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Email Digests
Although the updated activity streams look good, there is still one big thing missing to get users more active on the network - email digests.
Currently users to not get notified about new discussions unless they have started or participated in it - which means 90+% of people wont hear about the activity unless the admin specifically mails them about it, which is too manual.
It would be great for users to have the option of receiving nicely HTML formatted daily/weekly/monthly digests of activity and I'm sure this would really boost activity on the networks.
Currently users to not get notified about new discussions unless they have started or participated in it - which means 90+% of people wont hear about the activity unless the admin specifically mails them about it, which is too manual.
It would be great for users to have the option of receiving nicely HTML formatted daily/weekly/monthly digests of activity and I'm sure this would really boost activity on the networks.
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Hi all!
Thanks for your great feedback here. To summarize what I see, here's what seem to be the top requests from the participants of this discussion:
- Ability to get email notifications in digest mode
- Ability to follow comments on more types of content
- Don't allow members to block broadcast messages
If you've been reading the Ning blog, you may have seen that we recently announced some new improvements coming to email notifications. We'll be adding follow links to just about every feature on your Ning Network, including photos, videos, groups and Pages. This means everyone, not just the person who posted the item, can receive email notifications when someone leaves a comment. And when a member comments on We'll also be adding new email notifications when you or your content is featured, and a new notification for Network Creators and administrators when a member joins your Ning Network.
We won't be blocking members' ability to opt out of broadcast messages, as members always need to have the ability to decide which messages and notifications they'd like to receive, even broadcast messages. We will, however, be redesigning the Email Settings page to make it more user-friendly, which will hopefully encourage your members to block the particular emails they don't want to receive and not block all. This change is coming with the rest of the short-term email notification improvements.
We'd love to add a digest mode for emails in the future, but it's a very large undertaking and requires significant under-the-hood changes. That being said, it is something we want to do, just not something that we're planning for the near-term.
Cheers,
Evan Goldin
Ning Product Manager
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I am very adamant on the broadcast message thing and I agree with a prior point, is there at least a way to get a tab of who has turned off broadcast messages?
Yahoo! Groups email options should be your model. User's have email options and so do NC's. They have a bouncing list AND they have a way for the Creator to send a message even to those who have turned off group email altogether (Special Notices only). If Yahoo can do it, and has been doing it, it can't be that big a deal for Ning to implement.
The anti-html attitude of ning is also killing me, at least let NC's and Admin's put html in everything!! We are the ones who need to send links for further help and related info to our members.
I also agree that the proliferation of follow links is only going to exasperate the email issue. How about fixing the email issue first and then let's work on the rest.
I’m frustrated
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I truly don't understand why members can't be required to receive broadcast messages from NCs. Not the membership at large, just from NCs.
If they've blocked broadcast because of too many e-mails they'll never be back. If they've blocked all e-mail entirely for whatever reason there's a good chance they'll never be back. And there's no way for the NC to encourage them to come back if they can't send a message -- to their own network member.
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I think a digest-type notification is better than an automatic notify. If I got a daily summary of activity, I'd go check and see what new things were posted. When I get a notice each time there's a reply, it clutters my mailbox. I like the way that LinkedIn handles their notification digest.
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Inappropriate?I see that Ning has put some nice touches on event and blog entry notifications. Still, it's not the case for both forums/discussions notifications, which are cryptic and not enough-customizable if you're not a admin.
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?Wow. Looks like I spoke too soon! There is actually a 'Notify' link at the bottom of the Forums and Group discussions pages e.g.
http://www.tokyo2point0.net/forum
http://www.tokyo2point0.net/group/pyt...
I also see that you are automatically subscribed to some sort of notifications when you join a group. Will wait to see what I receive.
I wonder if these features were added with the recent updates???
I think these settings should be integrated into the Email Settings page as it's too easy for users to miss:
http://www.tokyo2point0.net/profiles/...
As an aside, it also looks like there's move towards merging groups discussions and forums going on. Look forward to seeing progress on this front too.
I’m very happy and looking forward to more
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Inappropriate?I think a digest-type notification is better than an automatic notify. If I got a daily summary of activity, I'd go check and see what new things were posted. When I get a notice each time there's a reply, it clutters my mailbox. I like the way that LinkedIn handles their notification digest.
