[thelist] Newsletter as HTML Email
Max Schwanekamp
lists at neptunewebworks.com
Wed Jan 31 17:48:38 CST 2007
Steven Streight wrote:
> Hassan, how well do you really know your audience? It's not that the
> audience fears HTML email and the viruses that can be contained within them,
> it's more that certain email clients will reject HTML email via filtering.
Which email clients, by default, will automatically filter HTML email?
External images get hidden by default in, e.g. Thunderbird and Outlook
2003+, but the message is still there, and one click allows the images
to be loaded if the user so desires. I've never heard of a mainstream
email client automatically filtering HTML email without the user
explicitly setting up a filter/option to do that.
Further, why is it that nearly all major organizations (commercial and
otherwise) use HTML email for marketing purposes? I'd have a hard time
believing that eBay, for example, has done zero testing on the
effectiveness of their marketing efforts.
I'm not arguing that HTML email newsletters are the better option, but I
entirely agree with Hassan to get real -- HTML email is
better-supported by the majority of end-users, and thus should *not* be
dismissed in favor of RSS, which is gaining, but slowly[0].
[0] Outlook 2007's retrograde step to use Word's HTML renderer may
actually speed up the adoption of RSS.
--
Max Schwanekamp
NeptuneWebworks.com
541-255-2171
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