Interesting post today in James Farmer’s online learning blog Incorporated Subversion: E-mail updates update. Back on August 2 he asked his readers whether he should keep offering e-mail updates along with his RSS-format webfeed. Based on the response (or rather, lack thereof), he intends to stop offering e-mail announcements for every posting.
Here’s what Farmer had to say…
“OK, so, given that no-one claiming to read this blog through email updates said ‘please don’t take away the email updates’ I’m guessing that, unlike others, I am either an almost entirely RSS read blog or that nobody who reads this through email cares.
Added with the fact that email updates don’t really seem to work as well as RSS (for a myriad of reasons) and are probably better for ‘large’ type items (like Clay Shirky’s NEC list) my conclusion (if anyone cares) is that the next version of this weblog won’t have email updates but it will have a mailing list for ‘big ticket’ items (which I hope to write more of in the future, in a separate category, also with a webfeed).”
Interesting strategy. I wouldn’t recommend it for every blog, but certainly for some blogs it probably makes sense. I don’t think I’d abandon digest-style e-mail updates for CONTENTIOUS, since in my recent reader survey about 44% of CONTENTIOUS respondents reported receiving my weekly e-mail alerts.
I can understand Farmer’s choice – e-mail updates require at least some ongoing labor and maintenance from the blogger. Especially if you want to compile your updates into a single digest-style, nicely formatted e-mail newsletter (what I do for CONTENTIOUS) rather than simply allow the system to spit out an automated, clunky-looking e-mail update for each posting as it’s posted (the default setting for Movable Type blogging software). It’s one more unpaid job to do.
I like Farmer’s idea of offering a special e-mail list that will announce only high-profile content items or special events. I think that many blogs could put that idea to good use.
Food for thought…
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