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Email digest would be the best option. Too much notification kills notification. -
Inappropriate?I have had clients request this feature for their ning sites recently. Has anyone heard anything additional in regards to adding a digest?
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Inappropriate?I would love to see a daily digest e-mail option for every RSS feed in a network. This can manually be done for each individual feed through Feedburner but it would make a lot more sense (and be more user-friendly) if it was resident. -
Inappropriate?On the main page, this request is noted as implemented.
However, there is no indication on this thread that this is true.
Is there another thread indicating the current status. Just learned that the ability to have daily digests (rather than many individual notifications) is a showstopper for our use of Ning.
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?On every section of the network, that right now generates a notification email there should be two check boxes: immediate notification / daily digest. By every forum thread, blog post, photo comments etc.
The daily digest should be checked by default, but for specific topics that the user might be especially interested in, they should have the option to take it out of the only once a day daily digest and put it over on a "hot alert" immediate notification (like we have now for everything).
email notification is aimed at bringing our members back to our networks, but it is having the opposite effect. Most of my members have clicked "no emails from network" because they got way way way too many emails every day.
This ends up with all of us having a lot of members, whom we cannot reach any longer because they were being spammed with emails from our network.
When NING implements this feature, their networks will explode, and it looks like they won't know why, otherwise they would have created this daily digest long ago?
They tell me it's on the road map. All I know is that I will never be able to really build my network until they implement daily digest, because everytime I get new members in from one end, I loose the over spammed members I got 2 weeks ago in the other end.
This is the small door that opens up the arena !
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?Every day people are turning off email notifications, because they receive way way way too many emails every day. Groups, messages, comments to photos, videos, blog posts etc. etc. etc.
So every day we all (NING INCLUDED) loose touch with our members and we are no longer able to reach them with broadcast messages, and these members forget about our networks quickly.
New members join, and then go through the same process.
When NING gives us a daily digest option (which of cause should be default and something everyone can see in their sign-up) they will see their active members explode over the next few weeks. The reason is that new members who join our networks, won't "leave" in the sense of turning off email notification and thereby their reminders to come visit our networks.
What do you think NING? I'm about ready to start REALLY growing my network from 2.000 to 100.000 members. Are you? :)
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?We would like to keep our members within email reach but they turn off all emails once they realize how many emails they are getting each day.
Daily digest is not a new invention, it's very commen and even an expected feature on ANY forum on the internet.
If we had daily digest we would continue to grow our networks instead of competing between how many new users are joining and how many users turning off all emails.
Small doors can open up big big rooms!
I’m hopeful
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Inappropriate?Just today I got a message from a banned member who had not received my warning message, so I had to ban him. Turns out this member (of cause) had turned off all his messages.
email digest will allow us to actually GROW our networks, by keeping members active on our networks, instead of just getting new members while loosing the old ones.
email digest is something every forum on the internet LONG AGO discovered was necessary if you wanted to grow a forum, why should it be any different for a social network which actually has MORE notifications than simply a forum ???
Does NING have a response to this request?
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?We cannot grow our networks very fast, until we get Email Digest. Ning has yet to respond to this thread.
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?Daily digest is a great idea! I admin 4 Yahoo Groups and I have some who do not want individual emails (too much inbox clutter) and had checked the Special Notices Only. This was a pain for me to remember to check the Special Notice box when I sent an email. After I explained the way the daily digest works, they all switched over.
But again, there was no way to absolutely not receive emails from me. I understand the spam issue with ning, but it is there own doing by allowing the global emailing option to exist at all! I really don't understands ning's theory of why a rock climbing network person would want to receive an email about someones cooking contest from another network.
Keep the email system network specific. Ning is shooting itself in the foot with this system. I have had numerous complaints and some to drop out and others refusing to even join!
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Inappropriate?Fantastic idead - I try to send out manual digest every so often but this would be perfect. Several members have asked for a way of keeping up to date with new discussions/comments etc so this would solve that.
Please Ning have a think about this one!
