Forum Moderators: skibum
Anyone have a line on hard data here? I have a few hard cases I'd like to convince.
Is there something wrong with their technology or are they being non-standard to further a marketing goal?
How satisfied are AOL-ers with this problem or are large numbers shifting to free mail sites like Hotmail?
Is the email problem related to Netscape being part of AOL/Time Warner?
for why would anybody want to send email with colors and pictures anyway in the body? I cant see any reason other than some sort of advertising.
Who said html mail was "standard", text works just fine.
>>How satisfied are AOL-ers with this problem or are large numbers shifting to free mail sites like Hotmail? <<
Most AOL'ers probably open it and go "eewwww that looks ugly "and then delete it.
>>Is the email problem related to Netscape being part of AOL/Time Warner? <<
Not so sure it is a problem, I agree with chiyo on the html issue, most of it is generated by spammers....er....advertisers.
Of course, they probably save a ton on bandwidth by not shoving all those images and flash files through their system.
I at least like to send html email for italics and bold purposes
AOL has all the formatting features...bold, italic, even colored fonts and funny faces that works within their system.
Sending pics as attachment is pretty easy even for the novice.
I personally would rather receive and send HTML email. The opt-in lists that I've joined send me products that I want to see. The emails sent are more professional (in the business world) or more user specific (in personal mail). I get just as much spam in plain text as I do in HTML.
Even on the dial up at the house there is not a problem with bandwidth. Especially when I get one HTML advertisement that I opted in for versus 15 plain text "you won a vacation" garbage.
So I'm wondering if anyone has seen a study that compares the effectiveness of HTML email to text-only. I need some ammo here, because they're beginning to look at me as a Luddite!
This is based on the rise in traffic directly after the mailing.
The mailing was in html and I did not send a text only message to aol users.
Roughly 10% of the addresses were to aol boxes.
Next mailing I will send text only to the aol's and see what it does.
Luddite should quad go before that?;)
I don't doubt that chiyo's site has turned off html email.
Most webmasters I find administer their sites so that they conform to their preferences. If they are trailing edge then the people that use their sites are cut off from the innovations that are happening on the Internet.
I have worked on an automobile site that sends voice messages in their email to their dealerships. A half dozen other companies send Flash presentations.
The majority opinion on this site often seems to be that all commercial email IS spam and nothing else. That it is worthless and annoying simply because it is business email.
If you make a product inquiry to a business, it is reasonable that the business would return a well-formatted html response.
If you want to filter your email that makes sense. "Viagra" and "Lolita" in a filter will cut 50% off your incoming mail. But operating your mail system like it is still a Teletype machine just does make sense to me.
However this is situational, speed is improving in the US. I don't know anyone with less than a 33k modem and about 20-25% are on 56kb or cable modems. DSL is not big in my area.
[image]
[image]
[image]
[image]
[image]
just my 2 cents...
more people block html emails with each successive scripted virus that comes out...unless somebody comes up with something that directly benefits the recipient I can't see html emails being the way to go in the medium term
we are in real danger of following every single new advance in bandwidth by clogging it up with self important promotional clutter...some days I get the feeling that 90% of people with web access spend all their time jumping up and down yelling "look at me" at the top of their voice...of course it isn't really that bad...most people make a constructive contribution to the overall well being of humanity...it's just 90% of marketers, CEOs and web dee-ziners
In fact, I would counter claim that many people, (present company excluded) use HTML email beacuse they CAN, their uninternet savvy clients wants it (like tedester says), they think it makes their email stand out from others (doubtful) and it looks good on their email program. But what does it look like in other programs, resolutions etc? Text is far less susceptible to these problems.
> quote from cyril "...If you make a product inquiry to a business, it is reasonable that the business would return a well-formatted html response..." <
Disagree strongly. We think its reasonable to receive plain text and unreasonable to receive formatting, especially if we enquired in text. Its email and why do we need pretty pictures and formatting to receive a response to an enquiry? We are a market research company. Image is important to all of us in the field. Yet i still have to receive an HTML response to an enquiry from a company in thie field, though long quotes in Word files as attachments are OK, but thats not what we are discussing really.
Perhaps in our industry words are more important than the formatting. Not all have fast connections. I for instance, and most of our consultants use laptop connections from dial ups from hotels.
quote from cyril >...
Most webmasters I find administer their sites so that they conform to their preferences. If they are trailing edge then the people that use their sites are cut off from the innovations that are happening on the Internet...<
Im not sure about that. Important to be aware of changes in technology, but not necessary to use them. Only if you are in an industry or have an audience who need them. We have experimented with "new cutting edge" technology several times on our Web sites in the 6 years we have run them. In 95% of cases we stopped using them because they *** got in the way of the message rather than enhancing it ***. Sometimes this reality was hard to accept, but we just had to look at complaints and make changes to keep our users who want good info quick.
As time went on, and after consulting our users, we find ourselves going inextrably back to simple text and a minimum of graphics, and almost no js, certainly no flash, etc. Every site overhaul makes the sites simpler, not more dependent on technology.
If we go on as now, soon we will end up with just text with battleship grey backgrounds like in 1995! <joke>
cutting edge! hell.. we will leave it to others to cut themselves on this stuff, and when it is all working fine and has lasted 2 years or more we might actually use it..
Still, agree also that it depends on the industry. I would make very sure that people in your industry like HTML email, and respond to it better than text.
And I think, (being a research guy) that nice controlled experiments like Minnapples are the most useful in answering the question... Will depend on the industry again.
