Seeking input on email digests and notifications

[Evan]

We've posted before, seeking input about control over email notifications. We're gearing up for a project that would do just that, allowing Network Creators to control what their notifications look like (no text, excerpts or full text) as well as allowing you and your members to receive emails in digest form.

In planning this feature, we'd love to get some feedback from Network Creators on what you'd like to see. For more context, the idea is that when we roll this feature out, your members can elect to receive some emails from your Ning Network in digest form (so the emails are rolled up together instead of sent individually).

I have a couple questions I'd love your input on:

• As part of this project, we're planning on allowing you to enable your Ning Network's notifications to include the full text of comments into email notifications. However, would you want digest emails to also include the full text? That could result is massively long emails.
• How interested would you/your members be in weekly digests? Would daily digests suffice?
• Would any Network Creator not want their members to be able to receive digests?
• Should there be emails that should always be sent instantly, and not wrapped into a digest? Do you want control over which ones?
• Would any Network Creators want to change your members' email settings for them to turn on digests for your members, without them taking any action?
• Would you want to control which types of emails are included in the digest, and which are not?

Thanks, and I look forward to your input!

[Janettee McCrary]

I understand:) I already told you my preferences. I hope that other NC's answer the question and help you guys out so we can get this ball on the road:)

[Steve]

A good opportunity I'd like to see is the ability to put ads in the daily and weekly digests. Also in the updates.

This could just be one text line that we can control.

[Brian Floe]

The Dashboard could show us how many members have each option turned on / off:
xx members have immediate notifications on everything
xx members have daily digest
xx members have weekly digest
xx members have all email turned off

That way we would know how effective our broadcast messages should be AND give us a general feel of our network.

[Donna Mac]

I think both. And I think Brian Floe's idea is brilliant! And I also agree that broadcast messages should override any member turning off the emails completely. They do tend to disappear when they do not get any notifications whatsoever.

[Janettee McCrary]

Thank you for thinking my idea is brilliant:)

[Donna Mac]

Opps sorry. I didn't see yours...LOL It is brilliant!

[Janettee McCrary]

LOL no biggie. I'm just being silly. Thanks:)

[Brian Floe]

Once we get email digest, the problem with people turning off email will not be so big any more, cause digest will remove the reason they are turning off emails.

I really hope Ning can give us some kind of time table for this at one point.

[Corinne]

I would like digest with full text and instant full text email notifications. We had that on our previous site and my members who were very active have seemed to drop off significantly because they have to log in to keep up. That leads them to feeling overwhelmed by the site.

I have members who would love a weekly digest of certain forums or groups.

I think broadcast messages should go instantly and forums/group discussions are up to the individual.

I would like to be able to turn things on for them for sure. Some of my users aren't super users and will need help.

[Andrea Salzman]

MAKE IT A LISTSERV TOO... AND YOU'LL HAVE ME FOREVER (Aquaticnet.com Social Network)
I know that Ning is not designed to be a simple listserv. It allows so much more interactive behaviors and I love that about it. However, only about 10% of my 500 members will take the time to log into Ning.

In contrast, I also own a listserv (where everyone gets an email - or digest - every time anyone posts anything). The listserv is VERY active. People instantly react to the email they receive. Ideas go viral and generate very heated (and fun) discussions because there is instant feedback.

So... even though I love the idea of Ning sending out an email notice (with full text) every time someone posts to my Forum, the discussion string is going to die out unless they can respond via email/text.

Is this in the works now that Ning is a fee-for-service network? What would be the downside other than less eyeballs on my physical Ning network site (which is not important to me; the discussion is).

Thx! Andrea

[Evan]

Hey Andrea!

Traditionally, this certainly would not have been a feature we would have considered, as this would clearly hurt traffic to Ning Networks, and increase email volume. However, as you point out, our new business model might better allow for this feature.

We don't have plans for it, but we may explore it down the road. Our infrastructure isn't really set up for incoming mail (nor for a vast increase in volume), so it could take quite a bit of work.

/Evan
Ning Product Manager

[Jonathan Sibley]

I had assumed that sending full content as emails implied allowing responses via email. I'm so glad this has come up, so that I can lower my expectations in time.

Users who would like a "listserv +", with the advantages of a listserv but the option of more networking, turning on emails for certain subgroups and not others, etc. do not want to log in every time they want to respond. Some people are still more email-centric and are not willing to fit into other business models.

It would be great if, at the very least, you could design the emails you send out so that they can allow incoming responses, once you are able to implement that on the backend (perhaps they need some sort of coding that allows responses to go to the right place, for example).

This is all a step in a very positive direction. Timelines would be great, as the requirements become clearer. Thanks.