I’m excited
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Inappropriate?But sending out manual digests is next to impossible since we would have to send out different emails to each member according to their activities, but I have an idea about what you mean though.
Daily Digest is the number one reason why we loose touch with so many of our members after a short while. We bring them in through the door on one side, then 10 emails a day make them turn off all emails which is the same as leaving out the door on the other side.
It's not like this is something new. The rest of the internet discovered how important this functionality was in keeping people registered on a website, years and years ago.
And yet Ning has yet to even reply / comment on this request. Is it just me or did the employees leave as fast as they arrived? Maybe I just missed their posts lately?
Ning, please acknowledge the obvious argument we are bring forth and please let us know where you stand on helping us keep our members and thereby REALLY start to grow our networks (in a big way - you better be ready for it) :)
I’m excited
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Inappropriate?Just looked and this discussion has been going on for 5 months. It is an idea that most socially interactive sites have adopted. I think the much maligned Yahoo! did it first (could be wrong). Apparently ning has done another "study" and they are stuck in a rut. How about doing a "study" from ning members. Opps, I forgot, no way to get hold of the ones whop have turned email off!!
Their other "study" about the new way they display the Members listing is driving my members crazy with all of the scrolling and paging now necessary to look through the list.
Hey ning, a lot of people don't have time to sit in frontof their comp all day and look at an inbox with about 50 separate emails from the different networks they belong to. They get intimidated and just hit delete, now how many ads are they looking at?
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?I'm surprised that Ning has not even commented on this yet, even after they declared they were going to become more visual inhere ?
Daily Digest is the nr. 1 reason why we loose contact with our members and you don't have to be more clever than average to realize this equals shooting down the balloons that were going to lift you off the ground.
If our members are forced to turn off emails to have a sane existence, isn't it logical that these people will no longer be active on the network, and doesn't that also mean that these members will not help the network grow??? Who would invite their friends on a network where they themselves has to turn off all emails???
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?I would also like to see the inability for members to turn off Broadcast Messages. When or if ning decides to implement email digest, how are we supposed to be able to notify them?!?
This feature completely eliminates any update message to members about new features or how they work.
Come on ning, eliminate members ability to block Broadcast Messages and institute Daily Digest.
We are not talking rocket science here and if you are thinking about another "study" how are you going to contact those whose input you really need to hear from?
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?A solution could be to add daily digest to Ning and at the same time convert those who turned off emails completely TO: Daily Digest - but with an option to turn off emails completely once again if the member wants to !
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Inappropriate?I still want the Broadcast messages and my messages to go through. If I have something that I feel deserves a message to all members or even an individual member, I want it read. This is my creation isn't it?
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"This is my creation isn't it" - that's a good point !
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Inappropriate?I feel the same. I want AT LEAST a daily digest to be pushed to my members and they can NOT change the emailsettings for the daily digest, because i want my members to read important notices.
However, even if we have a daily digest, i was thinking, when you have hotmail, you can always block ceretain email messages and make them go to your SPAM folder, so even IF we had a daily digest, members can still block them and NOT receive it after all! :( -
Inappropriate?True, but at least they can't come back and say that it wasn't sent. No excuse that they didn't understand the email options on the network. If they block the network from their personal email prgm, it is a conscious effort on their part and it cannot fall back on the network.
Let's face it, you to ning, if we have a change in policy or a change or problem of any kind with the network in general and we have someone who does not comply, we have no recourse but to ban them. If the opportunity to notify them in advance is not there, all they know is that we kicked them off with no reason given. That results in bad PR and no one looking at your ads ning!
If they don't want email from ning, that is up to them. But I just don't believe that they should be allowed to refuse email from the network. They should also have the right to limit the amount of email they get by using a Daily Digest.
I'll also kick this in, the manner in which members are notified of email needs to be changed. Currently the message is incorporated in to the notification and since most folks are not that comp literate, they try to reply through their own ermail prgm not noticing that their reply is going to a no-reply address and is lost in cyberspace. Just notify them that they have email waiting and from who and force them to come back to the site to read and reply. My network has a large # of older folks and this is a constant complaint. "I replied to Joe Blow and he says he never got my reply, what is your problem?".
