive for those who are  
receiving the emails to contribute.  Okay...reasonable enough, lemons  
and lemonade and what-have-you.

2007-09-17 10:06 PM:
Received topical update email.  Read it, interesting, probably  
wouldn't have been aware of the issue otherwise.  Good.

2007-09-18 9:10 AM:
Received topical update email.  Read it, less interesting...eh, still  
happy enough to have read it.

2007-09-18 2:10 PM:
Received topical update email.  Scanned it, getting a little tired of  
the emails now.

2007-09-18 5:39 PM:
Received "urgent donations appeal" email, noting their delivery  
problems as added incentive for those who are receiving the emails to  
contribute.  Yes, I know, I read yesterday's email, thanks.

2007-09-18 9:18 PM:
Received topical update email.  Looked at subject line, went to watch  
Red Dwarf season three instead of reading.

So in less than 48 hours I've received six emails from truthout,  
including two donation requests.  Is there a problem with that?  Yes  
and no.

I signed up for the list, so I personally wouldn't say that truthout  
is spamming me, but they did violate one of the basic rules of email  
communication:  SET EXPECTATIONS.
When I subscribed, I had--right or wrong--visions of some sort of  
newsletter dancing in my head, weekly or perhaps (at most) daily  
emails.  It never occurred to me that I might get three or four  
emails per day from truthout, and they did nothing to manage my  
expectations.
If their signup page had said "you'll receive update emails  
throughout the day," I would have known what I was getting myself  
into up front.  Again, whether it's right or wrong, I can very easily  
see someone clicking that "mark as spam" button somewhere around  
email four or five, rather than scrolling all the way to the bottom  
of the message and clicking the mailto link to unsubscribe.

As a side issue, truthout doesn't even offer any sort of daily digest  
option for email, so my choices are drinking from the firehose or  
unsubscribing, and I know which way I'm leaning right now.  For an  
organization that seems to depend so heavily on email, it seems to me  
like truthout is taking a surprisingly crude approach to working with  
email.

- Whit

**
W.B. McNamara
whitney () absono us
http://absono.us



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