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1120 Subscribers in 2 Days: My Foray into E-mail Newsletters

34 points by briandoll 16y ago

steveklabnik 16y ago
I'm one of those subscribers, and the first issue was great. I always seem to let my RSS feeds go, but I read all the emails that hit my inbox... If I subscribed to more newsletters, I imagine that it'd end up being the same, though.
- petercooper 16y ago
  First, thanks! Second, I think you're right on your last point. But I think there's a pyramid at play that means you won't keep more e-mail newsletters than you can handle. I only subscribe to a couple of real life magazines and newspapers - these take up to an hour each to read. Below this, I subscribe to about 10-20 e-mail newsletters I read frequently. Then about 100-150 RSS feeds. Then 800 people on Twitter.. I'm assuming other people are similar, but I could be wrong! At each level of this pyramid, the content becomes more granular, river-like, and easier to ignore. If RSS is overwhelming me, I "mark all as read" for that day. With Twitter, I don't even bother "catching up," I just swim in the current river of tweets when I have a spare minute..
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    No problem. I should have sent you an email about the Shoes 3 release on Whyday; we were working up to the deadline and I kinda dropped the ball on the PR front. But I'll be hitting you up for the 1.0 Hackety Hack release, that's for sure. I surely do the same thing you do for Twitter, but not everyone is like that. People that follow a lot of people tweet repeat things because they understand others treat Twitter like this, but then people who read it less get mad.
    - petercooper 16y ago
      Yeah, I know quite a few people who attempt to "catch up" on Twitter every day. These are, often, the same people who complain that they can't keep up with 100+ feeds in Google Reader either (and are incredulous that some of us maintain Inbox Zero :-)). I think those people fear missing something. Mostly because I used to be in that group. With age, though, I realized a) that almost nothing is that important in the grand scale of life that it matters if I miss it, and b) if something is important, it'll bubble through another way anyway.
crazydiamond 16y ago
Great first mail. I found i had missed some posts in my RSS feed.

34 points by briandoll 16y ago

I'm one of those subscribers, and the first issue was great. I always seem to let my RSS feeds go, but I read all the emails that hit my inbox... If I subscribed to more newsletters, I imagine that it'd end up being the same, though.

petercooper 16y ago
First, thanks! Second, I think you're right on your last point. But I think there's a pyramid at play that means you won't keep more e-mail newsletters than you can handle. I only subscribe to a couple of real life magazines and newspapers - these take up to an hour each to read. Below this, I subscribe to about 10-20 e-mail newsletters I read frequently. Then about 100-150 RSS feeds. Then 800 people on Twitter.. I'm assuming other people are similar, but I could be wrong! At each level of this pyramid, the content becomes more granular, river-like, and easier to ignore. If RSS is overwhelming me, I "mark all as read" for that day. With Twitter, I don't even bother "catching up," I just swim in the current river of tweets when I have a spare minute..
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  No problem. I should have sent you an email about the Shoes 3 release on Whyday; we were working up to the deadline and I kinda dropped the ball on the PR front. But I'll be hitting you up for the 1.0 Hackety Hack release, that's for sure. I surely do the same thing you do for Twitter, but not everyone is like that. People that follow a lot of people tweet repeat things because they understand others treat Twitter like this, but then people who read it less get mad.
  - petercooper 16y ago
    Yeah, I know quite a few people who attempt to "catch up" on Twitter every day. These are, often, the same people who complain that they can't keep up with 100+ feeds in Google Reader either (and are incredulous that some of us maintain Inbox Zero :-)). I think those people fear missing something. Mostly because I used to be in that group. With age, though, I realized a) that almost nothing is that important in the grand scale of life that it matters if I miss it, and b) if something is important, it'll bubble through another way anyway.

crazydiamond 16y ago

Great first mail. I found i had missed some posts in my RSS feed.