I’m frustrated
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true - I think we all realize that A LOT of messages are floating around out there from members who hit reply in their email software...
I don't know what the best solution would be, but the problem is there -
For one thing, the "you've received a message" notifications themselves don't make it very clear up front. I've added wording to that first line (via the language editor) to make it more clear (essentially, "Do not reply via e-mail, it won't work, use the link below"). But those notifications should still be attached to the sender's e-mail address so they can be replied to out of network if desired.
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wouldn't it be great if all replies from receivers ended up automatically in a section of the forum which NC's could turn on or off in the admin ???
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Inappropriate?I totally agree with the comments above. LinkedIn have it sorted in this respect. I get a nice weekly summary email - more often than not this encourages me to go back to linkedin.
I would have thought this would be a high priority item in the NING roadmap. I guess the are waiting for network apps and 'MailChimp' to provide this functionality.
KC.
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?oh yes ! there should be a daily digest and a weekly digest - EXCELLENT IDEA !
Are you saying that daily digest can become part of our network when Ning Apps arrive?????
I’m excited
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Inappropriate?Rick, That is a super workaround. Where in the language editor did you find that text?
I’m happy
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Well, what you do is go to the language editor and search for that first bit of text that goes out with message notifications. In my case (English U.S.) it's essentially "[user] has sent you a message on [network name]". So I found it by searching for "has sent you a message on".
The results I changed come up as "%1$s has sent you a message on %2$s". I'm not sure why there are two results exactly the same but I altered the text on both. Basically, I left it as is and just added some extra wording after.
Hope that helps! -
Actually went straight to the editor yesterday and found the text and did as you did and it works great! At least now they can't say they weren't warned. Thanks for the idea. That is one great feature that we have and that is the editor.
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Inappropriate?An email notification system that will make Ning explode in numbers over a few months:
• Daily Digest
• Weekly Digest
• Option for immediate email notification at all pages / topics / sections
• Turn off all emails is transformed into 2 Weeks Digest
• "emergency broadcast" to bypass 2 Weeks Digest / turn off all emails
- We won't loose your members to passive status, with emails turned off.
- All members will remail active at individual levels.
- All members will become billboards for our networks
I’m confident
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Inappropriate?Great ideas and sound logic. We are loosing to many through being "passive". That is a great word to describe them. They don't come back and may even forget about being a member and so they don't see your ads ning!
If I was an advertiser, I would want to see your page hits not your membership base #'s. Google Analytic reports would have to be on top of your presentation.
Come on ning, let's come into the 21st century!
I’m excited
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Inappropriate?With the Passive members, I would like to see some kind of "last login" as well, to go along with a revamp of the email "broadcast message" and email digest.
Such minor things we have all gotten so accustom to on other sites are so hard to get accomplished here. ;-(
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Inappropriate?"Last login" is also a great idea, yes !
There is a reason for why the entire internet has adopted Daily Digest / Weekly Digest, and the reason is obvious and so is the reason why our members are going passive: there is no email digest to keep them from turning off all email notifications.
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?I'm really surprised Ning has nothing to say about this. Do they agree email digest is important? Do they have a different view, arguments we don't know of?
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Inappropriate?suggestion to a more informative headline for this "idea" thread:
Email Digest - how it could make your network explode !!
I’m confident
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Inappropriate?It looks like Ning is back on Get Satisfaction and are being visible in the topics with replies. I'm hoping they will also have time to share their opinions on this topic :)
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Inappropriate?email notifications keeps our members informed about the topics they themselves have choosen. Right now we don't have daily and weekly digests options so our members are getting too many emails, so they choose to turn emails off, next we loose contact with them and they forget about the network. Please support this idea if you would like to see your network REALLY start to grow, not just in numbers but in activity and consequently proportionally in even more new members (could you handle the growth Ning?):
Newsletters is a little different from email notification. A newsletter is the Network Creator notifying the members of topics that the NC wishes to notify on. Members should have an option on their profile to turn on or off weekly and monthly newsletters.
