RE: [epub] Email: HTML vs. Text?...

["Geof F. Morris, Chief Editor, TOTK.com Sports" <gmorris@xxxxxxxx>]

 >You're probably not missing out on any subscribers, agreed.
 >But HTML could potentially make your ezine stand out from
 >the pack in your readers' eyes.

	It *could* make it stand out, Brian, but unless the reader base is going 
all nuts over it, they won't.  When you get to people who have been on the 
Internet for awhile and consider themselves ezine connisseurs, you'll 
probably find that they don't like HTML ezines.  I am one of this crowd, 
for reasons explained later.

 >How about convenience, or an enhanced content experience? In other
 >words, the abilities to offer clickable links to URLs that would
 >otherwise wrap in a text email; to integrate images with the text
 >of your email; to offer search, subscription, recommendation, or
 >other forms; to include Web site navigation, thus encouraging repeat
 >visits to your Web site; to integrate your site colors, layout,
 >and logo to increase the power of your ezine's brand; to track
 >the number of people opening your email messages; and so on.
 >
 >If images, stylized font, and the like were irrelevant, print
 >magazines and newspapers wouldn't spend the extra money to include
 >them. The do include them, because the experience is considered
 >superior in many ways to plain text.

	I am an old, tired geek (at 21).  I have seen more badly-written HTML than 
I care to think about.  The thing that scares me with HTML is my experience 
with it -- people bringing it into areas like Usenet, where it has no 
business.  I don't much like it in my email inbox, either -- in fact, few 
should be surprised to know that my email client is Eudora Pro (v.4.3.2, 
thanks) and that I have font *forced* to display Courier New, the font I 
consider the best fixed-width font.  Of course, I also started playing with 
the Internet on a Unix shell account and was an avid Lynx user for some 
time, as it was quick to navigate the Web without any graphics.

	I am also an HTML Nazi -- no editors, thanks.  I run mine in Textpad 
(thanks to all about three months back who sang its praises -- I am now a 
new, loud voice in that chorus) because I unfortunately do a lot of my 
development time on Windows machines, and telnetting to a shell account and 
using pico is a pain in my situation.  My bookshelves have all sorts of 
good geeky books, namely a chunk of O'Reilly and Associates books on HTML, 
CSS, Perl, etc.

	Having said all that, what I fear is that people new to electronic 
publishing in general and ezines in particular are going to take your 
wonderful advice on moving to HTML whole hog, Brian.  Your articles on the 
subject have been excellent, although the reader feedback one was a wee 
biased against those of your readers who wrote in to disagree.  That's 
fine, I disagree with my readers as well, and if we all agreed . . .

	The barriers to entry have not yet risen for ezines, much like the book 
you recommended in Ezine-Tips, Net Gain (which I'm reading -- good book, 
even thought it's publication date is ancient 'Net-wise), seems to want to 
predict.  It's easy to publish in this space, but it's also *very* easy to 
mess up.  Too many people screw up with plain-text ezines because of 
formatting issues -- it's part of the process, and I've made my share of 
mistakes.  I just fear that newbies will ride the HTML wave and kill the 
desire for HTML eziens for millions of potential readers out there.

	-sigh-  So much for a brief reply, huh?

	GFM
==================================================================
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