I’d like to welcome back our RoadRunner subscribers. We lost you for a few weeks! It seems that someone on the Global Gold servers was sending out unsolicited email and RoadRunner blocked any emails coming from that ISP. Since our list server for this newsletter is located on Global Gold, AuctionBytes-Update was also kept from reaching our readers. I suppose that’s life on the Internet - a few spammers can take everyone down with them. To that end, we have an article by Kim Pierce on how to block unwanted email from reaching you. A well-timed story!
There have been lots of email delivery problems lately due to ISPs changing domain names. The first round of problems started when Excite@home email addresses changed when the service ceased operations. There are more changes on the way - in our area, AT&T is changing its broadband customers from mediaone.net to attbi.com. This means you may have problems trying to track down auction trading partners. And unfortunately, the vendors don't always send bouncebacks, so you may be assuming people are getting your email and they are not!
These changing domains also mean that you have to remember to notify newsletters, like AuctionBytes, or you will stop receiving your subscriptions. Unlike snail-mail, there is no automatic "forwarding" service on the Internet. So remember to tell all your family, friends, business associates, customers and especially ME if your email address changes!
Speaking of mail servers, we’ve decided to host the Daily NewsFlash ourselves. Topica has been very erratic with delivery some people have not received a NewsFlash in weeks, others are receiving multiple copies. We sent out the first NewsFlash from our servers this past Friday. If you didn’t receive it, let us know. We have no one to blame but ourselves now! If you’d like to subscribe to NewsFlash send a blank email to newsflash-request@auctionbytes.com. Make sure that “subscribe” is in the subject line. You’ll receive a confirmation email from us. Simply hit reply and send the email back and you’ll be subscribed! Save your welcome message, it will have your password and instructions on how to unsubscribe or change your preferences.
It’s also about that time when David starts wanting to ask certain questions of our readers, so our Online Poll is going to rear its ugly head again. We’re going to start off with a question that we’ve asked twice before, but we’d like to see if opinions have changed over the past year. Today we’re asking, “What’s the Best Day to End an Auction?” To vote, simply click here to make your selection. You’ll see the results after you vote, and we’ll publish the full results next issue.
Ina Steiner is Editor of AuctionBytes.com and author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). She has a background in marketing and research in the high-tech and publishing fields. If you have story ideas, comments or questions, send them to ina@auctionbytes.com.
