Someday, when I get a larger reader base (HAH) I might need to communicate with them, and let them know when I've updated. Hey, it could happen. I used to run an online game, and we would send out updates using these crappy MLIST things. And I've also tried Yahoo! Groups for doing updates, which was nice except for constantly bouncing messages and people who would reply thinking they were emailing me and instead sending it to EVERYONE.
Also, none of those things handle formatting for portable devices well, which meant nothing to anyone else but I used to keep track of the day's email on my PDA. Gave me something to read on the train. Only by 'read' I mean 'scroll endlessly sideways' because people didn't know how to use word wrap.
So when I come to think of a new email newsletter for my one-to-many communications, I want something that will:
- let me control design (in case you haven't noticed, I like a good clean usable layout)
- let me keep my past mailings (f'ing Yahoo non-archivable crap! no more of that!)
- let people sign up and leave easily - not too easily, but unsubscribing shouldn't require you to donate a freaking ovary
- schedule messages - wouldn't it be nice to write something to send out while you're away? makes you look like a total geek freak who has no life and emails people while on vacation!
- supports text and html format for ease of use on PDAs and for paranoids who don't like html email
- oh, and did I mention FREE? If I didn't, I should have because that's kind of important
And that's why I'm going with Zookoda. It has everything I listed up there, and more. It's fast, easy to use, and FREE. It lets you manage your subscription base, make custom signup/dropout forms, keep track of bad email addresses (bounces and so forth), scheduled newsletters, text format for mobile users, and I could go on but you really should just sign up. It's free, after all, so what do you have to lose?
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