mailing lists and yahoo! groups
a client has a mailing list of around 1200+ addresses that they want regular announcements sent out to. their web site is being currently being hosted by yahoo! webhosting.
the problem begins with yahoo! limiting e-mails being sent out. i do realize that spam is a headache and yahoo! is just doing their part in curbing it. you can send out an e-mail to a maximum of 100 addresses at a time and, i think, there’s a cap of 750 or 1000 addresses per day.
there was a suggestion to move the mailing list to yahoo! groups which i think is a good idea. management of the list is certainly easier and the subscribers has some control over what is sent to them. some of you may say otherwise but, hey, to each his own. although y!groups has its own limitations it is usually to protect the groups and the system from being abused.
first thing to do is to get a yahoo id which will be used to create a yahoo! group. to make the group/mailing list easier to associate with the company, try to get an id that’s as close to the company name or the website domain name as possible. the same principle holds true when naming the group.
once a y!group has been created, you can add the company logo, a short description of what the mailing list is about and do not forget to add a link from the y!group back to the company website. i also created a mini how-to (with screen shots) on joining the group via e-mail or the web and, of course, how to unsubscribe.
since the mailing list/group is for announcements only, the moderators and the group owner are the only ones allowed to send out messages. this helps in keeping out unauthorized mails or spam from invading the group.
the hard part is populating the list. personally, i’d rather have the user opt-in but not all users are really that knowlegeable about computers — and some just can’t be bothered by subscribing. so we gave an option where members of the old list can just send me mail and i’ll add them manually to the list. thing rub here is that i can only add 10 e-mail addresses manually per day. with about 700+ addresses to go, this will take a while.
overall, y! groups is a pretty good alternative to rolling your own especially if you use yahoo’s webhosting.
