I like to create and manage topical web sites. Almost every book or article on web site promotion or community building says that a great way to promote such sites is by creating and managing an e-mail list devoted to whatever topic the web site is devoted to. In fact I’m currently subscribed to a few mailing lists run by the same folks who run web sites I find useful.
But running a mailing list is a pain in the behind. One way to do it is install a popular mailing list program such as majordomo on a server and do it all yourself. I used to do that for announcement-only lists and it was a huge headache; I wouldn’t even want to think about having to maintain a mailing list with one of those programs. On the other hand there are a number of sites such as Topica that allow you to run a mailing list very easily — if you’re willing to have your users suffer through advertisements in order to get the maximum benefit.
And using either of those options doesn’t solve a fundamental problem. There is still an enormous disconnect between the content of the web site and the content of the mailing list. With all of the sites I visit that sponsor mailing lists, there is almost no direct relationship between the content on the web site and the content on the mailing list (in fact for some sites, a mailing list seems to be offered in lieu of a web-based discussion forum, which also tend to be disconnected from the web site content).
The other day the folks at Macrobyte solved all three problems with a new feature that finishes turning Conversant web sites into e-mail lists. From the beginning of this site anyone could join it and then request to subscribe to it via e-mail. Since it is a database-driven site it’s just a matter of taking information that is posted via the web and sending it out through e-mail, as well as taking information sent via e-mail posts and replies and making sure it gets to the right place on the web site. The beauty of the system is that it’s a database that’s just as comfortable passing along information in an e-mail message (or newsgroup message even — but more on that in a few weeks) as it is in displaying it in a web page.
The folks at Macrobyte finished the job recently when they made it possible to subscribe and unsubscribe to the site purely through e-mail. If you are not a member of this site but would like to receive it by e-mail, all you have to do is send an e-mail to ….. Like any number of e-mail list software packages, it is set up to require a return confirmation e-mail, and sends along a “Welcome” message that I can configure to my heart’s delight.
The beauty of this, as far as I’m concerned, is that now I can promote my web sites as mailing lists as well. To be sure, as Seth notes, viewing a Conversant site as just an e-mail list really ignores the incredible power the software has, but on the other hand it does give that option for users who might want to discuss a topic via e-mail but who would have little time or patience to do so through a web interface.
To my mind this is really a dramatic extension of the power of Conversant that will go a long way toward helping me expand the audience for my web sites.