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I just sent out the latest monthly newsletter from O'Neil Software to it's list of subscribers. It is very interesting to me that I made it to 100 editions, and I am not sure that I ever thought that would be the case. The interest, of course, comes down to the changing methods of communications with our customers.

The history of our printed magazines was summed up in Issue 26 of our newsletter in January 2003:

"For many years, O'Neil Software has provided a Quarterly Bulletin. We started in the 80's with "What's In Store" and this was re-introduced as "The Record" in 1994. In 1996 this was renamed to the now familiar "Strategic Partner" and re-launched as a large, map-style fold-out document. The layout was re-vamped in 1999, into the format that is familiar to you today. Once again we felt that now was the time to present this publication in a new format. We expanded the content, adopted a more easy to read, magazine style and so the Strategic Partner Magazine was born."

By now, the electronic newsletter was well on its way to being a familiar face from O'Neil and, eventually, the printed magazine went the way of many printed publications, being cancelled after just a couple of years.

Over the next few months, the newsletter changed its form from the larger articles to an introduction with a "Read More..." footer. This allowed for faster browsing and the ability to focus in on the articles that were important to you. By 2006, the newsletter was being proclaimed as dead by the marketing gurus. Out were electronic newsletters in were... printed media??? Our statistics told us a different story and so the newsletter continued to today. On an average distribution around 1,000 people read the newsletter, and so I believe that this is still an effective method of communication, but what does the future hold?

This blog, obviously, is a threat to the newsletter due to its ability to deliver timely comments and news, but does it cater to the same audience? With multiple methods of communicating, from Twitter to Facebook, the temptation is always to leave the old methods behind but I have to say, I still have a soft spot for the old newsletter. Maybe it will make 200 editions yet?