Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with mailinglist

Embeddable widget to add names to a mailing list.

Ookseer — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:12:09 -0800

Looking for an embeddable widget for my blog that will let people enter their email address and collect them into a mailing list. The ideal solution would be (in order of preference)
- quick and easy setup
- small/customizable
- a captcha,
- some kind of mailing list management, especially automated removal.

I suspect what I'm looking for is part of some web sites CRM, and I'm open to suggestions that go well beyond my list.

List of new businesses in CO...should I fork over the dough or keep looking?

mynameisluka — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:43:39 -0800

I need a list of new businesses/incorporations in Colorado. Is buying one my only option? I'm working on a project that requires an up-to-date list of the newest business filings in Colorado. I'm trying to harness Google in my hunt for such a list, but my luck seems to be failing me. Hours of exhaustive searching have only yielded direct mail companies that want money for a list of new business filings and incorporations.

I've used the Secretary of State's business database search, but it times out and won't return the information I need.

Anyone have ideas for alternative ways to find out about new business filings in Colorado, or should I suck it up and pay for one? If I do end up forking over some cash, can you recommend a reputable vendor?

Need a MySpace plugin

KevinSkomsvold — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:51:54 -0800

Looking for a MySpace program similar to Comment Laser. We purchased it but ended up getting a refund because it was buggy. Anyone know of any other programs similar to it? We are trying to find a software that would allow us to send targeted messages to fans in cities where our band will be playing. The ability to parse out names from our friend list based on zip code and/or city is most important. Open to any ideas or software. Thanks!

Spammers ruin everything: how do I stop them from abusing mailing list signups?

chrominance — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 09:45:12 -0800

On our website, we've got a little one-field form where people can fill in their e-mail address and sign up for our mailing list. The form seems to now be the target of spammer-hacker bastards, and random people are complaining about being signed up for a list they've never heard of. What should we do, besides take down the form altogether? The only thing that comes to mind is a captcha (but that adds another step to what should be a one-step process). The list is administered by mailman, and it sends out confirmation e-mails before it signs anyone up. There's no way to add text to the automated mails so it shouldn't be the target of spammers. Nevertheless, it seems someone's using the form as a way to pester random people with (potentially lots of) confirmation e-mails. One of the goals with the very simple form was to make it easy for people to sign up; we'd rather not have to tell people to send arcane e-mail messages to a mailman address to sign up—and in any case, would that really solve the problem? Isn't that just as open to abuse? Captchas are at least a workable permanent solution, but I'd prefer something more accessible and easier to use. Nothing comes to mind.

Spammers ruin everything.

phpList: seriously, wtf?

drjimmy11 — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:27:59 -0800

phpList: seriously, wtf? I develop a website for a non-profit, and they requested I set up phpList on the server so they can send out newsletters.

Everything went ok (eventually), I can now send emails and recipients will get them. Eventually.

I sent a bunch of emails as tests on Sat., copying them to both my gmail and yahoo accounts. phpList's queue shows that it sends them within a second.

However, I don't receive them to my email accounts until, at a minimum, a few hours later. Some of them were still showing up this morning, 2 days later!

I am a pro. web developer, but don't know that much about email servers and such. Have other people had this experience with phpList? Do yahoo and gmail give delivering these emails a low priority or what? And where exactly are they for the two days between phpList "sending" them and them showing up in my inbox?

I am a bit worried that my client might want to send newsletters with time-sensitive info. A few hours is ok, but two days is ridiculous.

Any ideas or alternatives?
thanks!

How to best manage a physical mailing list?

LongDrive — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 02:15:34 -0800

How to manage an unwieldy mailing list (for physical mailing) on a Mac. I use an opt-in mailing list that I use to send out promotional mailings from my business. This is a physical mailing list that I print labels from through Indesign. I have been maintaining these databases using the new Numbers software from Apple (because my both myself and my lovely Mac do not get along with Excel).

Every few weeks I am sent an updated master list that has new contacts added, and deletes out of date ones.

I am looking for some solution that can compare my local edited copy with the new master copy, and update my local copy as required.

Something mentioned in this thread would be useful, but I am not collaborating with another person per se, rather being provided an updated list every few weeks by a third party. (fyi, this is not spam)

If budget allowed, I would love to hire a Filemaker or Excel guru to build a custom thing for me, but I was wondering if anyone knew of any alternative software for Mac that could possibly perform this function or simply better manage this list?

What is the best mailing list server software out there?

zooropa — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:14:14 -0800

Recommendations needed for mailing list software I'm looking for advice and recommendations on mailing list software.

I need some kind of discussion thread-slash-mailing list listserv. Some of the members of a professional organization I help run are Blackberry-fiends. That is, they want to be able to carry on discussions by firing off a quick e-mail. Other members are very Web-friendly and less mobile, so they want to be able to have discussions via the Web.

I know that what I'm really trying to do is replicate Yahoo! Groups. At its heart, it's a listserv, but it also mirrors everything on the Web in threaded discussion forums. Individuals have the option of participating in either venue (or both).

Believe it or not, I've looked and it appears Yahoo! doesn't offer a private-label version of their Groups package. So I'm turning to all of you. I've been given a recommendation of Net Atlantic, but have not looked into them quite yet.

Any recommendations for a private-label (i.e. no branded version by Yahoo!, Facebook, Google, etc.) discussion listserv that also mirrors itself on the Web?

grapevine in the big apple

twistofrhyme — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 09:01:57 -0800

NYC Film & Theater Makers' filter: please suggest online resources for finding out what's going on in NYC! I'm looking for secret resources for all the good stuff happening in NYC in the film, indie film, tv production, theatre, and improv/comedy circuit.

