It's been a couple of weeks now since I first presented the idea of a newsletter for App.net. A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks, so here's a recap.

Initial feedback was good

Based on poll taken by a number of App.net members, there was very positive feedback on the idea of a newsletter. A number of ideas and suggestions were sent to myself regarding content for the newsletter. A second poll asking if user's would like to see personalised content wasn't as popular.

Using the App.net API

Another thing that came out of this was the possibility of using App.net so that users could authorise their accounts so that we use the user's email address to send them the newsletter. Once this was done I had another idea to personalise the newsletter based on posts from each user's timeline. I would read the user's timeline for the week and include highlighted posts from the past week in the newsletter. There were two problems with this.

The first is that the App.net API does not include a user's email address in their profile when you ask for it. Understandable really given that this email could be used in other ways by an application that has access to the API.

Secondly the original idea was for a newsletter. At the time I hadn't considered a personalised newsletter until a few days later. Now that I've had a chance to access the API, reading user's timelines for highlighted posts is a major task that would require more time than I currently have available.

The idea of building a full application to support personalised content for the newsletter is a large undertaking and one that I wouldn't be prepared to undertake unless I had a number of sign ups already interested in this. Based on the light feedback I had it simply wasn't enough to warrant my time at the moment.

So what's the plan with the newsletter then?

Well, the plan is to still provide a premium newsletter for App.net members who can sign up with any email address they choose. I am not going to be using the App.net API in anyway for the newsletter, as I'm still essentially testing the validity of this idea. Yes people voted on it and said it was a good idea, but when it comes to getting paid subscriptions will people still be so positive about it?

In order fully test this idea, I will be moving ahead with publishing a newsletter for the App.net community but it will be limited to a number of editions in order to test whether the idea has enough subscribers to carry forward.

I've still got a number of questions about sign ups, cost of the newsletter and hopefully the possibility of making the newsletter free until the number of sign ups has reached a set limit.

This week I'll be announcing the account that will act as a contact point for the newsletter and where people can submit ideas or content for the newsletter. I'll also hopefully be releasing the sign up page for the newsletter next week. A couple of weeks after this I'll be releasing the first edition of the newsletter.