Eric, you've hit the nail on the head, metaphorically speaking. Harbinger was probably an exception though. It's good to know that they weren't insecure: by making it easier to "hook-up" with their own subscribers, it may have increased their business in the long run.
Speaking of hiding e-mail addresses, it would hardly do for an avid open-standards advocate to make myself available only by a closed, proprietary network like LinkedIn. Especially when open standards like MIME and SMTP provide for universal access using a simple e-mail address and whatever e-mail client you prefer. I wouldn't presume to force colleagues and potential customers to bother with signing in to some web site just to communicate with me. I prefer to remain approachable. Of course, like you, I don't want to be bothered by spam - but it's the job of the ISP to be selective with whom it allows inbound connections. And obviously, I want mail prioritized and sorted, but even free (and standard) e-mail clients allow me to set up rules so I can immediately focus on important e-mail from standards honchos like Mike Rawlins, Rachel Foerster and Mark Crawford, among others. You know you've arrived when you rate a separate folder on Outlook Express. William J. Kammerer Novannet, LLC. Columbus, OH 43221-3859 . USA +1 (614) 487-0320 ----- Original Message ----- From: "eric_christ" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, 29 January, 2005 03:00 PM Subject: [EDI-L] Re: <MISC> EDI Coordinator Trading Partner Contacts As someone who spent eight years with a VAN, Harbinger 1993-2001, I'll add some comments from my perspective. Harbinger was one of the VANs that did share our subscriber list with the EDI Yellow Pages. We felt that any tool that had the potential to increase the number of companies using EDI and to increase EDI message traffic was good for EDI, good for VANs in general, and good for Harbinger. While the paper format of the EDI Yellow Pages did make it difficult for someone to easily extract all Harbinger subscribers in order to market to them, I'm sure it did happen. However, changing your VAN subscription is not something you do quickly or routinely. Also, we felt that if the only thing keeping our subscribers was the fact that we kept their identity secret, we had other problems. We would rather have them publicly listed and keep them through superior customer service and product features. As to individuals trying to hide their e-mail addresses, I attribute that to the possibility (probability) of spam, not secrecy. I am publicly listed on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) and encourage contacts, but only through the LinkedIn user interface - my e-mail address is not listed. You can also find me in the phone book, but it will cost you $0.37 to market to me. With Internet e-mail, it's essentially free for the sender to spam me. Eric Christ . Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> Access the list online at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
