Re: UKNM: Nielsen on Mailing List Usability

[Sam Michel]

At 14:04 21/08/00 +0100, Alberts, Rob wrote:

>Salient points at:

>http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000820.html

>

>He says fulfillment is far more important than "marketing tricks". Okay -

>but cannot have one without the other.


Interesting stuff, definitely agree on the speed of response, but in

reality it's no different from the pressures of delivering a website

speedily, except it's usually a lot cheaper.


>and as for discussion groups:

>"Unfortunately, moderation is a good deal of work: a rent-a-moderator

>service might be a good business idea, locating the moderators in

low-salary

>countries." Okay there's a joke here for moderators, but doesn't he ignore

>the fact that there are linguistic barriers to outsourcing. Ay carumba.


I hate to disagree with the godfather of usability, but this is cobblers.

I'm rapidly going off the term moderation, because it sounds too draconian.

To my mind a list host should be an email gardener, tending his or her

patch, providing fertiliser when necessary, doing a spot of weeding, but

making sure the garden grows. Lists are organic beasts and it takes an

awareness of the people involved in the list (both those contributing and

those lurking) as well as a strong grasp of the subject area to be able to

fulfill this role.


The idea of parachuting in some guy in a warehouse on the other side of the

world to moderate a discussion mailing list or a bulletin board is just

nuts. He's not wrong that it can be a lot of work, but also misses some of

the intracacies of the inter-relationships between members of a discussion

list. Flame wars can erupt and ruin lists, but more often than not, the

members of the list settle the situation with minimal interference from a

host. It's about people, not about technology or interfaces.


That's why discussion lists are vibrant and popular activities. They're not

the easiest to use although I'd argue pound for pound of information

delivered, they're better value than most of the time I spend surfing.


>Ultimately, he just predicts the death of lists and email marketing. So:

eek

>or ech???


I don't think so. There's certainly a strong case for decent software

that'll handle the cross-over between a discussion board and a mailing

list. If anyone's found a solution for this that works well, I'd love to

hear about it. It comes down to the whole push-pull scenario. There's very,

very few websites I check every day, but I check my email every hour or so.

I'd hazard a guess that the usability of your average email is better than

the usability of the average website. Maybe.


Consumers will undoubtedly become a lot more picky about what email

marketing they allow permission for, and spam filters will continue to get

better, but that reflects more on the marketing community than the method

of transmission. Good email marketing works. That might sound a bit dumb,

but think about it. Successful email campaigns _do_ sell product, whether

or not the overall business model is flawed is another discussion.


I think Nielsen's take on the death of discussion lists is at least

premature. The functionality will certainly evolve, but they remind me too

much of a virtual boozer, where folks collect to chinwag (pun most

definitely intended), they go back because it's their local and they have a

sense of community...even if they hardly say anything.


I think I'm ranting...as you can probably guess, I could go on about this

for a while! If anyone has had great experience of intelligent agents, I'd

love to know about it?


Toodle Pip


Sam

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Sam Michel - Founder - http://www.chinwag.com

                     e:

samchinwag [dot] com

Home of the UK-Netmarketing, UKNM-jobs, Flasher,

          Shockwave and other mailing lists.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 ScreamingMedia the leading global technology platform for

 the aggregation and distribution of digital content over the

 Internet, is now operating in the United Kingdom.

 Get relevant and customised content to attract visitors

 to your site and keep them there.  Click Here!


 http://adcenter.in2.com/cgi-bin/click.cgi?tid=31036

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  To unsubscribe or change your list settings go to

http://www.chinwag.com/uk-netmarketing or

helpchinwag [dot] com