[ATMoB-discuss] Emailing Monthly Newsletter

[Bern Kosicki]

My opinion,

1. PDF is the way to go, as commented.

2. I thought that one reason for being a member was timely acquisition of 
the newsletter (ie, in the same month that it is released).  Putting it on 
a public site at the same time as release means timely acquisition of the 
NL is no longer a benefit of membership.  (Maybe I was mistaken in this 
idea?)  But we ARE looking for more active members and reasons why one 
should join....  So, I'd advocate postponing posting of the NL  on the 
public website until the next month, as an archive.

3. In receiving an attachment, those with limited bandwidth (or in fact 
anyone) can instruct his/her email application to not download any 
applications above XX Bytes.  So, downloading can be done at the 
convenience of the receiver, and doesn't have to automatically tie up the 
application when email is opened.  So, there should be no disadvantage to 
sending an attachment to those who want to control downloading at their 
convenience.

4. The work of putting the NL on a website, and sending out an 
announcement, vs. just sending it as an attachment, is about the same ( 
true or not?).  So, no difference to the person posting the NL.

So, my personal vote would be to continue to receive the NL as an 
attachment.  My bias- I tend to overlook links more than email attachments, 
which are somehow more insistent.

Bernie Kosicki



At 08:41 AM 6/13/2006, Bernie Volz \(volz\) wrote:
>We are not planning on changing the format - it would continue to be in
>PDF. As an example, click on
>http://www.atmob.org/newsletters/200606.pdf.
>
>As a URL would be included in the mail (as per above), this should be no
>more steps - today you click to open the attachment; with this change,
>you'd click on the URL, a browser window is opened and the PDF document
>is displayed (yes, both the browser and Acrobat need to run, so the
>computer is doing an additional step but you are not). The newsletter is
>PUBLICLY available, so there is no need for you to log in to the web
>site.
>
>There are also advantages to NOT sending it. The size of the PDF varies
>- from 50KB to 1.5MB (the average size for the 65 newsletters I have is
>400KB). If you're still a dial-up user, this means it takes a while for
>the email to download (at least 1 minutes for 56Kb dial-up). If you're
>interested in reading it, that time will always be there. But, if you
>don't want to do it right away or at all (hopefully not the case!) ...
>Of course, the down side is that you can't view it offline if it was
>never downloaded.
>
>We are also discussing increasing the size and content of the newsletter
>(as the core reason for the current format has been the
>paper/copying/mailing costs) - with electronic distribution, there is
>virtually no increase in cost for more pages.
>
>As we now have more advanced technology with the new web site, a
>solution might be to allow you to select whether you want to receive it
>as an attachment or as a URL (so, you may three choices - the third
>being to receive a paper copy via US Mail).
>
>- Bernie
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Bruce Gerhard [mailto:bruceg at theworld.com]
> > Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 10:12 PM
> > To: Bernie Volz (volz)
> > Cc: atmob-discuss at atmob.org
> > Subject: RE: [ATMoB-discuss] Emailing Monthly Newsletter
> >
> > Bernie,
> >
> > The reason for sending the news letter as an attachment is that it can
> > be in PDF format.  PDF allows the recipient to print a high
> > quality hard
> > copy quickly and easily.  The Adobe Acrobat reader (which handles PDF)
> > can be downloaded free, so anyone can handle PDF.  This is not true of
> > any other format I know of.
> >
> > Sending the newsletter as an attachment to email is a minimal
> > amount of
> > work for the person sending it (I did it for another organization for
> > several years) and very convenient for the person receiving
> > it.  Putting
> > it on the web site would be satisfactory if -- and only if -- it would
> > be possible to download if in PDF format.  It would probably be more
> > work for the sender and certainly be clumsy for the receiver,
> > involving
> > at least one additional step. What is done now is very satisfactory.
> > Why change it?
> >
> > Clear skies,
> > Bruce Gerhard <bruceg at TheWorld.com>
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