HTML vs. Plain Text: Tradeoffs
[ecommerce.internet.com...]
Convincing clients, however, is something else altogether.
I did find [url=http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/ebusiness/story/0,2000024981,20216598-1,00.htm]this article[/url] that states in point 3: ...only 36 percent of subscribers prefer HTML email over plain text.
That info is from Steve Reed, MessageMedia director. Taking a quick look at messagemedia, they have several [url=http://www.messagemedia.com/rc/case_studies.shtml]case studies and white papers[/url] which may contain some data for you. Simple (free and unconfirmed) registration grants access.
36% and expected to increase dramatically. The rest could have all been neutral. The article doesn't say.
Ha, ha what if the mailman decided that all mail would be text-only.
Let's look to see if the issue has been studied! Do you think you will find anyone doing such a study on plain mail?
Lets wait 2 to 5 years to give the technology a chance to settle in. Ha, ha HTML is at least 8 years old.
I think what we are really arguing is command line text vs graphical user interface.
Ah, bring back the green screen CRT's of my youth.
Total Luddite application of current technology.
You can code your email so that it recogonizes if their system supports html based email..... If it does their served the html email..... If it doesn't their served the plain text version...
Thanks,
Brian
http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/wwwsf2.html
Not only were html email messages more bandwidth-intensive, particularly with their graphical content (after all, why do html email if you aren't sending graphics?), they also opened up a Pandora's box of security problems. It turned out to be just as simple to program nasty things into html scripts as the now-familiar bouncing balls and other web animations
http://www.macwrite.com/macsecurity/mac-os-x-security-part-4.php
Because Windows Internet Explorer trusts Microsoft PowerPoint, it will allow a PowerPoint file to be embedded in a web page, automatically loading PowerPoint to parse it, and making the user vulnerable to exploitation. HTML-email, if enabled, could be a similar vector for attack.
http://www.atstake.com/research/advisories/2001/index_q1.html
There have also been some amarming instances of cookies being set by HTML email messages to reveal your email address and other information to web sites
http://www.robertstech.com/run/privacy.htm
Another thing to consider with ports is the complexity of the service that utilizes each port. In most cases the more complex the service, the more likely it is to be exploited. As an example, consider SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol, or as it is better known; email). This is a complex service that allows for many methods of exploitation from attached executables to scripts embedded in HTML email. Spammers will also use weakly protected SMTP ports to redirect their junk mail so that it can not be traced back to them.
http://www.networknewz.com/archives/022601.html
Internet Explorer 5.01 and Access 2000 allow executing programs when viewing a web page or HTML email message. This allows taking full control over user's computer. Access 2000 allows executing VBA code which has access to system resources and in particular executing files.
http://packetstormsecurity.org/0006-exploits/
I found this little lot in about 5 minutes.
I share your concerns about security. I view the sending of viruses as a terrorist act, aimed at property destuction. As webmasters we should be lobbying the US government to strike back against these terrorist.
The terrorist are making inroads. We now have people saying that we should forego html email. I say catch and punish the terrorist and prosecute the people that diseminate and collect this material. It should be done exactly as we are doing against the pedophiles and child pornographers.
Do we forego air travel because of Sept 11? No, we go after the terrorist and those that harbor them.
Penalties need to be raised. Viruses are costing billions of dollars and we are handing out community services to the perpetrators.
On bandwidth, the US now has 5 million users with 56k or better connections and this is seen as going to 35 million by 2006.
I shall filter out all html email...it's within my capabilities and removes a whole bunch of threats whilst losing me nothing but somebody else showing off
win win as far as I'm concerned
This could be even more effective at pfizer.com ;).
I'll go with the HTML minority. I receive a fair number of e-mail newsletters, and greatly prefer the well-formatted HTML ones. For personal correspondence, my default is text, but I probably switch to HTML about 25% of the time to add formatting, paste a pic, or paste a formatted table or something. People sending me personal e-mail use mostly text, although I have some correspondents whose default seems to be HTML.
In the long run, I think text e-mails will go the way of black and white TV, or dot-matrix printers. Wireless devices, PDAs, etc., may be an exception for a few more years, before their bandwidth and display capabilities catch up to today's desktop technology.
I think it has to be a partnership between government, industry groups and standards bodies. It can not be left to each software developer to fight terrorism alone.
Currently when each virus strikes the software developer struggles to plug the hole while his competition cheers and tries to improve their market share.
Eric_Jarvis again: "I shall filter out all html email"
And will you handle the current terrorist crisis by not flying again, staying out of tall buildings and never reading your plain mail again?
We bought a software that does it for us.... check out [url=http://www.mailworkz.com]Broadc@st[/url]... has a bunch of other handy functions as well......
Some of their marketing Hype
Email programs in common use today have a range of capabilities and so Broadc@st has been
created to take advantage of the most feature rich programs without compromising your ability to
reach those whose email programs have more limited capability. Broadc@st does this by
allowing you to create a multipart message which contains a section where your message is
encoded in HTML and a second part where your message is encoded in plain textEmail programs conforming to current standards usually default to displaying the HTML part of
the message. Programs that cannot display HTML, display only the text message.
We tend to go with Text only if it is necessary to pick one format. AOL addresses are always a pain becaue they require special attention.
On the receiving end, it is rediculous how many companies send out HTML email that doesn't disply properly or at all. Even formatting in text messages is attrocious from most companies. 75% of mail that arives is spam and about 90% of the rest of it is either HTML that can't be read or text mail that is formattd so poorly that it midas well be an HTML message.