With Aweber features built into Ning we could automate:
• a weekly and / or a monthly newsletters
• simply with a small digest and a link to the most read blog and forum posts,
• most viewed, most talked about, highest rated photos and movies and music.
http://www.aweber.com/blog-newsletter...
• We would not loose members in the long run because they get too many emails
• They would keep being active so as new members join the activity level would grow and grow unlike now.
• With weekly / monthly newsletters further keeping those who has not yet participated in threads, blogs, photos, movies and music informed about what is going on with the network.
This would be a Ning network that was tailored for growth ! YOUR networks would GROW ! Would anyone like that I wonder... or is it just me perhaps? :)
I’m excited
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Inappropriate?I think they should put a (facebook) "notify box" at the buttom corner of each page, just like the chat can float in the bottom corner (also like facebook):
notify me of activity: immediate - daily digest (default) - weekly digest
If this option was on every page on Ning, the group main page, photos page or the comments on a single photo or the photo album, even the members page if people should want to keep up with new members etc. etc.
If the Network Creator could then also receive an email with 30 min / 1 hour / 5 hour / daily digest to monitor all activity going on, that might not be a bad idea either. We can of cause go to the recent activity RSS feed.
hmmm I'm thinking how I could set that RSS feed up in my Mail apps RSS reader :)))))
I’m excited
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Inappropriate?there... lol happy... I am here to "bump" your thread.
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marked one of the best points :))))
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Inappropriate?Daily/Weekly digest is a great idea.1 Comment Add a comment
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yes, if we are going to keep our members within email reach, then daily digest is necessary cause we can't expect them to think it is great to receive so many emails every day.
On facebook they do not have daily digest and I suspect that is why Ning is copying this approach. But is facebook the same as Ning? No, actually there is one big difference between the two.
On facebook you only share media and text with your friends. On Ning you have a BOTH a "facebook share" (only friends can view this photo) AND a collective pool of media and text.
Both facebook and Ning have groups of cause, but there is that one difference between the two and that is where the extra traffic comes from I think. Noone on facebook feels overwhelmed by the emails I don't think, but on Ning they do.
I am still wondering what Ning THINKS about all this. Can't we get a heads up ? -
Inappropriate?Hi all!
Thanks for your great feedback here. To summarize what I see, here's what seem to be the top requests from the participants of this discussion:
- Ability to get email notifications in digest mode
- Ability to follow comments on more types of content
- Don't allow members to block broadcast messages
If you've been reading the Ning blog, you may have seen that we recently announced some new improvements coming to email notifications. We'll be adding follow links to just about every feature on your Ning Network, including photos, videos, groups and Pages. This means everyone, not just the person who posted the item, can receive email notifications when someone leaves a comment. And when a member comments on We'll also be adding new email notifications when you or your content is featured, and a new notification for Network Creators and administrators when a member joins your Ning Network.
We won't be blocking members' ability to opt out of broadcast messages, as members always need to have the ability to decide which messages and notifications they'd like to receive, even broadcast messages. We will, however, be redesigning the Email Settings page to make it more user-friendly, which will hopefully encourage your members to block the particular emails they don't want to receive and not block all. This change is coming with the rest of the short-term email notification improvements.
We'd love to add a digest mode for emails in the future, but it's a very large undertaking and requires significant under-the-hood changes. That being said, it is something we want to do, just not something that we're planning for the near-term.
Cheers,
Evan Goldin
Ning Product Manager
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THANK YOU Evan ! it's so nice to see Ning give a reply to a thread, positive or negative. Any respons just shows that you care, ya know? :))
I wish you could investigate how many Ning members have turned off all emails?
• I understand about the priorities you need to make.
• I think Ning Apps is the nr. 1 priority. Email digest nr. 2.
• It's also very interesting to know that email digest is NOT an easy undertaking !!.
• It's VERY positive to learn that this is something you DO see the value in, because we are all experiencing members comming in on our network - playing around for a while - getting overflooded with emails - in frustrations turning all emails off - and they are gone for ever !.
Next new members will join and the merry go round repeats untill they also disappear.
• notice that your upcomming changes to email notification actually makes the problem worse in the sense that members when new on the site will opt to receive even more notification emails ?!?!? Only pushing them closer to the turning off all emails.
