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Group #1 --
WebGeeks
Project #1 -- Working with E-Mail Lists
Our group decided to find lists on the topic of Health. We left it as a broad
topic so that individuals could choose from a variety of lists. We chose Health
as our topic because we felt it was a topic that everyone could benefit from.
During the first week of this project, each member of the group was to find a
list that pertained to our topic and post a main topic in our conference area
with the name of the list, and instructions for each member to subscribe to the
list. In our collaborative documents section, we compiled a list of 9 criteria
that we would evaluate each list with. When all lists were posted, each member
subscribed to the list and spent the following two weeks receiving (or in some
cases not receiving) e-mails from the list. During the last week, members posted
evaluations of each list as a response to the main topic for the appropriate
list.
Please send comments or questions to the group:
Group
Members
David Andrews
Arnold Batiste
Jami Bova
James
Branham
Karin Brewer
Laura Clayton
Helmut Diehl
Our Evaluation Criteria
1. Ease of using the list. This included subscription, un-subscription,
ability to receive and read the emails, etc.
2. Characteristics of the list. This included the length of the list, if
there were sublinks on the e-mail, formatting of the list, etc.
3. Quality of the content. Was it good info, or just a bunch of
advertisements?
4. Suitability of the material. Did it pertain to our topic?
5. Was it worth keeping after the project?
6. Did it offer other sites, or expand on the topic at all?
7. Quantity of the e-mails. Was it daily, weekly, 50 times a day, or not at
all?
8. Stickiness: Did it hold our attention? Was it well written?
Global
Health and Fitness
| SUBSCRIBE |
- To subscribe, go to the Web
Site Enter your name and e-mail information, and click submit!
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| UNSUBSCRIBE |
- Go to this Web
Site and enter your email address, then hit Submit.
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| EASE OF USE |
- This list is very easy to subscribe to. It didn't take too long
before I received my first e-mail.
- This was a very basic e-mail. It was written in plain text without
a lot of links. It doesn't get much simpler than this!
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| CHARACTERISTICS |
- A lot of advertisement right up front that had to be waded through
to get to the "good stuff"
- Very lengthy, and sometimes difficult to read through
- E-mail was plain text, which meant that everyone could receive it;
however, this distracted from the readability of the list.
- I liked that it had complete stories so you didn't have to jump to
another page in order to get the end of the story.
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| CONTENT QUALITY |
- Offered a lot of related topics: Fitness facts and tips,
Inspirational words, Personal Fitness program, testimonials,
recipes, and an expert advice section.
- I, being an individual that needs outside motivation, really liked
the inspirational testimonials. I find that it keeps you thinking
and concentrating on your goal. I also really enjoyed the fitness
facts and tips.
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| MATERIAL SUITABILITY |
- Contained a lot of great recipes.
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| READABILITY |
- All mailing lists seemed to be a little cluttered. This mailing
list was no exception. I understand the need for these lists to find
advertisers to sponsor their lists, so it's one of those things you
have to deal with. It would be nice if they would put them at the
end of the list.
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| IS IT A KEEPER? |
- Yes, but only for the recipes.
- I will keep this subscription for a little while longer.
- I probably will keep the list after this project for the delicious
and easy recipes alone.
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| EXPANSION OR LINKS |
- There were links to other sites, but usually as advertisements.
- Because all the articles were complete I didn't feel the urge to
check out the links.
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QUANTITY OF
E-MAIL |
- The newsletter arrived weekly.
- Just enough. If too much information is provided it's difficult to
sift through. I thought it was comfortable reading.
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| STICKINESS |
- It didn't really hold my attention. I mostly just skimmed through
and got the recipe.
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Cyber
Tip 4 The Day
| SUBSCRIBE |
- Go toWeb
Site
1. Select the 8th category down with the bike icon_health and
fitness
2. Subscribe
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| UNSUBSCRIBE |
- Go toWeb
Site
1. Select "contact us".
2. Choose "unsubscribe"
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| EASE OF USE |
- It was easy to subscribe to. I appreciated that I had to respond
to my subscription verification to actually be added, and that all
it entailed was hitting the reply button! This ensured that someone
hadn't submitted my email address in my absence, and that I really
did want to subscribe while at the same time providing a very simple
means to reply.
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| CHARACTERISTICS |
- It has too many advertising headers before it provides the
"tip", which can be rectified by selecting the "tips
without advertising" option, but it was interesting to read.
- Other options included:
1. A "vacation hold" which stops the list for a brief
period
2. A "frequency option" for 1x, 3x, 7x weekly
3. Privacy and spam policies
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| CONTENT QUALITY |
- Though most days the tip could be something you already know, it's
the one tip that you miss that could give you the knowledge to
obtain one of your goals, whether it be health, wealth, or fame!
