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An electronic mailing list (sometimes written as elist or e-list) is a special usage of email that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users. It is similar to a traditional mailing list - a list of names and addresses - as might be kept by an organization for sending publications to its members or customers, but typically refers to four things: a list of email addresses, the people ("subscribers") receiving mail at those addresses, the publications (e-mail messages) sent to those addresses, and a reflector, which is a single email address that, when designated as the recipient of a message, will send a copy of that message to all of the subscribers.

One type of electronic mailing list is an announcement list, which is used primarily as a one-way conduit of information and can only be "posted to" by selected people. This may also be referred to by the term newsletter. Newsletter and promotional emailing lists are employed in various sectors as parts of direct marketing campaigns.

Another type of electronic mailing list is a discussion list, in which any subscriber may post. On a discussion list, a subscriber uses the mailing list to send messages to all the other subscribers, who may answer in similar fashion. Thus, actual discussion and information exchanges can happen. Mailing lists of this type are usually topic-oriented (for example, politics, scientific discussion, joke contests), and the topic can range from extremely narrow to "whatever you think could interest us". In this they are similar to Usenet newsgroups, and share the same aversion to off-topic messages. The term discussion group encompasses both these types of lists and newsgroups.

On both discussion lists and newsletter lists precautions are taken to avoid spamming. Discussion lists often require every message to be approved by a moderator before being sent to the rest of the subscribers, and companies sending out promotional newsletters work with whitelist mail distributors, which agree to standards and high fines from ISPs should any of the opt-in subscribers complain. In exchange for their compliance and agreement to prohibitive fines, the emails sent by white listed companies are not blocked by Spam Filters, which can often reroute these legitimate, non-spam emails.

Some mailing lists are open to anyone who wants to join them, while others require an approval from the list owner before one can join. Joining a mailing list is called "subscribing" and leaving a list is called "unsubscribing".

phplist

phplist is an open-source mailing list manager. It is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database for storing information. The software runs on a web server and allows web site administrators to easily set up a web based newsletter subscription system where users can subscribe to the desired mailing lists. It allows email messages to be sent out to a large number of subscribers and also allows email message templates to be set up (e.g., for a consistent look and feel). It also allows the email messages being sent out to be personalised with attributes that are unique to each subscriber.

phplist is a one-way email announcement delivery system with automated subscription management. It can be used for newsletters, publicity lists, notifications, and a wide range of other uses.

Development Status: Production/Stable.
License: GNU General Public License (GPL).
Operating System: Linux.
Available Languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Traditional Chinese, Dutch and translation work is in progress for other languages.
http://www.phplist.com

Dada Mail

Dada Mail is a web-based electronic mailing list management system that can be used for announcement lists and discussion lists. Dada Mail handles Closed-Loop Opt-in subscriptions and Close-Loop Opt-out unsubscriptions, sending complex announce-only and/or discussion mailing list messages, archiving / viewing / searching / resending / syndicating (rss, atom) sent messages.

All administration of the mailing list is done using a web-based control panel. Closed-Loop Opt-in subscriptions are done via sending a confirmation email message, but the actual mechanism is simply a unique confirmation URL.

Dada Mail is available as free software distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License and in a more advanced commercial pro version.

Dada Mail is written in Perl

Development Status: Production/Stable.
License: GNU General Public License (GPL).
Operating System: FreeBSD, Linux, MacOSX.
Available Languages: English.
http://dadamailproject.com

The base of this text is researched from different sources. The facts that are presented are checked and double-checked to be as correct and accurate as possible. However, Success Webmasters makes no representations or warranties as to the completeness or accuracy of the information.