We would love to actually grow not just the amount of members on our networks that accidently find it on google or are invited by members still not signing off, but we would also like to grow our network in ACTIVE users who participate once in a while.
This can only be done of they do not turn off all emails, and they do!
Daily / Weekly digests are the solution all other user participating sites on the internet have chosen. When Ning is ready to do this also, we can start to really grow our networks.
And I for one can't wait ! :) -
Thank you very much for weighing in and for the glimpse of the future roadmap.
I think a redesign of the email notifications will help a lot, even if the weekly/daily digests would be the optimal solution in the end. I understand the big undertaking that it requires and am very grateful that you're looking into it.
I, for one, believe that members have to get the possibility to turn all notifications off. This is an option available on all major social networks.
Thank you again and hi to the whole team.
Cheers. -
Inappropriate?Just keep this thread in mind Andrew, we want email digest and I still think that MY members, not yours, do not have the right to not receive messages from me ie: Broadcast Messages. If they don't want to hear anything from me or my Admin's concerning the site, they can leave.
It is really a pain to answer a question 10 or 20 times about something that was covered in a Broadcast Message that they chose not to receive.
I’m undecided
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Inappropriate?I truly don't understand why members can't be required to receive broadcast messages from NCs. Not the membership at large, just from NCs.
If they've blocked broadcast because of too many e-mails they'll never be back. If they've blocked all e-mail entirely for whatever reason there's a good chance they'll never be back. And there's no way for the NC to encourage them to come back if they can't send a message -- to their own network member.
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and the key word here is NEVER (never come back to our network).
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Inappropriate?However, I am glad to hear that we'll soon get notifications when new members join (I thought I must've been missing that setting all this time). That'll help out a lot with keeping spammers out.
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Inappropriate?I am very adamant on the broadcast message thing and I agree with a prior point, is there at least a way to get a tab of who has turned off broadcast messages?
Yahoo! Groups email options should be your model. User's have email options and so do NC's. They have a bouncing list AND they have a way for the Creator to send a message even to those who have turned off group email altogether (Special Notices only). If Yahoo can do it, and has been doing it, it can't be that big a deal for Ning to implement.
The anti-html attitude of ning is also killing me, at least let NC's and Admin's put html in everything!! We are the ones who need to send links for further help and related info to our members.
I also agree that the proliferation of follow links is only going to exasperate the email issue. How about fixing the email issue first and then let's work on the rest.
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?"We won't be blocking members' ability to opt out of broadcast messages"
*****Um wow that sucks****
I really only care about that - its the only way to find and get rid of my lurkers. Everything else announced is just... ugh!
I need to win the lottery and get my own servers... everyday a new challenge here at Ning... Nothing more fun that running a 100% moderated fully active group cause Ning can't keep out spammers... and now this.. fun!
...sigh...
I’m annoyed, ignored, betrayed, pissed off, sad, anxious, confused, frustrated
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Inappropriate?I do feel that we should be able to send out messages to our members no matter what. If Ning is worried about spam, they could simply put a max of one network broadcast per week. Spam problem solved, we can reach our members, everyone is happy. (even those members who had forgotten all about our network and was even hoping for some sort of email from us).
That being said, email digest will make sure the members do NOT turn off emails and everyone is happy also ! -
Inappropriate?I can understand why Ning must allow members to turn off all notification.
But I think that broadening the ability to follow threads is at best a makeshift solution. It improves things, but not in a significant enough way. Daily digests are a way to cut down on e mail traffic while allowing members to maintain contact w. the group & choose which links they wish to follow back to the group.
Despite the technical problems associated with daily digest, I hope you'll persevere in order to make Ning a truly flexible & adaptable product that fulfills the needs of its users.
I’m still not satisfied though Ning is trying
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Inappropriate?Well I see where they are comming from, BUT, I still think it should be our decision. So to do their part to make sure members are not hunted away by a spam trigger happy NC, why not simply build in a feature that only makes it possible for us to send out 1 network broadcast per week ? (or something in that area, 2 perhaps).
