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Subject:Re: HTML E-mail and Audience Awareness From:Steve Arrants <stephena -at- COMPBEAR -dot- COM> Date:Sat, 27 Jun 1998 11:00:25 -0700
-----Original Message-----
From: George F. Hayhoe <george -at- GHAYHOE -dot- COM>
To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU <TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU>
Date: Saturday, June 27, 1998 7:56 AM
Subject: HTML E-mail and Audience Awareness
>Here's a question that is a bit more current: How common is
>HTML support in e-mail readers used by most folks?
I think that most folks HAVE email programs which support HTML, but most
folks don't use this support, or don't use it correctly.
I manage a mailing list (non-technical, 2600 members). We've made a
decision to NOT accept HTML in submissions to the list. Why? It increases
file size (we send out a digest once or twice a day with about 1000 lines of
text in each mailing), and for folks using Pine or Elm, well, they can't see
the text too well with the HTML codes cloging up part of a message.
Now, I think that the list members would really like to have HTML support,
along with MIME enclosures and the like. But it just isn't practical right
now.
For private correspondence, I use HTML features more and more often. Most
of the folks I email or receive email from can view such mail with no
problems.
>Any thoughts? Is it safe to assume today that most people's
>e-mail readers support HTML?
In a word, "NO". I think it'll change in the next year or so, though.