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Grex > Coop6 > #14: A moneymaking idea for Grex? | |
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popcorn
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A moneymaking idea for Grex?
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Sep 15 21:41 UTC 1994 |
A few days ago in the mail I got a flyer from a company that wanted to
buy a copy of Grex's mailing list. I dunno why they chose to send it
to me; best guess is that someone from this company logged on to Grex
and saw the t-shirt item. My first thought when I saw it was, "No way
in hell am I selling Grex's user list." Then I thought about it some
more. I'm vehemently against the idea of selling names of people just
because they logged in to Grex, but what if we assembled a list of
people who *wanted* to recieve net-related mailings? We could sell
that and make some money for Grex in the process. Does this sound like
an interesting idea?
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| 45 responses total. |
danr
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response 1 of 45:
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Sep 15 22:13 UTC 1994 |
I'd support selling the names of peole that *want* to get these kinds
of things, but I'd be vehemently against selling our membership list.
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carl
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response 2 of 45:
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Sep 16 00:08 UTC 1994 |
Agreed!
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kentn
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response 3 of 45:
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Sep 16 00:15 UTC 1994 |
Sure, if people want to sign up for it, let them. Call it a fund
raiser...
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anne
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response 4 of 45:
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Sep 16 01:29 UTC 1994 |
I agree, if people want their names on the list, fine. But not everyone
should be on it. I for one wouldn't want to be on it.
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steve
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response 5 of 45:
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Sep 16 01:33 UTC 1994 |
Except for the fact that a list of people that are willing
to have their addresses used would be so small as to be
unworthy of our time. One of the terms in the mailing biz
is "CPM"--Cost Per Thousand. These folks deal with *lots*
of names at a time; we're infinately small potatoes in
comparison. We'll make a lot more money selling the stuff
thats been donated to us for the next JCC than trying this out,
I'm afraid.
I'm sure that whoever contacted Valerie realized that we have
a fair number of peopple tromping through our system these days,
and thats what they want--data, and lots of it. Of course,
not all people reveal their addresses to us, nor do we have
any way of verifing the info.
So I'm afraid its a nice idea that won't get us anywhere.
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popcorn
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response 6 of 45:
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Sep 16 02:58 UTC 1994 |
Re 1-4: Like I said in #0, there's NO WAY I'd be involved with Grex
selling the names of users who didn't specifically, VOLUNTARILY, ask
to be on the list that is sold.
We probably are small potatoes compared to other mailing lists they could
get, but it would cost us the price of some paper or a disk, plus a stamp,
to add some names to their mailing list. They say the minimum number of
names to submit is one. They'll compile a big list of all the names they
get from various sources, lease out the list of names, and split the money
percentagewise among the sources that contributed the names. Each time
they sell the names on the list, they'll send out a royalty check to the
contributors. Sounds like a low risk on Grex's part, for what is probably
going to be a small payback, but who knows.
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kentn
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response 7 of 45:
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Sep 16 04:26 UTC 1994 |
The very best mailing lists are those with people who WANT to be on
them because they buy the stuff that is sold via those lists. That
means that a list of 100 names of definitely interested people is
much better than a list of 10000 names of people that toss junk mail
in the circular file without glancing at it. In fact, the mailing
list people constantly try to weed out the people that aren't
valuable to the people they sell the lists to (at least they do if they
want repeat business). It would be a good selling point of the list
to say "these people volunteered to be on this list".
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rcurl
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response 8 of 45:
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Sep 16 05:21 UTC 1994 |
This could be included in the newuser program: "Would you like to be
included in a mailing list to be sold to vendors of computer related
thingies and services, by which Grex can raise a small amount of money,
and you would receive free information (Y, N)?"
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remmers
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response 9 of 45:
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Sep 16 11:25 UTC 1994 |
Bad place for it. If I was registering on a system for the first time,
I didn't know much about it, didn't know if it was worthy of my
support, and one of the questions they asked me was whether I wanted to
be on Yet Another Mailing List, I would abort the registration process
*real quick*.
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rcurl
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response 10 of 45:
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Sep 16 17:41 UTC 1994 |
I would get a laugh out of it, and probably check N, and go right on.
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brighn
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response 11 of 45:
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Sep 16 20:25 UTC 1994 |
I agree with John (how did that happen? :-) -- I probably wouldn't
complete the registration. FreeNet systems often have something
complicated in their registration, and having been screwed by
America On-Line's "free" deom period, I'm a bit jumpy about
things like that, and I doubt I'm alone.
