Earlier this year, I was keen to try follow.it (I keep thinking of this as the horror show, It Follows) as a new “blog post notification option via email” for Dragonsinn.
Recently, however, I’ve been finding the ads in the email notifications to be beyond jarring.
Subscribers would not only have to hunt for the blog post link, but need to click on a green button, which would bring them to a second new page with MORE ads around the link.
Here’s what that looked like in screenshots—
I didn’t see screenshots like these before signing up for it.
Ads are there to cover costs in “free” versions, but this was just over the top in terms of clutter.
I was also seeing numerous political ads, and that’s not something I want to subject any loyal subscribers here to on a regular basis (!!).
So, Where to From Here?
I’ll be trying out Sender.net.
If there are boatloads more subscribers in future, I’ll re-evaluate at that point in time.
I’m in the process of authenticating my sending domain.
All current subscribers have been imported over.
I never really liked the idea of using my web host to send out emails, and I like to keep my plugins as lightweight as possible.
I’ll be aiming for a very simple newsletter this time around.
Microcast Updates
My personal blog and microcast were quite scattered in terms of topics and categories.
The blog categories have been trimmed down and I’ll probably be spending a bit more time on the microcast in future.
I’ve been narrating a few dragon poems or sharing work-in-progress updates over there (I include those episodes on relevant posts on this website, like the recent WIP #2: Seasonal Dragon Poems post).
I’m approaching 50 voice notes on the microcast 🎙️
Bonus
I mentioned this article towards the end of my microcast episode.
The end of the article was poignant:
“My archives function as a living museum for my former online self, one full of hope for the possibilities of the internet.
We may never be able to log off entirely. But we can at least recapture some of that excitement, rerouting our brains and redirecting our attention away from the hellfire and over to spaces we enjoy.”
~ I figured out how to make the internet fun again, by Marianne Eloise (via Business Insider)