Subject: Re: [Asrg] 6. Proposals - deprecate all list/bulk mailing and change to RSS

From: Bill Pease <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2003 13:37:20 -0800

Seems to be some confusion in this thread about whether the ASRG mandate 
is to eliminate spam or all use of email for any marketing purpose.

Marketing messages are not by definition = unsolicited email, or 
commercial email for that matter. Organizations communicate with their 
members or supporters, publishers communicate with their subscribers. 
  Think Oxfam, Amnesty International, Mother Jones.  These recipients 
have granted consent for ongoing communications, and these organizations 
want access to the set of marketing features that email provides: to 
convince their supporters to donate, or participate in the political 
process, or assist with viral recruitment, or engage in any of the host 
of other transactions involved in their missions.

My point was simply that if RSS cannot be extended to support a set of 
standard marketing features, many legitimate email publishers are not 
going to migrate to it because it won't meet their communication needs. 
There is also the larger order problem that RSS faces as a pull 
technology: it does't meet the needs of organizations who rely on push 
email to alert supporters about urgent issues.

If you don't want to marketed in your inbox by any organization, then 
don't join any of their email lists. Non-profit organizations 
communicate with supporters who have opted-in - they generally avoid 
prospecting via email.  They avoid sending unsolicited mail because 
being stigmatized as spammers adversely impacts the most important 
assets they have - their brand and their trust relationship with 
supporters or subscribers.

There is a set of email publishers that are legitimate, and are 
experiencing extensive collateral damage as a result of spam control 
efforts.  To tell them they should migrate to a distribution mechanism 
that doesn't support basic marketing techniques because those techniques 
have been abused by spammers just increases the amount of collateral 
damage the war against spam imposes on this sector.  Email will never be 
deprecated to support just "two-way communication" if alternative 
distribution mechanisms fail to provide comparable marketing functionality.

__________________________________________
Message: 15
From: Walter Dnes <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2003 00:12:31 -0500
To: ASRG list <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [Asrg] 6. Proposals - depracate all list/bulk mailing and 
changeto RSS

On Sun, Nov 30, 2003 at 12:11:59PM -0800, Bill Pease wrote
 >> Feature Limits:
 >> *Limited to no support for graphically-enhanced content
   That is a good thing.  If I see an interesting headline, I'll click on
the URL, and it'll take me to your super-duper/singing/dancing website.
 >> *Limited support for variety of content types typical in newsletter
 >>  publishing
   It's a list of URLs.  If you have a high-bandwidth and low-bandwidth
version of your website, offer two URLs.
 >> *Limited support for tracking subscriber interaction with content
   Awwwwwwwww.  Guess what... Microsoft is blocking web bugs too...
http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,60781,00.html
 >> *No support for various transactions that can be enabled within email
 >> (e.g., donation, viral marketing).
                    ***************
   Ding ding ding ding ding... we have a winner!  The whole point behind
this mailing list is to reduce/eliminate unsolicited marketing.  If I
want really exciting offers daily, I'll point my newsreader at
alt.really.exciting.offers.  If I want something, *I* will initiate the
the contact.  I do *NOT* want to be marketed to via my inbox, any more
than I want to be marketed to via my phone at suppertime.  Do you
understand ?

   It's been my experience that marketing types think that email was
invented first and foremost for marketing and email-blasting.  Wrong; it
was invented as two-way communication.  If a potential customer emails
you asking for a quote on 1000 widgets, reply to their email with the
requested quote.  That is customer service.  Blasting out millions of
unsolicited emails contributes to the destruction of the medium.

-- 
Bill Pease, Ph.D.
Chief Technology Officer
GetActive Software
2855 Telegraph Avenue, Suite 600
Berkeley, CA 94705
p: 510-540-4772 x101
f: 510-540-4163
e: [email-masked]
w: http://getactive.com

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---

From: "Alan DeKok" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2003 16:50:10 -0500

Bill Pease <[email-masked]> wrote:
> don't join any of their email lists.

  Easier said than done.  Read the list archives for stories on how
opting in to a list from company A results in "opt-in" for a number of
other, associated, companies.

  Such behaviour is inappropriate, and contributes significantly to
the perception that *all* bulk emailers, "legitimate" or otherwise,
are nothing more than vile spammers.

  Alan DeKok.