Going old school: how I replaced Facebook with email
blog.chaddickerson.com
Going old school: how I replaced Facebook with email
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Re: Going old school: how I replaced Facebook with email
#2- there are innate structures in relationship, and changing that (facebook blurs the naturally local/private lines) harms people
- no beginning or end in the streaming era of web (unlike the slow static documents early model)
- not knowing is ok, great even
facebook is an amplifier of huamn relationship, but amplitude is not a measure of quality
Re: Going old school: how I replaced Facebook with email
#3Being in the same situation as the author (deleted FB account few months ago), I was just thinking how it would be nice to have a mailing list with friends&family in it but didn't know where to start, when this article hit top 30.
I would appreciate if someone would list few Mailchimp's pros and cons and/or maybe few alternatives, from privacy/freedom perspective.
Re: Going old school: how I replaced Facebook with email
#4> My email list is broadcast-only but any replies go directly to me.
This sort of mass-email is weirdly impersonal because it tells the recipient that you want them to know what you're up to, but you don't want to write a message just to them. Also, it would be very awkward to opt-out ("hey dude, um please don't send me your mass-email updates anymore."), unlike company emails which there's no awkwardness around unsubscribing.
I'm not saying this isn't better than FB, but it still has some downsides (some of which the author may be overlooking because they don't bother him).
Re: Going old school: how I replaced Facebook with email
#5For me, it's more like, "How I never replaced email with Facebook."
Re: Going old school: how I replaced Facebook with email
#6> My email list is broadcast-only but any replies go directly to me. This sort of mass-email is weirdly impersonal because it tells the recipient that you want them to know what you're up to, but you don't want to write a message just to them. Also, it would be very awkward to opt-out ("hey dude, um please don't send me your mass-email updates anymore."), unlike company emails which there's no awkwardness around unsu…
"Broadcast-only" means subscribers can't post to it. But they still can reply to the list owner. It could be mixed with a blog, if you wanted to make it possible for subscribers (and others) to publicly interact.
Also, I don't see a problem if a person finds my emails uninteresting and unsubscribes.
Re: Going old school: how I replaced Facebook with email
#7> My email list is broadcast-only but any replies go directly to me. This sort of mass-email is weirdly impersonal because it tells the recipient that you want them to know what you're up to, but you don't want to write a message just to them. Also, it would be very awkward to opt-out ("hey dude, um please don't send me your mass-email updates anymore."), unlike company emails which there's no awkwardness around unsu…
"Broadcast-only" means subscribers can't post to it. But they still can reply to the list owner. It could be mixed with a blog, if you wanted to make it possible for subscribers (and others) to publicly interact. Also, I don't see a problem if a person finds my emails uninteresting and unsubscribes.
> Also, I don't see a problem if a person finds my emails uninteresting and unsubscribes.
Sure, but do all of your recipients know that? The point is that some people would be very uncomfortable doing this, even if you wouldn't subjectively be offended by it. And as the author notes, doing an opt-in system makes things complicated and potential excludes less tech-savvy folks.
Re: Going old school: how I replaced Facebook with email
#8Why stop there? https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html
Re: Going old school: how I replaced Facebook with email
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Broadcast-only" means subscribers can't post to it. But they still can reply to the list owner. It could be mixed with a blog, if you wanted to make it possible for subscribers (and others) to publicly interact. Also, I don't see a problem if a person finds my emails uninteresting and unsubscribes.
> Also, I don't see a problem if a person finds my emails uninteresting and unsubscribes. Sure, but do all of your recipients know that? The point is that some people would be very uncomfortable doing this, even if you wouldn't subjectively be offended by it. And as the author notes, doing an opt-in system makes things complicated and potential excludes less tech-savvy folks.
There are ways to solve this:
1. It could be written in message footer that I won't take unsubscribes personally.
2. That person could just create a filter for that mailing list to avoid unsubscribing.
Also, less tech-savy folks could just ask for help and I'd subscribe them manually.
Re: Going old school: how I replaced Facebook with email
#10I'm not sure what Mailchimp is doing in this scenario. Couldn't you just…you know…send an email? Using BCC, of course.