Best way to send mailing list email

[Thom McGrath]

I'm writing a simple mailing list program, and I would like to know
what the suggested method of sending a large number of emails to a list
of addresses. (sounds like spam, no?)

It's perfectly legit, it's just an opt-in mailing.

I have a feeling that using a 'while' loop with repeated calls to
mail() is not the best practice. Is there something better I should be
doing?

--
- Thom McGrath
Head of the ZeeTox Project and lead programmer for The ZAZ
Contact me with iChat or AOL Instant Messenger: zazTekcor

[Jochen Daum]

Re: Best way to send mailing list email

Hi Thom!

On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 10:00:59 -0500, Thom McGrath <thom@thezaz.co m>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>I'm writing a simple mailing list program, and I would like to know
>what the suggested method of sending a large number of emails to a list
>of addresses. (sounds like spam, no?)
>
>It's perfectly legit, it's just an opt-in mailing.
>
>I have a feeling that using a 'while' loop with repeated calls to
>mail() is not the best practice. Is there something better I should be
>doing?[/color]

I think its perfectly fine, if you run it from a cron process and you
do not run it longer than until the next one starts. Also, you should
built in in a way that it can be stopped at nearly any time ,without
loosing recipients sendouts.

HTH, Jochen

--
Jochen Daum - Cabletalk Group Ltd.
PHP DB Edit Toolkit -- PHP scripts for building
database editing interfaces.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpdbedittk/

[CountScubula]

Re: Best way to send mailing list email

"Thom McGrath" <thom@thezaz.co m> wrote in message
news:2004021210 005965722%thom@ thezazcom...[color=blue]
> I'm writing a simple mailing list program, and I would like to know
> what the suggested method of sending a large number of emails to a list
> of addresses. (sounds like spam, no?)
>
> It's perfectly legit, it's just an opt-in mailing.
>
> I have a feeling that using a 'while' loop with repeated calls to
> mail() is not the best practice. Is there something better I should be
> doing?
>
> --
> - Thom McGrath
> Head of the ZeeTox Project and lead programmer for The ZAZ
> Contact me with iChat or AOL Instant Messenger: zazTekcor
>[/color]

what is a large number to you? 10 - 20 million or 10 - 20 hunder thousand or
just a few thousand?
diff aproach for diff number of emails

--
Mike Bradley
http://www.gzentools.com -- free online php tools

[Thom McGrath]

Re: Best way to send mailing list email

On 2004-02-12 14:41:23 -0500, "CountScubu la" <me@scantek.hot mail.com> said:
[color=blue]
> what is a large number to you? 10 - 20 million or 10 - 20 hunder thousand or
> just a few thousand?
> diff aproach for diff number of emails[/color]

Could vary. This could become an excessively large project. I think a
couple hundred thousand would be a reasonable limit... though millions
are a possibility. But by the time we ever hit that, there will be
newer technologies.

So built around a 300k user-base. How would you approch it?

--
- Thom McGrath
Head of the ZeeTox Project and lead programmer for The ZAZ
Contact me with iChat or AOL Instant Messenger: zazTekcor

[CountScubula]

Re: Best way to send mailing list email

with that size of a list, your could install a list mailing software, such
as majordomo (i think thats what its called)

or write a mailing script, take chunks of emails, say 2000, sort them, and
batch them via MX

For same domain such as : joe@hotmail.com, jane@hotmail.co m
make 1 connection to MX server, send email, send RSET command, send next
email.
This way you do not have to reconnect after each email.

Generaly I will send about 500 emails per connection. ( i am not talking
about cc, or bcc, but individual emails)

You could take your list, split into 10 files, and sort each file, then
launch 10 proccess to mail each list.

you should finish in an hour to 4 hours, depending on the number of domains
in list. I can generaly send about 100 thousand/hour into aol, but hotmail
is a little slower, fewer incomming MX server. When it comes to emails from
everyone and anyone, I can generaly run about 50-70 thousand an hour. This
is per mailing machine, one company I set up had 24 mailing machines, we
could get out about 50 million per day. (dont ask, I just get paid to
develope stuff)

--
Mike Bradley
http://www.gzentools.com -- free online php tools
"Thom McGrath" <thom@thezaz.co m> wrote in message
news:2004021217 254316807%thom@ thezazcom...[color=blue]
> On 2004-02-12 14:41:23 -0500, "CountScubu la" <me@scantek.hot mail.com>[/color]
said:[color=blue]
>[color=green]
> > what is a large number to you? 10 - 20 million or 10 - 20 hunder[/color][/color]
thousand or[color=blue][color=green]
> > just a few thousand?
> > diff aproach for diff number of emails[/color]
>
> Could vary. This could become an excessively large project. I think a
> couple hundred thousand would be a reasonable limit... though millions
> are a possibility. But by the time we ever hit that, there will be
> newer technologies.
>
> So built around a 300k user-base. How would you approch it?
>
> --
> - Thom McGrath
> Head of the ZeeTox Project and lead programmer for The ZAZ
> Contact me with iChat or AOL Instant Messenger: zazTekcor
>[/color]