SearchDay Goes All HTML

[Advisor]

A big blech. I hate HTML newsletters. Now I have to decide if it's worth keeping or not...

Jill

[Alan Perkins]

Ditto.

[Blue]

Personally, I find HTML newsletters, if done right (like Kalena's), to be much easier to read.

The ability to use color, bulleting, bolding, etc. just makes it easier on my (getting older) eyes, to be able to quickly get to the information I want to read about.

[Advisor]

Not me! If I want a Web page, I'll go to a Web page! I especially hate newsletters that only have a little intro to the stories and then links to a Web page for the rest of the story. Double blech!

Jill

[ihelpyou]

I have agree. Plain text rules!!

[Alan Perkins]

Of course, if they offered you a choice of plain text or HTML then everybody would be satisfied.

Blue, what happened to your avatar? LOL.

[Advisor]

Exactly...a choice. Is that too much to ask for?

I find it extremely arrogant to force people to have HTML. But I suppose people could say the same for me...forcing people to have text-only!

Jill

[Blue]

Yes. Choice is wisest.

Jill, have you ever polled your readership as to what they prefer?

Mind you, I'm not complaining, I'm just curious.

Blue, what happened to your avatar? LOL. I'm just a romantic at heart, I guess.

[Kal]

Originally posted by Blue
Personally, I find HTML newsletters, if done right (like Kalena's), to be much easier to read. :o: Thanks Blue!

Originally posted by Advisor
I especially hate newsletters that only have a little intro to the stories and then links to a Web page for the rest of the story. Double blech! Jill You're not alone there Jill. I found out that some of my subscribers hate this and some prefer to print out newsletters and read them offline, something they couldn't do with mine. So I just introduced a print version that has the entire newsletter with full stories as an option for readers each issue. It's still accessible via a web page, but only via a single link.

When signing up for my newsletter, subscribers get to choose whether they want HTML or text. But most of my subscribers were dragged over automatically from my old system, so they get HTML as the default.

Hey Jill and Doug, if you want to get my newsletter in text format, you can always unsubscribe and sign up again for the text version :). I should probably make my current readers aware of this too.

[Advisor]

Ohh goodie! I can switch now. Gonna go do that.

I did like your print version. At least it was all in one piece!

<eek! Your server is down. Better check mine...>

Jill

[Kal]

Originally posted by Advisor
<eek! Your server is down. Better check mine...>
Yes, I've been trying to publish the blog all morning. Site just now came back up (after I sent Rob a bitchy email about it :rolleyes: )

[Advisor]

All I see is a subscribe form. How would one unsubscribe so they could then subscribe to the text version? Not sure I know which address I'm subbed with...

[Kal]

Well it appears I was wrong. My newsletter subscribers don't get to choose what format they prefer when signing up - it is automatically determined by their email system. I just assumed that because Constant Contact creates a text version of my newsletter, it was an option. Apparently only those who have HTML turned off in their email preferences get the text one? Whatever, it's an automatic thing, not optional.

That's a pain. Sorry Jill :(

[Kal]

Originally posted by Advisor
All I see is a subscribe form. How would one unsubscribe so they could then subscribe to the text version? Not sure I know which address I'm subbed with... Some cross-posting going on :). Jill - at the bottom of every newsletter is a link to unsubscribe and also the details of what email address is used to subscribe. But it appears you can't change your text/HTML preferences (see above). I'll ask them if there is another way to do it. Seems mad that there isn't.

[Webmaster T]

Originally posted by Kal
Well it appears I was wrong. My newsletter subscribers don't get to choose what format they prefer when signing up - it is automatically determined by their email system. I just assumed that because Constant Contact creates a text version of my newsletter, it was an option. Apparently only those who have HTML turned off in their email preferences get the text one? Whatever, it's an automatic thing, not optional.

That's a pain. Sorry Jill :(
That is actually a positive, in some circles, programmers and others with far toooo much time on their hands, where they know the procmail recipes in and out their mail system sends all HTML mail to Devnull better known as the nether or oblivion or my favorite the byte bucket :(

[Kal]

FWIW, here's the response I received from Constant Contact:

-----------------
Dear Kalena,

Thank you for your note.
In response to your question about the formatting of the campaign emails created using Constant Contact, our HTML and Text versions of the campaign letters are multi-part MIME messages. Basically, the Text version and the HTML version are combined in the same letter. The specific email program used by the recipient automatically determines whether the email is seen as text or as html. Therefore, someone using a text-only email program will receive the text version, while someone using an HTML compatible email program would see the HTML version with images, click-able links, etc. Multi-part MIME emails have been the industry standard for quite some time; so the vast majority of email programs support this type of email and handle it quite well. We are not able to send just the text or just the HTML version upon request of the subscriber.

There are a few email programs or specific versions of an email program that we know do not handle multipart MIME emails well, either by design or through defects that are later addressed by the makers of the email program in question. Lotus notes and Eudora are among those programs that may not handle multipart MIME letters well.

Thanks for using Constant Contact. If you have any further questions please send us a note.

Jonathan
Constant Contact Support
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Hmmm - I don't know if I am content with this or not. This in conjunction with the fact that Constant Contact / Roving emails are often bounced or blocked by anti-spam software makes me wonder if I should look for new software soon :(