Besides, then established Grexers wouldn't hear about it, and they'd
be more likely to be willing (although count me out -- I'm on
too many mailing lists as is).
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popcorn
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response 12 of 45:
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Sep 16 20:56 UTC 1994 |
Ditto to what John said in #9.
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aruba
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response 13 of 45:
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Sep 17 00:10 UTC 1994 |
I agree with John too. That would turn me off big time. As it is, just
*talking* about Grex selling my name makes me feel dirty.
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gull
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response 14 of 45:
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Sep 17 02:57 UTC 1994 |
Other note: make sure this company isn't basing its opinion about Grex on
the Ann Arbor Observer article; they might get the wrong idea about what
kind of mailing list they're compiling. ;-)
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scg
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response 15 of 45:
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Sep 17 03:29 UTC 1994 |
Wouldn't they have sent it to "Don" Romanchik, then?
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rcurl
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response 16 of 45:
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Sep 19 04:52 UTC 1994 |
The unanimity of the (negative response) to #8 surprises me. I never
have difficulty with any proposal that harms no one and provides a
service to those that want it.
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polygon
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response 17 of 45:
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Sep 21 00:19 UTC 1994 |
This response has been erased.
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lwirtz
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response 18 of 45:
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Sep 22 03:53 UTC 1994 |
Rane, I hope you don't feel dumped on; I think your response was perfectly
reasonable! However, I think that more clearly because, though I'm quite
new to Grex, I've now had a week and a half or so to browse various conferen-
ces, read responses from a variety of people (and notice a welcome number
of names recurring), and generally get a sense of the Grex environment. So,
if the choice of whether to add my name to a mailing list with Grexiness as
one of the parameters was offered to me *now*, I think I'd have the response
you describe. However, if it had been front & center (or even left & back)
in the newuser program, I think my first reaction would have been something
along the lines of "Oh, no, *another* one? Couldn't they wait to see if I -
or any other new user - liked being here before they asked me if I wanted to
be on a mailing list? Sigh..." Hm - actually I hope I wouldn't have been
quite that whiny - but it's a true first reaction, wording aside.
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rcurl
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response 19 of 45:
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Sep 22 05:43 UTC 1994 |
I think I was dumped on because of a widespread suspicion of the motives
of others in early contacts. All the responses suggested that newusers
arrive with a chip on their shoulders, looking to be antagonized. There
has been considerable public discussion of this cynicism of the public,
especially in regard to politics and politicians. This would appear to be
part of that. I'm of an earlier generation in which this was - and is -
not particularly strong, and we expect people to be good, until we learn
otherwise. Therefore my response - amusement by the direct approach, but
no hostility toward it. Perhaps, in addition, a factor is that I come from
a background in volunteer, non-profit, charitable organizations, where we
all *know* that we operate on donations and *expect* to be asked to help
support the endeavor, and find nothing ominous in the knowledge.
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kentn
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response 20 of 45:
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Sep 22 16:29 UTC 1994 |
I don't see a big problem with giving people a choice to be on a
Grex mailing list; however, I agree with lwirtz (:18) that having that
be one of the first choices you make when you are a newuser would
not be a good thing. That doesn't me we have to abandon the idea
totally, however. If it is a choice people make freely, when they
are confident of the Grex environment and what such a mailing list
will be used for (fundraising for Grex; information-gathering, and
buying opportunities for people on the list) then let them make it
one way or the other.
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steve
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response 21 of 45:
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Sep 22 17:44 UTC 1994 |
Does someone want to volunteer to make a simple shell script
or program to ask people for the relevent data and put it somewhere?
Perhaps this person could finding a market for it.
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popcorn
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response 22 of 45:
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Sep 22 19:20 UTC 1994 |
I figured I'd enter an item in the Fall conference asking people
to enter their names. Once the item quieted down, I'd e-mail it
to the mailing list people. No shell script needed; no need for
people to figure out how to run the shell script. If anybody didn't
want to post their address in public they could mail it to me.
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tsty
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response 23 of 45:
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Sep 27 23:15 UTC 1994 |
maybe this got linked to Autumn, maybe not - is this for both/either
email and/or post office?
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carson
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response 24 of 45:
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Sep 28 13:50 UTC 1994 |
wasn't linked to autumn or to coop, which is why it doesn't say
<linked item> in the header. ;)
you might want to link it to coop.
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