Toolkit
Addition
ToolKit:
Email Address Extractor
Build yourself
a database-of names and email addresses. Consider it your potential
contact group.
Find a newsgroup
populated by people who share an interest in whatever it is you're
looking for-be it dog walkers or COBOL pros. (To find appropriate
newsgroups, read our piece on Usenet.
Then, gather
all their email addresses in a few seconds. This is what spammers
do. They troll the newsgroups, grab the addresses, and create mailing
lists with thousands of people.
Spam is bad
and if you use it loads of people hate you. Targeted mailings, though,
can be advantageous.
Let's say
you want a bunch of people to know about your services. Or you want
to let them know about the new chat area you've integrated into
your site (see discussion
areas). Or you want to invite their responses on a burning issue.
If you target your audience carefully, a bulk mailing could be profitable.
Use A1
Soft Email Address Extractor to get all the email address from
a selected newsgroup. You can download it for free. Registration
is $15.00.
It's easy
to use in Netscape:
- Open the
newsgroup you want
- Click
on "Edit" in the toolbar.
- Click
"Select All".
- Click
on "File" in the toolbar.
- Click
on "Save Message(s) As" to save into a single html file, say C:\temp\address.html.
Then go into
the address extractor. Type in (or browse to highlight) the file
you want the addresses extracted from. In this case, type in "C:\temp\address\html".
Click on "Extract from file(s)".
You'll be
presented very quickly with a list of all the email addresses of
the people who posted to that newsgroup. Some addresses will be
duplicated if the person has posted more than once, so be careful.
When you get the address list, click on edit and then sort by name.
This way you can easily see (and delete) the duplicates.
You can also
extract email addresses from Web pages.
Then when
you're ready to make an announcement, invite comments, or insinuate
your way into people's mailboxes, create a bulk mail list and send
out your message. Be careful. If what you send is perceived as spam,
you will likely have a flood of returns and angry mail.
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Search Tips
Search:
SearchEngineWatch.Com
If you're
a serious Web searcher, Search
Engine Watch is worth watching. Danny Sullivan, an internet
consultant, provides viewers with helpful tips on searching as well
as updates on the search engines.
You already
know that a key to finding people on the Internet is knowing how
and where to search for them. Accomplishing this is sometimes more
frustrating than it needs to be. Sullivan's search
tips page offers insight into advanced search techniques for
several of the major search engines. Although we cover this topic
in detail in our two-day seminar, Sullivan offers a summary that
you can use as a refresher course.
There's also
a page of tutorials that are extraordinarily
useful for both novice and advanced searchers. As you've discovered
with the Web, finding what you want can be exceedingly difficult
until you master a few dozen techniques-ranging from appropriate
choice of keywords, to use of Boolean operators. Take a look at
Sullivan's tutorials. You'll find helpful pointers, articles, and
general information that will grow to be indispensable.
And, once
you've exhausted his site, you can sign up for his monthly newsletter,
Search
Engine Report. Subscribing to the list keeps you up-to-date
on changes within the search engines and means you don't have to
add the site to any of the tools you use to keep apprised of changes
in Web sites. (See our articles on the
Informant List and URL
Minder.)
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