The Cutting Edge: COMPUTING / TECHNOLOGY / INNOVATION : To Cut Through the Clutter, Subscribe to an Internet Newsletter
It’s hard to believe, but an Internet electronic mail address can help you deal with information overload.
Those whose e-mail boxes are already overflowing, thanks to mailing lists and other forms of electronic noise, will properly be skeptical, but it’s a fact: A number of handy electronic newsletters summarize the latest developments in specific fields.
These aren’t the wild and woolly “zines” you may have heard about. Nor are they the usual Internet mailing lists, those round-the-world discussions among orchid fanciers or followers of Anne Rice.
Instead, these summary bulletins focus on the facts, have a point and aren’t as likely to waste your time. A great example, and a favorite that I rely upon, is Edupage.
Published by a nonprofit consortium of universities and corporations, Edupage summarizes news of information technology--you know, info highway-type stuff. Written with economy and style by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas, it covers a variety of major publications, such as Business Week and the Wall Street Journal, as well as less well-known trade journals and some regional newspapers.
Edupage arrives by e-mail three times a week, so its tidings usually are pretty fresh, and readers needn’t pay a dime. To subscribe, send e-mail to listproc@educom.edu. The subject line doesn’t matter but the body of the message should contain only the following: Sub Edupage Anna Karenina (assuming your name is Anna Karenina; if not, use your own name). The Edupage computer will pick up your e-mail address from your message, and you’re in business.
If Edupage has whet your appetite for the kind of newsy summary or tip sheet that can save you time, you’ll be pleased to know there are about 60 of them, according to John Higgins’ marvelous Net-Letter Guide, which lists them and gives instructions for subscribing to each.
Higgins’ Guide is itself one of these newsletters. It is updated monthly. You can subscribe by sending e-mail to listserv@netcom.com. The subject doesn’t matter, but make sure the body of the message says: Subscribe net-letter. Internet users may obtain a single issue from alt.etext, alt.internet.services and elsewhere. It’s about 14 pages, and it’s the best way I know to keep up on all this.
Not surprisingly, many of the best e-mail newsletters have to do with computers and telecommunications. One is Cable Regulation Digest, published weekly by Multichannel News. Send e-mail to listserv@netcom.com; in the body of the message, Subscribe cablereg-l. Along these lines, you might also try Computer Underground Digest. To subscribe, send e-mail to listserv@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu. The body of the message should say: sub cudigest Harry Houdini (again, assuming your name is Harry Houdini).
There are also a couple of very useful net-letters for those concerned with the TV business. Fitz’s Shoptalk is a daily put out by media headhunter Don FitzPatrick. To subscribe, e-mail listserv@gitvm1.gatech.edu. Your message should say: Subscribe Shoptalk Glenn Gould (assuming you’re Glenn Gould).
For those obsessed with the talk show wars there is Late Show News, which Higgins says is “biased toward Letterman, but contains surprisingly good industry dirt on Leno, Conan, etc. (even for those of us writing about television for a living).” E-mail listserv@mcs.net; the message should say simply Subscribe Late-Show-News.
The range of Net letters is much broader, of course. There are worthy Net letters on space exploration, education, abortion rights, international trade, physics, tennis, repetitive stress injury, India, China, Nepal and other subjects. One especially important newsletter is the AIDS Daily Summary, a clipping service of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. E-mail ben@maggadu.queernet.org. The subject should be: Subscribe Daily. The body should be: Subscribe Daily Summary marie@curie.org (assuming your e-mail address is marie@curie.org).
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If you really like getting specialized news this way, you can even pay for it. Commercial services such as Farcast will cull stories of interest to you (for information, e-mail info@farcast.com with the subject “hello”), as will CompuServe’s Executive News Service.
For less money, Gehl and Douglas are starting an e-mail newsletter, called Innovation, that will summarize some developments in business and technology on a weekly basis. They’re charging $15 a year. To subscribe to Innovation, send the word “subscribe” in the body of a message to Innovation-Request@NewsScan.com.
If you subscribe to one or two mailing lists as well as some of the newsletters named in the Higgins Guide, you’ll want to make sure you have a cost-effective e-mail address. For example, CompuServe users can get all these things at their CompuServe address, but CompuServe charges extra for e-mail sent from outside its own system.
If you don’t have an Internet account that allows unlimited e-mail, consider an MCI Mail account, which allows you to get messages free. Also, many local computer bulletin boards (BBS) allow virtually unlimited Internet e-mail for a small annual fee.
* Cyberspace is a weekly column.
Starting Your Own Newsletter
Free Internet newsletters can keep you posted while saving you time. You can even start your own, on a small scale. Just get an e-mail account that doesn’t charge by the message. Using an Internet e-mail program--my favorite is PINE--it’s easy to sort mail by subject, in order to process subscription messages.
You’ll also want to create a mailing list--called, say, “biglist.” Then you send each issue of your newsletter once, addressed to biglist, and everybody will get it. But if the list is large or active, managing it can become a nightmare. In that case, get a commercial Internet provider to set up an automated system for you, known as a listserv.
Internet Guide
* A seven-part series by Newsday computing columnist Joshua Quittner is available on the TimesLink on-line service. It offers tips for beginners on navigating the Information Superhighway.
Details on Times electronic services, B4