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| MATERIAL SUITABILITY |
- The list did deliver brief and easily viewed fitness tips which
pertained to our group topic.
- Although not too in-depth, it did pertain to our topic.
- The list went into different kind of aspects of health - health
care to exercise machines.
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| READABILITY |
- The list was short -- I liked that. I didn't have to sift through
a ton of information and become overwhelmed.
- Very easy to read. Advertisements were spread out throughout the
list.
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| IS IT A KEEPER? |
- I intend to keep this list after the project is completed because
of its readability and brevity.
- Because it's short and sweet and provides a "tip of the
day", it would be worth receiving every day.
- I believe it's worth keeping. They are short and as I stated
before, the more informed you are, the better.
- I won't keep it after the project due to the fact that because it
was so short it could not hold my attention.
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| EXPANSION OR LINKS |
- The material was related to our topic, and offered a link that
provided more info if I wanted it. I liked that -- it was really
just a summary of info.
- It did offer some other links, and most pertained to the topic.
- It didn't have too many links, so I didn't have to jump around
between pages.
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QUANTITY OF
E-MAIL |
- The once-a-week mailing was good. Easy to keep up with.
- Received it once a week, but would have been nice to receive it
daily.
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| STICKINESS |
- As far as "stickiness"... it really wasn't long enough
to require any stickiness. Which I guess in and of itself makes the
whole email sticky?
- Because of the brevity, it did hold my attention.
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Healthy
Foods and Recipes
| SUBSCRIBE |
- Fill in the information at the web
site
When you have filled out the form, and submitted it, you will
receive an email reply from the list server. You must then send an
email in reply, with the exact commands as told to you by MajorDomo.
You will then receive a confirmation email if you successfully
subscribe to the list.
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| UNSUBSCRIBE |
- You need to send to following commands to MajorDomo:
unsubscribe "list" [address] Unsubscribe yourself (or
"address" if specified) from the named "list".
"unsubscribe *" will remove you (or "address")
from all lists. This may not work if you have subscribed using
multiple addresses.
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| EASE OF USE |
- This list was difficult to subscribe to and seemed to have a
delayed response for confirmation. ListToolFood offered many options
to select from and 4 were tried before any lists were received.
- I had quite some difficulties subscribing to it.
- I am quite frustrated about it.
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| CHARACTERISTICS |
- I received recipes, what else is there to say?
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| CONTENT QUALITY |
- The recipes ranged from health conscious ones to gourmet and they
were easy to read.
- The recipes that I did get ranged from easy to much more
experienced.
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| MATERIAL SUITABILITY |
- Yes, the e-mails that were received were recipes.
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| READABILITY |
- I think that the recipes were easily understandable.
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| IS IT A KEEPER? |
- I will not keep this list after this project due to the fact that
I had problems subscribing it, and do not receive it regularly if at
all.
- I have no idea, because I never received anything!
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| EXPANSION OR LINKS |
- It did offer links to sites like recipe books and other recipe
sites.
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QUANTITY OF
E-MAIL |
- When the recipe list did get started, it was quite prolific; one
day yielded 30 recipes. The list was not active everyday and
appeared 3 days a week but not regularly.
- At least I don't have to unsubscribe to this list since I have
never received anything.
- I thought I had successfully completed the subscription for this
list and even thought I confirmed it properly, but did not receive
one mailing list.
- I didn't receive this regularly. One week I did a couple times,
another week I didn't at all.
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| STICKINESS |
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Real
Age
| SUBSCRIBE |
- Go to the Web
Page.
To subscribe, follow the link on the right side of the page under
"Tip of the Day".
Enter your information in the form and click submit.
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| UNSUBSCRIBE |
- Send a reply e-mail and type the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject
line.
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| EASE OF USE |
- RealAge is very easy to subscribe to and confirmation of
subscription was also easy.
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| CHARACTERISTICS |
- For fun, you might want to try the test
and see what your "Real Age" is!
- Each tip had one sponsor to support the site.
- Special features include easy access to sponsor sites, "email
to a friend"
- The list also has a rating features.
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| CONTENT QUALITY |
- I didn't have any problems subscribing to this mailing list.
Thought it was fairly simplistic.... ONE MAJOR PROBLEM THOUGH.... I
received the mailing list (daily) and all I could see was the
subject line with no text. I went back and tried to correct the
problem but was unable to.
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| MATERIAL SUITABILITY |
- 90% of the material is suitable. I really enjoy the tips, and use
many of them in my own life, as well as pass some to friends and
family.
