Letter from the Editor of FlashBack and SunFlash ------------------------------------------------ Last month was a record breaker in terms of the number of articles posted to my journals: Journal # articles # US pages SunFlash 57 186 FlashBack 92 243 Internet FlashBack 6 72 --------------------------- 155 501 The 155 files add up to about 1.5 Mb! I have not posted any articles for more that week or two as I have been out of town at a great training class. (Solaris ambassador - an internal program for pre-sales systems engineers who specialize in Sun's O/S). I used my spare time (breakfasts, lunches, dinners) while I was in California to talk with book publishers, magazine publishers, PR companies, software companies, Sun people (PR, MARCOM, lawers, advertising, CEO, etc.) to explore my options regarding SunFlash and FlashBack. More later. SunFlash Editor Elected to Sun User Group Board of Directors ------------------------------------------------------------ Last month I was elected to the SUG BoD. I hope to use my term to improve the relationship between Sun and SUG and help SUG build a compelling case so that all Sun users become SUG members! If you have any thoughts about SUG, please send me email (flash@flashback.com) New SunFlash Subscription Options --------------------------------- Many people in the USA want to see US prices in SunFlash articles. I am not allowed to send US prices to people outside the US. From now on I will create two versions of all articles from Sun that include US prices. I will only send the US version to people registered as being in the US. You can register yourself as being in the US by adding yourself to the list USA. (mail to majordomo@flashback.com, subscribe USA) The autoresponse program, flashback@flashback.com, will response thus: if US version of article exists AND you are in USA list send US version of article else send standard version of article Multi-Media Subscription Options (mt-sunflash-w, mime-sunflash-w) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Please consider subscribing to one of the 'multi-media' sunflash lists. I post one article to these list each weekend. In the message body you will find article summaries (like this Monthly edition). As attachements, you will find all of the articles. The mt- version uses Sun's MailTool. The mime- version uses MIME. I have been thinking of offering the daily version of SunFlash in the same 'multi-media' format. I find it easier to post articles in batches and subscribers would not have to request articles from the flashbash autoresponder. Please send me some email to say if you would be interested in this option. (Will not be available until January :-).) In the future, I would like to offer more attachment types (pictures, Postscript, screenshots, 'sound bites', etc). Multi-Media Subscription Options (mt-flashback-w, mime-flashback-w) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Same as previous description, but for FlashBack! Scott McNeally was recently added to the mt-sunflash-w and mt-flashback-w lists. PING Census Continues! ---------------------- I would like each subscriber to send me just one message with the word PING in the subject line. My goal is to determine how many subscribers there are. So, if you have not sent me a PING message, please send mail to flash@flashback.com. Should take but a few seconds! I received about 3,000 replies within the first 48 hours. I've had a couple more thousand since then, but I know that there are many more subscribers out there! Difference Between SunFlash and FlashBack ----------------------------------------- I have been asked to clarify the difference between SunFlash and FlashBack. I produce SunFlash as an extracurricular activity but as a Sun employee. SunFlash is (c) Sun Microsystems. I will only post to SunFlash articles that originate from within Sun Microsystems. FlashBack is independent of Sun. Only articles that do not originate from Sun are posted to FlashBack. FlashBack is (c) FlashBack, Inc. As owner and as publisher of FlashBack I permit, allow and encourage anyone to forward FlashBack articles. Why an Independent FlashBack ? ------------------------------ As editor and publisher of FlashBack, I assume responsibility for all the material that I post. Sun is in no way responsible for my FlashBack activities. I use no Sun resources to produce FlashBack. I also have plans to make FlashBack a commercial activity. That is, it would be free to qualified subscribers and sponsors will be charged fees. At this point, I am in the planning stage for this venture. Your feedback would be appreciated. Flashback will remain a free service until I post articles announcing a fee schedule. (at least several months....) Why a Commercial FlashBack ? ----------------------------- One person - me - in their spare time cannot implement all the things that I want to do. I do not want to