Seeking resources that are applicable to any of the following sub-groups: actors, comedians, writers, directors, and producers, all genders and all ethnic groups.

I already know about the Shooting People NY mailing list- I'm looking for more stuff like that. Newsletters, open casting bulletins, calls for submissions, mailing lists, audition calls, classes, networking events, etc. etc.

Thanks in advance!

Seeking an Online Community/Groups Service

marc10 — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 21:36:12 -0800

I have a group of people and we are seeking an online calendar and email service. We are looking for something where we can send an email to one address and it will be sent to the rest of the group and/or archived on the website. Also, looking for a service that has a calendar that we can post upcoming events. (I am familiar with Yahoo Groups, but seeking an alternative solution.) We would prefer a free service, but will consider a paid service too. It also must be private. If it has other features that would be a plus, but the email mailing list and group calendar are essential.

Any and all suggestions welcome.

How can I create a free physical address mailing list

frogmoses — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 00:13:04 -0800

Does any one know how I can create a free, accurate mailing address list for every house in our town of 5200 people? The list would be used not for mailing but for door-to-door recruitment for our block watch group. We would like a list to track if we have visited a house or not. The list would also be used to quickly locate a house within one of our 4 wards.

Recommendations for a mailing list host?

mark7570 — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:40:33 -0800

Does anyone have a good mailing list company to recommend for a big weekly e-mail newsletter? I send a plaintext e-mail newsletter to a mailing list of 25,000 or so double-opt-in subscribers - mailing them 10-15k of plaintext every week or two - and my current host of several years - Sparklist - is giving me billing trouble. My hosting fee used to be less $100 a month and now they're charging $500 or more. I'm looking for a new company to send out the list, give me a control panel to add and remove subscribers, and give a price closer to $100/month than $500. Note that I'm looking for a company to give me online access to send/manage subscribers ... I'm not looking to run this myself with listserv, majordomo, or some other app that I'd run myself.

FCKeditor and PHPlist for Dummies

zharptitsa — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 16:11:49 -0800

Does anyone know where I can find REALLY BASIC guides for using (not installing) FCKeditor and PHPlist? Because I happen to be slightly more tech savvy than everyone else in my small, nonprofit office, I have been the default webmaster for our six-month old website. Now I'm taking another job. Before I depart, I must write a manual with very simple, step-by-step instructions on how to use our web editor and mailing list software. The problem is that while the other people in the office are proficient enough in Word and Excel, they have no other computer skills. If they were to cut and paste some text from Word into the editor and the formatting got messed up (as it often does), they wouldn't know how to fix it without some serious instructions (e.g., "Don't press Enter when you want to go down one line as you would in Word, use Shift+Enter").

If possible, I'd really prefer not to have to write FCKeditor and PHPlist for Dummies if it already exists somewhere out on the web. I've done a whole lot of searching and haven't found anything that is simple enough for my purposes. The wiki documentation and forums aren't much help since they mostly deal with installation and are written for people with far more advanced skills.

Any ideas? Even if you know of documentation that isn't for FCKeditor or PHPlist per se, but could still be helpful, that would be great too. Thank you!

Which mailing list manager should I use?

evariste — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 17:34:16 -0800

Best mailing list manager? I'm running Postfix and Dovecot on a Debian Sarge box. It's for a customer with an approximately 1000-person almost-daily email alert list. They have to pay a lot of money to get on the list, so it shouldn't be possible for some random person to subscribe. It should have a nice web management interface for my customer to do maintenance and pruning, but doesn't have to. It should also have a good security track record, and preferably be F/OSS. It would be nice if it had some kind of intelligent heuristic for removing bad (bouncy) email addresses from future mailings.

Which mailing list manager should I use? ezmlm? majordomo? Something else? Are there questions I should be asking about it that I'm not thinking of? I've never been responsible for someone's mailing list before.

Running javascript from within cgi-Script

elphTeq — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 20:18:41 -0800

I use a free cgi mailing list script that generates a html template for the admin interface and user feedback for sign-up. The site i am implementing it on today has some basic preload/rollover javascript within the HEAD of the HTML document, but the javascript aint working on the template the cgi outputs. How do i need to format the javascript so that it works from the cgi-script? Is it the paranthese, curlies, semicolons or brackets that need to be slashed? Or all four? Here's what I got:



function newImage(arg) {

	if (document.images) {

		rslt = new Image();

		rslt.src = arg;

		return rslt;

	}

}



function changeImages() {

	if (document.images && (preloadFlag == true)) {

		for (var i=0; i

Book Discussion Via Email

xmutex — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 10:09:49 -0800

Book discussion mailing list? I want to find a mailing list that discusses books. I'm not comfortable with like in-person reading groups because I am afraid of other people. They are weird, you know? I also like the intimacy of mailing lists as opposed to like bulletin boards. Anyone?

What's a good advertising-free alternative to Yahoo Groups?

Aaorn — Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:15:38 -0800

What's a good advertising-free alternative to Yahoo Groups? I'm looking to run a private mailing list, 10-20 subscribers, conversational in topic (which rules out Freelists.org). I have shell access on a Linux account, but not root (which rules out a Majordomo install). What else is out there?

Listserv managers

Grod — Mon, 19 Jul 2004 12:16:51 -0800

Listserv question. I have a friend who wants recommendations for either a low priced or free managed listserv (he is computer illiterate as are the people who will be subscribing) that has dead easy sign-up (enter an e-mail address, confirm your subscription, that's it). Or a free or inexpensive solution that he can install and administer without knowing squat. He has tried some Yahoo! thing but found that it required a Yahoo! e-mail address from the subscribers. This, apparently, was too confusing for the subscribers. I'm looking for personal experiences/recommendations since I don't know the first thing about listservers.