Mailing List

Aweber’s usefulness to me for delivering a series of emails has come to an end, I think. I have well over a hundred sign-ups on my mailing list, but many are Chinese and take no active part in the website. One wonders why they joined the mailing list and the only reasons I can think of are to pinch any good ideas I may get (I’m still hoping for one), pirate any books if I give any away free, or to send spam through my account if Aweber’s security is sloppy. I can’t think of one good reason, since they don’t try to participate.
Of the rest, about twenty percent actually respond, which I think is poor, since they are getting free, a service that I have to pay for, although I’m sure that Aweber is more flexible than WordPress. However, I don’t need that level of sophistication.
Therefore, I am going to rely on the ‘new post’ mailing list delivery service built into WordPress, which is free to all of us and is much better than it was even only recently.
The main benefit to the readers is that the messages they receive will concern brand-new posts, whereas on Aweber some of them on the mailing list were two years old by the time some people signed up, and the savings to me are money and I will not have to preload the autoresponder with messages.
I hope you will try the new mailing list out by entering your name and email address into the box at the top left of this page. You can unsubscribe with a click at any time and you will not be spammed by me, WordPress or any other company for joining up.
I have become aware of a problem with the mailing list service – it was collecting emails that mentioned my blog,  posting them to the blog, and then notifying everyone that there was a new post. I have turned this dubious benefit off now.

∞

I heard something that disturbed me yesterday. A visitor, Mike, was telling me about the large protest marches in London after the election demonstrating against the Tory victory. I’d never heard about them. But how can that be? I listen to BBC Radio Four for at least twelve hours a day and there has been no mention of them. Is this censorship? Is it what we would call censorship in other countries?
It makes me ashamed of poor old Blighty, or at least, what decades of crappy politicians have done to her. It becomes more and more difficult to reconise Britain. It’s a crying shame.

∞

Oh, by the way, forty-five degrees Celsius today, but still no sign of the monsoon that everyone is waiting for to cool the country down.

All the best.

Owen

Podcast: Mailing Lists