Really, those things are just annoying! And then there's Facebook, and YouTube, and Instagram, and Pinterest, and I don't know what else. Newsletters - they were already around in grandpa's day, old coffee!
You're right about one thing, of course: newsletters - or rather e-mail - are actually an ancient medium. The first email was sent by a guy called Ray Tomlinson - in 1971!
If you consider that the first website was only launched 23 years later - in 1994 - then e-mail has reached an almost biblical age.
Let's take a little stroll through the modern media cemetery and see who is buried there.
The telegram. 1844-2006: The first electrical medium. After all, it was 162 years old before Western Union was the last provider to pull the plug in 2006.
The telex. Have you ever received one? I haven't. It's from the 1930s and roughly survived until the fall of the Berlin Wall. So it was a good 60 years old.
The fax. Born in 1845! You wouldn't have thought it, would you? After all, the service was only offered by Deutsche Telekom in 1979. Since the early 90s, many people still have a fax machine, but you only really need it to buy a used car. So the grave is already reserved.
Also born in 1989 SMS has already seen its best days in the age of instant messengers: usage has been falling rapidly since 2012.
All old hats that have little to do with today's world?
But even many more modern media from the Internet age are not immune to demise:
To Compuserve (1969 - 2009) and Geocities (1994-2009) you probably won't remember.
But perhaps you MySpace a term?
Isn't it?
Well, that doesn't matter. Founded in 2003, the MySpace was once the biggest thing on the Internet, a precursor to Facebook. Although the site still exists today, it has actually slipped into insignificance. Just like StudiVZ, WerKenntWen and many others.
We have finished our short tour.
But who is that grinning at us on the smartphone?
We were just at the cemetery of modern media looking for the future burial place for the medium of e-mail, and now this thing is just skipping merrily towards the exit!
How can that be?
Why is this ancient spam-infested communication vehicle still alive and kicking?
There are so many modern alternatives that are better, faster and more colorful.
But let's take a look together at the modern internet media used every day.
We have - of course - websites. Your blog is a website. Facebook is also ultimately a website.
Websites are public. They are designed so that a more or less random visitor can find entertaining or useful information there. Anyone can access it from anywhere at any time.
And then there are social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. On Facebook, you have your more or less private space where you can find your friends and news that (might) interest you. And of course advertising. You see the comments of other users, and other users see everything you comment on or like.
If you do it cleverly, you can find visitors for your blog through Facebook. Or customers for your business. It's also possible to build a relationship with your followers through regular posts.
Facebook can only be considered a public space with restrictions. Because it is a private company, it is similar to a shopping mall. You can use it free of charge, but you must abide by all the rules set by the operator - the Facebook company.
And these rules change over time.
For example, a few years ago Facebook decided that your posts above a certain size would only be reliably displayed to all your followers in exchange for cash. And even then, it's not necessarily clear how many of your followers will even see your post. Well, you can see how many people have liked your post or otherwise reacted to it. But you don't know who the post was shown to without a reaction.
Everything said about Facebook also applies to all other social networks.
Example Photobucket
Photobucket is a service that allows you to save and link images free of charge. This was particularly useful if you wanted to easily display images in online forums. Unfortunately, Photobucket changed its terms and conditions in July 2017 so that images are only displayed on other websites if you buy a Plus plan - for a whopping $39.99 per month!
Email is fundamentally different from Facebook. It is ultimately the only truly democratic medium and belongs to all of us. Email is not dependent on a single monopoly provider who has to make money from it. Anyone can set up their own mail server at home. The rules of conduct are not prescribed, but have been negotiated and written down in the form of a law that is not simply changed because someone wants to make money.
On a side note: Facebook's success was solely dependent on the medium of email.
How so?
Quite simply, you used to be asked to upload your contact list and invite all your friends by e-mail to open a Facebook account.
The rest is history...
Now I ask you: Should you really make your business permanently dependent on the business practices of a large private Internet provider that can change its rules at any time?
I don't think so.
So in order to build a stable business, your task as an entrepreneur is to convert your followers and website visitors into a private medium.
A medium that is not dependent on the goodwill of venture capital investors.
In short:
If you want to be successful in the long term, there is no way around your own newsletter.
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