Constitutional Law

Online-News@ reborn as News-Online@ - E-mail List Nostalgia or the Best Way to Interact?

By Steven Clift

As spaces for those interested in online news like WiredJournalists.com and Poynter's online groups go completely web-centric, my heart pangs for the simple e-mail list. Something I can easily read and post to in those rare idle moments in transit on my handheld or from the place I still spent the majority of my time online - conveniently from my desktop e-mail.

On a whim, I decided to contact those who posted to the Online-News e-mail list (Steve Outing started it way back in the early 1990s) in the months before it was retired. Poynter's moved on with their conversion to their social networking platform, which includes a group on Online and Multimedia. . I asked these online news professionals if e-mail lists were dead or if a free to join e-mail list with a private archive still had a place.

The answer was a resounding - yes.

This could turn out to simply be a gathering of dinosaurs compared to the 11,000 members on the Journalists and Facebook group. Or in the spirit of "online-news," News-Online will become the trusted, reliable place for active two-way conversations about the today and future of online news.

You will have to join to find out: http://dowire.org/news-online-join

Steven Clift

Full post as published by MediaShift Idea Lab on January 27, 2009 (boomark / email).