Daily email re New Topics

[Da Jemster]

Obioban / liam821 Ian, I'm certain you've been receiving the daily email from the i3 forum, as shown below. Can we enable that feature here?

[PSUEng]

Interesting idea, I think I would take advantage of that feature.

[Obioban]

We'll see if Liam can find anything, but poking around the admin CP, nothing sticks out at me.

Vbulletin kind of sucks on the admin side :P

I do like the idea of it-- seems like it would increase participation.

[Shonky]

You can set a daily email notification but only for topics you've already seen and subscribed to (you subscribe automatically when replying). See Settings->Notifications tab

[liam821]

I don't think there is some way to do this within the confines of the vbb administration panel. However, that's not to say it can't be done. We could easily pull the top N posts from the last week, craft an email, and send it out.

A few things we'd have to think about. If we were to send a single email to all the forum users, we're talking about 7,500 emails a week - that's a lot of emails. Currently, we send out about 75-125/day. We'd also have to work something up so people can "opt-out/un-subscribe" with a button click and not include that person in future emails.

There is also the cost. Currently, our server handles sending email, and at our current volume, it's manageable and we've never been blacklisted for "bulk" email. But with dumping 7500 emails all at once, we'd want to use a smart email gateway, such as the Amazon SES service. It's not terribly expensive, $0.10 per 1000 emails, so you're talking ~$3/month at our current user count, but that number will go up.

It would help increase traffic back to the website though, and that's never a bad thing. I suppose it's cheap advertising.

I'm game if you all think it's a good idea.

[bullet0770]

Hi Guys, If there is any help needed regarding anything on the forum, let me know. It would be pleasure to help out. Thanks

[Obioban]

I don't think there is some way to do this within the confines of the vbb administration panel. However, that's not to say it can't be done. We could easily pull the top N posts from the last week, craft an email, and send it out.

A few things we'd have to think about. If we were to send a single email to all the forum users, we're talking about 7,500 emails a week - that's a lot of emails. Currently, we send out about 75-125/day. We'd also have to work something up so people can "opt-out/un-subscribe" with a button click and not include that person in future emails.

There is also the cost. Currently, our server handles sending email, and at our current volume, it's manageable and we've never been blacklisted for "bulk" email. But with dumping 7500 emails all at once, we'd want to use a smart email gateway, such as the Amazon SES service. It's not terribly expensive, $0.10 per 1000 emails, so you're talking ~$3/month at our current user count, but that number will go up.

It would help increase traffic back to the website though, and that's never a bad thing. I suppose it's cheap advertising.

I'm game if you all think it's a good idea.

If this is something we do, I think it should be opt in— not opt out.