Getting so many emails as I do about ezine publishing, I thought maybe an article covering most asked questions would be useful to some of you who are thinking about or just starting your own ezine.

* What is an Ezine?

An ezine is simply an electronic newsletter or magazine mailed periodically to a list of opt-in subscribers. Opt-in means that these subscribers have signed-up for or requested to receive your ezine.

A good ezine will contain lots of useful information and resources for subscribers.

* Who Do I Send My Ezine To?

You obtain a list of subscribers by advertising and promoting your ezine in several ways.

Announcement lists - Follow guidelines for posting and get some fr~e exposure! http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ListPOP http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Announce_Your_Group

Writing Articles - Definitely something you want to get into. Very powerful method of fr~e promotion!

Ad swaps - Running other publishers' ads in exchange for them running yours is a great way to get a lot of fr~e ezine advertising, plus you get to make new friends as well! ;-) http://www28.brinkster.com/bluesite/swap.htm http://ezine-swap.com/

Sigtag - Always add a sigtag to your email with your subscribe link and an attention grabbing headline about your ezine. Very effective!

Discussion Lists - Similar to announcement lists, but get involved in discussions as often as possible. mailto:digital-women-subscribe@yahoogroups.com mailto:hbj_chat-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Message Boards - Similar to discussion groups. Establish yourself as an expert who is there to help. http://www.mcpromotions.com/webbbs/webbbs_config.pl?#156

Our company is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year – a long time by Internet standards. This prompted me to take a look at what has been happening with Internet in last decade.

Remember when Web pages were grey with black text? Remember when best Web editor was notepad? Take a trip down memory lane . . .

1993 First graphics-based Web browser - NCSA Mosaic - introduced. Traffic on Internet expands by 341,634% annual growth. 1994 Netscape Communications Corp founded. Yahoo founded by 2 PhD students from Stanford. "Spamming" begins - unsolicited bulk emails. Standard agreed for 28.8K modems. 1995 Netscape launches on stockmarket - share value rises to $3 billion on first day. AltaVista search engine is launched by DEC (remember them?). Java programming language launched by Sun Microsystems. Registration of Domain Names no longer free. 1996 Age of Internet has arrived. 40 million people connected. More than $1 billion spent at Internet shopping malls. Internet telephony starts. Promises a major reduction in call costs (which proved unfounded). 1997 World-wide Web Consortium publishes HTML Version 4 including multi-media features and support for different languages.