leave Sun (in case you didn't notice, I'm kinda fond of Sun :-)), so I need help. Sun is a very focused company. They will not invest in activities, such as commercial electronic publishing, that is not part of Sun's goals. Makes a lot of sense to me as a Sun stockholder. The service I offer has value to you, the subscriber, and to the sponsors of articles. I could charge subscribers a subscription fee, like HPCwire or WEBster, or I could charge sponsors. I think that charging sponsors will be easier and fairer. With the fees that I charge, I will be able to hire a few people and offer more services with the same effort on my behalf. The fees that I will charge will be much less than advertising and a fraction of direct mail costs. I will be very selective in the type of material that I accept from sponsors. I want FlashBack to become more that a vehicle for Press Releases from companies with interest in the Sun community. I think that within those companies there is a hugh amount of information that the Sun community would be interested in if they could access it. Imagine the Sun Catalyst catalog. It's about 2 inches thick and lists 9,000+ solutions. Two entries per page. Imagine replacing each of those entries with the data that a typical vendor puts out in their glossy brochures, technical white papers, FAQs, WWW servers, etc. The stack would be enormous! I want vendors to use FlashBack to make it easier for Sun users to access that information. Vendors who try to 'push' that information out to lots of Sun users in direct mail campaigns waste a lot of money, trees and time! As less than 5% of people response to direct mail, 95% of the direct mail costs are wasted. However, that money has to be wasted to get to the 5% who are interested! I hope that I can make FlashBack an accepted replacement for direct mail for the Sun marketplace. If not a replacement, then an aid (e.g. only send the expensive glossy brochures to those people who really want them!). I think that the low delivery costs will encourage more vendors to make useful information available by email. What's a "qualified Subscriber" ? --------------------------------- I now understand why the trade papers and magazines make us fill in those long annual subscription forms! Sponsors want summaries of who the readers are as a group. How many programmers ? How many system administrators ? How many CIOs ? What kind of influence ? What kind of installed base of equipment ? How many journalists ? Where are people located ? By state ? By Country ? What's their favorite color ? Luck number ? etc. In the future, a qualified FlashBack subscriber will be one who completes a subscription form. I can create demographics summaries that will help me provide you with better services. I may create new services as I get to 'know' you better! It turns out that I will be able to use this same data to inspire Sun people to help me improve SunFlash too. Sometime next year I will write a program to process 'subscription' forms, create a 'new subscriber' form and start mailing them to you (all by email, of course!). Eventually, the autoresponse program will start nagging people who send for articles but are not subscribers. It will send the articles as requested and the 'new subscriber' form. Later on, it may only send the 'new subscriber' form. What kind of Company will FlashBack Be ? ---------------------------------------- I'm interested in creating a company where the employees meet and work in cyberspace. Requesting FlashBack articles, editing and proofreading submissions and posting them when completed, building user and vendor databases, etc. lends itself to that company model. It is not my plan to exploit my subscribers or sponsors and maximize profits. I will monitor the request rates to make sure that the material that I post is being requested at a decent rate. I will soon create a email-based advisory council to help keep me on track. I do not see FlashBack as a competitor for the trade papers that cover the Sun market place. They do a great job! I do not see SunFlash as a 'newpaper' in competition with Clarinet, Unigram, HPCwire, etc. I want to expand on the service that I've delivered over these last six years to make FlashBack a state of the art mediated vendor/user communication vehicle for the Sun market. (Oh, no! I'm starting to write marketing jibberish and it makes sense to me!) The sponsor mailing list ------------------------ If there are people within your company that would be interested in sponsoring a FlashBack article, please have them subscribe to the sponsor mailing list: % mailx majordomo@flashback.com Subject: subscribe sponsor ^D % I will use that list to expand on my ideas for developing FlashBack, post survey and demographics information, etc. It is for people interested in FlashBack as a communications medium. Thanks for your support ! -johnj (John J. McLaughlin)