A friend asked me about mailing list/newsletter, any advice ?

I don't know the first thing about mailing lists/ newsletter building.

Any pointers would be helpfull

Can a php program deployed on a server handle such a thing ?
Are there any free ones ?

Is that a service that only the Hosting Company can provide ?

Thanks for any input ?

Here you are :)

http://www.phplist.com/

Nikolas, thanks for the link,

Can I use it in a way such that the OWNER writes the newsletter and sends it to the list (in a way that is not know to me yet) and then its distributed from there, but anyone that replys to the newsletter it gets back to the OWNER's email ?

That would be the main usage actually.

That's exactly the purpose of this script :)

Ohhh great,
as I said I did not know anything about email lists,
Now I know something ...

best choice

who moved the post :) own up just because people are recommending a PHP solution its not a PHP problem is it! sending back to promotional forum.

My vote is phplist but what you are looking for is sometimes called an autoresponder, that said PHP List is a great product and we use it all the time.

 >:D

it was me...

can't see the promotional thing is this thread  ;)

But its not a php question either here will do :) though I think the consensus is phplist all the way :D

but it's php script :)

Yes but its a promotional technique, with a solution in PHP,
I think promotional is the appropriate category, we are not talking about phplist (we just mentioned it as a solution)

ON my subject though, I don't think he has access to any database, is there a script that will work with flat files ?

In this day and age I can't imagine a host that doesn't have DB access I take it get a decent host is not an answer?

Ok ok...

I think there are also online services for providing a mailing list...

If it was a client I would have convinced them that its worth the change, but my friend is just paying a very low yearly fee and he is happy with that (10-20 euro per year) so can't be easily convinced ...

10-20 euro a year is a lot for a hosting account without database :)

but check the onlineservices (notice that this will cost money too)

check also if he he has access to a mailing like we use

if list get bigger, you will need dedicated server or vps.. since most of hosting provider has limit on sending the emails... xxx emails per hour..which is not fit for email marketing.

iHubNet is right. Personally I have lists up to 2000 people and a mailing from my dedicated server can take up to 2-4 hours. That's why people who have huge lists always outsource.

There are many companies that offer such services and I think most of them are free to use.

if you know a good / free service please post them here

I knew one, but I couldn't remember it. If I'll do I will come back to post it again :)

btw. how do you post the news from topsites?

Through a custom script (a simple one I made for this site)

Maybe ths
maybe that easier to use, than styling/integrating phplist

While hostng your own seems cheaper the overhead of maintenance and the lack of quality whitelisting will create a much higher TCO.

Take a looke at messageSlinger e-letters and online communication service: http://squidoo.com/messageslinger

Message Slinger is currently accepting trial customers for our Beta Program. We offer a full-featured, extremely reliable, and easy-to-use email marketing tool. The purpose of the Beta Program is to get feedback from you, our first customers, to help improve the system before we make a public launch.

Thanks,

Karl