[ILUG] [OT] topica for email

[Anthony]

> anyone here used topica for sending out mass email?  not spam, but email
> to list members.
> 
> http://www.topica.com/

I admin a small (25-30 members) discussion list using Topica. It works 
quite well as an alternative to yahoogroups without the annoying 
advertising and if you don't need all the list management and file/image 
sharing features that yahoogroups offer.

The biggest drawback is that some badly configured mail servers have 
them (wrongly) blacklisted as being spammers. I also remember there was 
problems with one yahoo email address trying to subscribe to the list at 
the time that their servers changed IP numbers. (I think the problem was 
that the new IP numbers hadn't yet been white-listed at that time and 
all the confirmation-requests were being bounced back by Yahoo's mail 
servers.) That problem was resolved after a week or so. However one 
member has had trouble using her ireland.com address and she ended up 
having to use her work address instead.

Aside from that, I've had no problems with the service. IME, their 
support staff are good at getting back to you and they're always good 
for notifying the list owner of upcoming downtime. However I'd be a 
little wary of using Topica for a large email list on account of the 
black-listing issue.

Hope this helps,
Anthony