The Nonprofit FAQ

Can we use free email to build online mailing lists?
Jayne Cravens wrote on June 8, 1999:

The http://List-Tips.com/ Ezine publishes a daily "Email List-Owner Tips, Tricks, Suggestions, Secrets, or Resources That You
Can Use To Build, Grow, Maintain Your List." It's a great list (to join, e-mail: join-list-tips@sparklist.com)

Below are their Spring 1999 reviews of the major free list e-mail hosting service providers (ONElist, href="#Topica">Topica, eGroups and ListBot). All reviews are by Michael Funk, Associate Editor of List-Tips Ezine and part of the List-Tips Staff. These excerpts are reprinted with permission.

Free e-mail list hosting services are definitely NOT for everyone, but this comparison should help those who are thinking about using such a service (and this has come up a few times in recent months on soc.org.nonprofit).

(See also Google Groups at the end of this post. — Ed.)


Free List Hosting Services Review: Topica.com



http://topica.com/ is one of the fastest growing E-mail
list hosting providers on the market.

Topica manages thousands and thousands of lists and with the recent
acquisition of Liszt.com, a popular list directory service, and icons
to aid browsing within their web site makes finding these lists quick
and easy. Liszt, along with partnerships with PAML and Tile.Net,
allow Topica to provide one of the best list databases on the web.

If your looking for lists to subscribe to at Topica, you can easily
search by keyword or within categories. Topica provides free archiving
for the lists they host, and list owners are given the option to allow
their archives to be viewed by the public or closed to all but the
list's subscribers.

Topica is still working some kinks out of their moderated lists, though
there are no major problems. Some of the disadvantages are that list
moderators cannot approve posts from the web interface at Topica and
some may find it difficult to browse their archives as well because of
the frames. Also, because the links to read messages in the archives do
not change color, there is no way to know what messages you have read
in an archive except through memory. Overall, we believe these are
minor disadvantages.

Topica is designed so that the experienced list owner can have the freedom
to adapt and modify their list as they see fit and the novice
list owner will find all the available help they need in an easy to use
service. Topica is always working to improve its service. The most
informative list on Topica is a forum for Topica list owners with public
viewable archives. Topica support staff, who provide exceptional service,
are on the list and do everything possible to assist with any questions
and respond to concerns with assurances that solutions are in the works.

Vsit them on the web at
http://www.topica.com/


Free List Hosting Services Review: eGroups.com



http://eGroups.com, which celebrates its one year anniversary in June,
1999, announced last week that they now have over 5 million members. The
last million have joined in just the last six weeks.

(NOTE: egroups is now part of yahoo! and is located at
http://groups.yahoo.com as of May 7, 2000. Most services described below
are intact)

In fact, eGroups.com is more than just an e-mail list hosting service
provider. Lists and subscription options are offered in both HTML or
web interface and standard e-mail formats. eGroups.com also boasts real
time chat capabilities, personal calendars, file sharing for photos and
other documents, and an online database to store important information for
your list.

There are several special services. The Powerlist program at eGroups.com
allows list owners with over 1000 subscribers to sign up for special
benefits, including revenue sharing, a special support line and more access
to eGroups.com promotions. eGroups.com also offers special services for the
classroom and for your business, although there is a charge for some
business eGroups.com services.

Archives at eGroups.com are easily navigable. The archives are broken
down by list name, date posted, and the name of the poster. With a few
simple clicks, you can find out what the list is about, who can post,
what URLs were mentioned most frequently in the last 5000 posts, and who
posts the most. The archive table also tells you how many members there are
on the list and how many messages have been posted, the results of any
polls that have been carried out within the list, and usage
statistics. Most of this information is public knowledge but some is only
open to registered users of eGroups.com or users of the specific list.

There are disadvantages. eGroups.com does not hide the e-mail addresses of
its users, but they do have programs to protect against harvesting software
and to detect mass mailings (spam) so they don't make it to the list
without going through a moderator first.

Some list owners we questioned were concerned about changing their
service to eGroups.com because it allows a list owner to add groups
of users without confirmation. Such a practice has too much potential
to be abused, although eGroups.com, like other servers, would certainly
punish any gross abuses of this practice.


Free List Hosting Services Review: ONElist.com



ONElist is the third in our series of reviews on free list hosting
providers. During the month of May, ONElist reached a couple of milestones.
They now move 18 million messages among their 150,000 communities each day.
The company is old by list hosting standards, founded in August all the way
back in 1997. ONElist's major investors are CMGI and Bertelsmann Ventures.

ONElist.com features many of the same amenities as other major list service
providers. Browsers can search by keyword or categories for
lists of their choice and even limit the search by language and/or age group.

List-owners can set lists to be moderated/unmoderated,
discussion/announcement, closed/open subscription. Individual users can
also be set to moderated if they abuse the list, and users can be banned.
Users have the option of a digest mode and "no mail" in case they go on
vacation, etc.

One ONElist.com user was especially satisfied with ONElist's honesty to
their members about downtime and glitches. Though they happen rarely, when
they do ONElist is always informative to their members and always notify
members of downtime in advance if possible.

ONElist has only a few minor disadvantages that a user might consider. They
only have a web based interface for list moderators to approve messages.
Though the web based interface makes approval quick and easy, there is no
way to approve posts through e-mail.

ONElist.com does not offer a web based subscription option either. The
subscription page takes you out of your browser to e-mail the subscription
request.

Overall, ONElist provides a well rounded service for those who would like
to host their lists there. The few minor glitches they may have
are communicated to their members honestly and quickly, providing an
excellent service for your list hosting needs.

Visit ONElist.com's web site at http://onelist.com/

NOTE: Email to feedback@nonprofits.org on 12/11/02 advised that onelist is now a part of YahooGroups (http://www.yahoogroups.com).


Free List Hosting Services Review: ListBot



(Apparently no longer operating 1/26/10 — Ed.)

ListBot is part of the MSN LinkExchange. ListBot offers list owners their
own personal home page at http://listbot.com for their ListBot list and free
archiving. ListBot offers a simple web based interface for subscriptions on
your list's web site and allows you to send your list with a single click.

ListBot also allows a list owner to decide whether each message they send
out should be publicly archived or kept private. The list owner can approve
each message that is archived. ListBot does not have temporary unsubscribe
and has no way of notifying the list owner when a list member has unsubscribed.

ListBot service does have some disadvantages. With the free service, a list
owner may only import a list ten subscribers at a time, and each one is
given a confirmation message they must reply to. An owner cannot import an
entire list with the free service. A list owner needs to sign up for
ListBot Gold if he or she wishes to import entire lists and get rid of the
advertising. ListBot Gold costs $99 per year, and allows the user to remove
any third party advertisements and import lists.

Although ListBot Gold allows the owner to send messages up to 250k (as
opposed to the 100k limit of the free service) if the list owner desires to
send more than 5,000 messages per month on ListBot Gold, it costs extra.

ListBot does not have archives searchable by the public. They also do not
have a directory of lists that interested subscribers can search, but they
promise both in the near future. Some past users of ListBot we talked to
complained that downtime often went on for several days (sometimes as
long as 72 hours), although ListBot has made major improvements in these areas.

ListBot can be visited at http://listbot.com/


Google Groups



Google has taken over the venerable UseNet resource for discussion forums and offers free "groups" at http://groups.google.com/?pli=1. The process for creating a Google Group starts with the "Create A Group" link at the top right of the screen.



Posted June 8, 1999; onelist reference updated 12/12/02; Google Groups added 1/26/10 -- PB