- Even though I couldn't read the e-mails, from the subject's of the
lists that were sent to me daily, it looked to me to cover a wide
variety of health topics. Wish I could have seen more of it.
- The contents did most of the time pertain to our project topic.
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| READABILITY |
- The list is brief, to the point and easily viewable.
- It was easy to read and understand.
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| IS IT A KEEPER? |
- It is also unique and interesting. This will be a keeper for me.
- I had this one before, and plan to keep it! :-)
- I'll unsubscribe from this list if I can figure it out.
- Even though this is a good list, I will not keep it because it is
a daily, and I felt annoyed by it after about a week.
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| EXPANSION OR LINKS |
- The "more info" feature lets you go to the URL to get
the "whole story".
- The only problem that I had with this list, was that a couple of
the links didn't work. I hit an error several times, and I tried it
with several computers.
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QUANTITY OF
E-MAIL |
- I know the quantity is daily, and perhaps to some this is too
much, but I really think it's a good site and enjoy getting the
daily tips. Plus, with the use of mail filters, they just get sent
to their own folder anyway!
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| STICKINESS |
- This site has good readability, and is not cluttered with
advertising.
- The HTML version is colorful and inviting, very professional (very
"sticky"). However, you can change your option to a plain
text version if you email client doesn't support HTML.
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Health
List
| SUBSCRIBE |
- It is a bit hard to subscribe because you have to go trough a
couple of pages but it is really worth it.
1. Go to www.ivillage.com
2. Scroll down to channels, click on health
3. scroll on to the bottom until you see free allhealth.com
newsletters
4. select Womens Health
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| UNSUBSCRIBE |
- Follow the instructions on the web page.
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| EASE OF USE |
- This list is easy to subscribe and unsubscribe to.
- I had thought the subscription process was easy, I guess the list
just isn't very active.
- I thought subscribing to the list was easy.
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| CHARACTERISTICS |
- I thought the list was very long and had too many subtopics.
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| CONTENT QUALITY |
- Good information if you maintain your concentration.
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| MATERIAL SUITABILITY |
- I did think the website had more to offer, particularly the
"Interactive Health Tool".
- I don't know because I didn't receive any e-mails.
- Yes, thought information was relevant to our topic.
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| READABILITY |
- It was well organized but maybe less would be more.
- I don't know because I didn't receive any emails.
- Although the information in the list was good, I thought it was
very difficult to navigate.
- Very difficult to decipher. Too many links...not indented properly
and information was all cluttered together.
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| IS IT A KEEPER? |
- I will probably refer to the website and unsubscribe to the
newsletter.
- I don't know because I didn't receive any emails.
- No. I think I'll pass.
- I will unsubscribe from this list.
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| EXPANSION OR LINKS |
- AllHealth lists did have a lot of information and many interesting
links.
- I don't know because I didn't receive any emails.
- It was very difficult to find the main topics because of all the
links to the subtopics and advertising.
- Many other sites were offered.....too many.
- It had a lot of good information with too many links. I was
jumping from one page to the other and finally lost interest.
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QUANTITY OF
E-MAIL |
- It didn't seem as active as some other lists and the newsletter
didn't arrive in timely intervals.
- I didn't receive any emails from this list. I did visit the web
site, and enjoyed it.
- I thought this would be one of those lists where I would subscribe
and my request would end up in "cyberspace". But, lo and
behold, I received a subscription on 1 Dec. This is the only copy I
have received.
- Received only one....that was enough! :)
- After I subscribed to it, it took them until last week to finally
send me something.
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| STICKINESS |
- I don't know because I didn't receive any emails.
- No....too much information on the page. Wasn't presented well at
all.
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Dr.
Koop
| SUBSCRIBE |
- Fill out the information at the Web
Site
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| UNSUBSCRIBE |
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| EASE OF USE |
- The subscribtion process was easy, I didn't have to send a ton of
confirmations and replies like some of the others.
- This list is very easy to subscribe to and offers an accessible
path to unsubscribe to.
- Because of Jami's initial review I was actually excited about
subscribing to this mailing list....... Once I did, I never receive
anything.....to this date. Therefore, I am unable to rate this
mailing list. Although, because of Jami's and Laura's evaluations I
will go back and attempt to re-subscribe to this mailing list.
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| CHARACTERISTICS |
- News reports and features on the latest health discoveries and
topics.
- Tips and tools to help you assess your health and improve your
quality of life.
- Expert advice on exercise, nutrition, and more.
- The list can be viewed in full color,it lists a table of contents
for the weekly highlights, has medical news excerpts, expert
responses to disease symptoms and links to resources.
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| CONTENT QUALITY |
- The fact that it has the Koop endorsement probably makes the list
more desirable and obviously it is well supported by sponsors.
