re: Topica.com

Hi Ellen and sibrob,

I recently migrated my 100 member list, Cold Zone Perennials & Bulbs 
FROM Topica To egroups after many difficult months of various issues 
in regards to the service that topica.com offers. Our list has a high 
volume of messages (920 for the month of October) as well as we all 
enjoy viewing photo images of each other's gardens, plants and 
flowers, so this posting of images is encouraged. 

The Cold Zone list had been set up early last year, but as time went 
on, we began to realize that the topica.com list service did not meet 
our needs or expectations. 

The Cold Zone list had a real need for photo archives. At topica.com, 
they had no such service - there is no FILES area or LINKS area, or 
chat feature the way we have it here at egroups. Plus, if you read 
your list mail online at the topica.com site, the list service  
stripped out ALL attachments - so if you missed them that day, or 
accidentally deleted the email which included the image file, the 
image was gone forever. 

The only way you could view images or attachments was to get them 
delivered directly to your email box, which was not the best answer 
for many of the list members who enjoy reading their list mail both 
at work and at home. When I wrote to topica about our concerns, and 
that we needed these sorts of features for the members to be happy, 
their response was that "there is no immediate plans for archives of 
photos at the current time".

Topica best feature, as you mentioned Ellen, is their member support. 
I would get an email back within a couple of hours usually, after 
making an inquiry. With egroups, any requests or inquiries I have 
main have NEVER been answered. As a list owner, this is very 
frustrating, especially when you are trouble shooting a list members 
technical issues, and you have no where to turn. 

The second best feature is that I was able (as the listowner), to 
turn OFF ALL banner ad advertising to the list by one click of a 
button. No banners, no text ads - nothing. This was a major bonus. 
The topica.com directory for finding lists is better than egroups as 
well and topica.com marketing department (sadly) did a feature about 
our list that ran front and center on their main page as a "Hot 
List". It was sad because here they were, giving us this exposure 
(which we did request, but topica.com did it on their own) BUT we had 
made the decision to move the list (and were actually in the process 
of the migration) when I had a surge of people wishing to join.  :(

After we had the CZPB list migrated over to egroups.com for about a 
month, I did a poll (a feature is NOT availabe at topica.com by the 
way) to see if the members were happier with the service at egroups 
than that of topica.com and I had 100% positive results with our 
decision, FYI. If only we could bring the topica.com tech. support 
staff over to egroups! I miss that one on one contact that they 
provided greatly. 

It is truly disappointing to hear that our lists may be disrupted due 
to the changes at egroups/yahoo. I am hoping that I do not have to 
move my list again, as it is cumbersome, as well as the list members 
have to learn how to access, send, view images all over again, since 
the lists were quite different in these features. The move was a real 
pain in the butt for some.

Hope this helps a bit, and thanks for the update Ellen.

Shauna
(Alberta)
http://www.members.home.net/tigerlily23/CZPB1.html 


Ellen wrote:
<snip>
> If anyone has direct experience with the free mailing list group:
> 
> http://www.topica.net/
<snip>
> One potential drawback: they have made their money by inserting ads 
(much like Yahoo does<snip>

I have written more questions re storage of files, photos 
(attachments) being 
> used in the lists, etc.
> 
> The upside of Topica: ease for the subscribers. It is easily the 
most user-friendly of the mailing list companies I have been 
investigating. They also give 24/7 support to the list owners - 
eGroups is/was very supportive as well. No problems whatsoever. <snip>
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