When ‘Push’ Technology Came to Shove, Mailing Lists Emerged as the Winner

Sometimes the exertion it takes to slide that mouse across its pad and type in a lengthy URL--to actually have to seek the content you desire online--is just too much.

“Push” technology was supposed to do that heavy lifting for us, but it died an ignoble death, largely because it tried to push too much content to our digital doorsteps.

But the essence of push lives on in the often overlooked world of mailing lists, one of the oldest and least glamorous corners of the Internet.

Mailing lists are basically electronic newsletters, themed missives delivered directly to your e-mail. There are thousands of them, on topics ranging from the origins of the universe to the advantages of aluminum V-8s. And most are free.

For selective subscribers, mailing lists can be an incomparably efficient way to stay informed, or at least entertained. For most users, the best places to start hunting for interesting lists are Web sites that sort them by category.

One of the oldest and most established sites is Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, which dates to 1981 and still reflects the hobbyist spirit that spawned the mailing list phenomenon. It now lives on the Web at https://www.neosoft.com/internet/paml. Most lists are operated by individuals who want to find others who share their interests, and whose main reward is feedback from loyal subscribers.

But there is also a growing number of commercial sites that help users search through thousands of free mailing lists, making them endure a few ads along the way.

Among the most prominent commercial sites are https://www.onelist.com and https://www.topica.com, both of which have compiled tens of thousands of lists, keeping archives on many of them, and even letting users create their own mailing lists.

As usual online, the problem with mailing lists is not quantity but quality. The best lists tend to be narrowly focused and carefully moderated by thoughtful list operators.

Phil Agre, a professor of information studies at UCLA, operates a mailing list called the Red Rock Eater News Service, with a focus on the social and political impacts of technology.

The list has more than 4,000 subscribers, many of whom pass along to Agre news stories, studies and material they think others on the list might want to see. But Agre lets only about a third of that material through.

“I edit, I filter,” Agre said. “It’s important to keep the quality high.” Asked how many lists he subscribes to, Agre said, “As few as possible.”

To subscribe to Agre’s mailing list, visit https://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html.

Most lists, like Agre’s, are open to the public. But some of the most prestigious lists are also the most exclusive. The “Edge” list, operated by book agent John Brockman, is by invitation only, and counts such luminaries as physicist Freeman Dyson and author Naomi Wolf among its 600 subscribers.

The hoi polloi can get a taste of their exchanges on such things as “the most important invention of the past 2,000 years” at a Web site that recycles some of the list’s content, https://www.edge.org.

I depend on several mailing lists to stay current on such issues as Internet privacy. One of the best is Politech, published by Declan McCullagh, a journalist and free-speech advocate who sends out daily dispatches that are relevant and succinct. To try the list, send e-mail to majordomo@vorlon.mit.edu with the message “subscribe politech.”

But for sheer fun, I also like Ditherati (https://www.ditherati.com), which pokes fun at technology big shots by searching for the deeper meaning in the mindless quotes they feed the press.

An Amazon.com executive made himself an irresistible target, for instance, when he said, “When we look at pricing, we’re not thinking about the competition.” Ditherati suggested a fittingly ridiculous finish for the sentence: “We like to think about the pretty flowers instead.”

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Greg Miller can be reached at greg.miller@latimes.com.