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| MATERIAL SUITABILITY |
- The information was all related to our topic.
- There was a wide variety of health topics, it was not restricted
to only one area.
- A lot of useful information!
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| READABILITY |
- It is easily viewable and seems to only have one sponsor per
newsletter.
- It has a very organized format, allowing the reader to choose
their topic of interest rather than having to sift through each
entry.
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| IS IT A KEEPER? |
- I will keep this list after the completion of of our group
project.
- I LOVED IT! Definitely a keeper.
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| EXPANSION OR LINKS |
- It is a very robust list with many links and a printable version
of all links.
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QUANTITY OF
E-MAIL |
- I like the fact that I only get an email every few days, but it's
jammed packed with info.
- It arrived once a week and came in a timely manner.
- I have subscribed to this list, but to this date have not received
a single mailing. I can not give a rating on this.
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| STICKINESS |
- Very well designed web site/HTML email. Kept my constant
attention.
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Medical
News List
| SUBSCRIBE |
- Go to the Web
Site
1) Just point your mouse to the URL and select Medical and Health
(102) category.
2) Scroll down Medical News Highlights and click
3) Make sure you fill out your name and e-mail address
4) Page should pop up informing you that it was successful and
will tell you what e-mail address it is being sent to
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| UNSUBSCRIBE |
- You need to send to following commands to MajorDomo:
unsubscribe "list" [address] Unsubscribe yourself (or
"address" if specified) from the named "list".
"unsubscribe *" will remove you (or "address")
from all lists. This may not work if you have subscribed using
multiple addresses.
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| EASE OF USE |
- I found it easy to subscribe to and did receive confirmation.
- I guess it goes to show that everyone has a different experience
with each list. I couldn't even subscribe to this one! I tried at
least 3 times, and it seemed like the form went through, but I never
got so much as a confirmation.
- Well, as I stated in Helmut's evaluation, subscribing to this list
was a very painful process. I think (don't know when) I finally got
it figured out and I received my first mailing list on 28 Nov from a
Doctor named Harry Levy.
- This list was quite frustrating to subscribe to.
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| CHARACTERISTICS |
- The list was short and usually pertained to only one or two
topics.
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| CONTENT QUALITY |
- It might have been worth it if I had a PhD or was a medical
doctor. I didn't understand much of it.
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| MATERIAL SUITABILITY |
- I'm sure that if I kept subscribing to this mailing list,
eventually I would come across a topic that was relevant to our
topic. However, I only received two, and they did not pertain to our
topic. Mostly for doctors.
- I did not understand a word of what they were talking about. The
only thing I am sure of is that it did in fact pertain to health.
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| READABILITY |
- I only received one posting from this list. It came in the form of
a letter to a colleague and was about the anti-tumor drug Heparin!
It was intersting to read but I can't say that I have more to add
because this is the only thing that I received.
- Easy to read, if you understood the terminology.
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| IS IT A KEEPER? |
- I will unsubscribe to this list.
- No, not worth keeping
- That's assuming I ever subscribed successfully.
- I am definitely going to unsubscribe from it.
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| EXPANSION OR LINKS |
- A couple of other sites offered, but nothing to expand on.
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QUANTITY OF
E-MAIL |
- I only received one posting from this list.
- Weekly.....better off getting them not at all! :)
- I received only 2 e-mails from it.
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| STICKINESS |
- Because of the brevity, I read them. I just didn't understand
them.
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Alive
and Well
| SUBSCRIBE |
- Go to the Home
page
To subscribe simply click on "subscribe"
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| UNSUBSCRIBE |
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| EASE OF USE |
- I cannot rate this list because I never received any of the lists
that I signed up for. I chose and was confirmed for
eGroups-MemberNews and eLerts-health-fitness. I also subscribed to
alive-n-well. One thing that I did find quirky about this list was
the "moderator approval" for alive-n-well. I filled out
all of the information and even adjusted the profile several times
trying to get approval. (I think it could give someone a complex).
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| CHARACTERISTICS |
- Health & Nutrition info
- personal experiences
- Questions & Answers
- Uplifting stories
- Product reviews
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| CONTENT QUALITY |
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| MATERIAL SUITABILITY |
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| READABILITY |
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| IS IT A KEEPER? |
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| EXPANSION OR LINKS |
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QUANTITY OF
E-MAIL |
- Well, I received a total of three emails:
1. Confirm and reply
2. Confirmation of adding me to the list
3. A welcome to the list email
But, I never received a single mailing. Guess that wraps up this
evaluation!
- Well, I did receive a mailing with nothing in it. Maybe they have
a problem on their system. I cannot give a rating on it.
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| STICKINESS |
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