To be honest I am often wondering "how long ago was it I sent my last message" when I broadcast something. I'm actually scared that I'm sending out messages too often and I'ed need to put it in a calendar to keep track myself.
Or they could write: your last network broadcast was sent out the (date) if you send out more than x per week you might be driving your members away from your network ! -
Inappropriate?Yeah, how many users could Ning *possibly* lose due to broadcast messages? Especially if they're limited as suggested by Brian.
More than losses from having no e-mail digest?
Myself, I don't send a broadcast out very often. But when I do I want ALL of my members to see them. The concept of "Special Notices" is perfectly reasonable.
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this is one of the best points
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Inappropriate?(It's interesting to me that I've tried to "stop following this thread" 3 times, and I'm still getting e-mail update notifications for it. Time to filter ... )
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Inappropriate?Oh wow, I just posted my idea for a solution for part of this, after searching for an idea, but this didn't come up until AFTER I posted my idea... d'oh! So here is my solution for encouraging contact and activity, and it's still a member's choice whether to opt in. But I don't have a solution for making sure every member would get a message, unfortunately.
http://getsatisfaction.com/ning/topic...
troy
I’m happy to share
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Inappropriate?I have been in contact with Ning and they actually think it's a good point. They do see the fact that it's not worth much what ever new feature that comes out, if most members are passive names on a list because they had to turn off all the emails flooding their mail box.
So this is great news ! If we had email digest set to default when people joined, we would not be loosing members contributions after a few weeks when they finally can't take all the emails anymore.
The thing is that email digest is a huge operation to build into the network, so it's not something they can do in a weekend, but at least now we really know that they get the point. And the point is in their own interest as well.
So let's keep campaigning for it here on Get Satisfaction, I'm sure it can only help it on the way.
I’m excited
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this is one of the best points
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This is one of the best points
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Brian, you are at times long winded, but you have shown that you speak to the good when called for, and that is something I for one value.
my suggestion to Ning: do a survey of communities that manually put out the digests now to tease out the business requirements (together with a peek at a linkedIn digest). (I find the LinkedIn Acct & Settings/ Receiving Messages matrix to be clean and understandable). One thing that I have appreciated in the manual digests is the practice of having a "featured" article at the top of the list. With the right kind of specs, it just shouldn't be that hard (we will take something far short of perfect!) -
Hi Doug :)
I was sometimes thinking that the reason we have no daily digest was that Ning was not "getting the point" so I would try and try and try again to explain the same point over and over and over and over :)))) ha ha
So long winded is probably straight on ;) But now I know that Ning "gets it" and that they realize that without it they will seriously limit their growth OR have a growth that will result in millions of passive users. -
Inappropriate?Stop the Presses! have you seen http://www.tabbloid.com ?
you enter a list of RSS feeds, and it creates a newsletter in PDF format for you, delivered on any interval specified. (Brought to you by HP)
this opens some real possibilities - I am thinking of creating a forum for a daily digest and another forum for a weekly digest, forwarding the appropriate tabbloid to one or the other, and to have users subscribe to notifications for whichever forum? (hmmm, sounds a little kludgy now that I say it out loud).
On the other hand, they DO have an API (http://www.tabbloid.com/developer) so maybe the trick is to have NING fix the UI form for notifications, and if someone wants a digest, just make a call to the tabbloid API. (now THAT makes sense)
I’m excited
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this is one of the best points
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This is one of the best points
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Great idea Doug, however, you have to enter each member's email manually, which isn't practical, nor does it store the emails and there are no links back to the website. If they did all of those things I would pay to have that service because it is a great idea!!
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this seems to be a growing genre of service (once you start looking for them they crop up). It would be a matter for Ning to bundle it (perhaps splitting an extra fee for service with the provider) and make sure the subscription piece works well.
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yes, anything that would enable us all to actually build on top of instead of loosing member activity because they turn off emails.
Whatever solution Ning would choose is ok. -
Inappropriate?I wonder if email digest will be part of the 3. generation Ning coming out feb. 27. 2010 ?
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Inappropriate?oh how I wish my members weren't signing off notifications in one end, with new members coming in at the other end.
I wish my network was not only going, but growing exponentially ...
I’m frustrated
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