Lynks
June 23rd, 2001, 10:25
You are receiving this because you are a registered user of Microsoft(R)
bCentral(tm) ListBot. This message contains important information about your
ListBot account.
____________________________________________________________ ____________
Dear ListBot User:
We are sending this letter to inform you that effective Aug. 20, 2001, we are
discontinuing the bCentral ListBot service. ListBot has become a very popular
free service, and we've been pleased to offer this valuable tool to both
consumers and business users. As a provider of services for small and
medium-sized businesses, our main goal is the continual improvement of services
to meet the growing needs of business users. To achieve this goal, we have
launched the new List Builder service, an enhanced e-mail marketing tool that
will take the place of ListBot.
We value our relationship with you and hope that you will choose to continue
using our services by purchasing a subscription to the List Builder service. We
realize that List Builder may not fit the needs of all ListBot users, so to help
ease any inconvenience this may cause, we have provided below a list of options
and actions that you can take to ensure that you will have an
e-mail marketing or e-mail community service to meet your needs after Aug. 20.
Special note: Our schedule for discontinuing the ListBot service is intended to
give you 60 days to choose another service option and/or retrieve your e-mail
list data. The ListBot service will be fully functional until Aug. 6, 2001. From
Aug. 6 to Aug. 20, you will have access to your data but the service will be
disabled.
SUGGESTED OPTIONS
OPTION 1--BCENTRAL LIST BUILDER. If you need a business e-mail marketing tool,
we encourage you to move your ListBot announcement lists to the recently
released bCentral List Builder. You can do this in a couple of easy steps, right
from the ListBot control center. You can migrate your data to List Builder and
use it for 30 days for free. After that, you will pay just $149 for your first
year. To proceed with the migration or to find out more, visit
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
List Builder was designed to meet the needs of businesses, large and small. It
comes with a greatly improved control center and many enhanced features,
including better subscriber database management, improved HTML e-mail
capabilities, and more message-targeting options. With List Builder, you will
have a complete view of your customers in one centralized marketing database.
From this database you can execute e-mail marketing campaigns targeted according
to your customers' interests and demographic information or other factors you
choose.
In addition, in the coming year we will release some great new List Builder
features, including link tracking to help you understand the return on your
e-mail marketing, e-mail personalization, and even more customization options.
FOR YOU TO DO: If you choose to move to List Builder, go to
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and proceed
with signup and migration. You can even try List Builder for free for your first
month. After that you pay only $149 for the first year.
OPTION 2--MSN COMMUNITIES. If your interests lie more in a free community e-mail
service, we suggest you go to MSN (R) Communities at
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and create
your new community.
FOR YOU TO DO: Go to the MSN Communities site,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, sign up and
create your own community. From the MSN Communities control center you can send
an invitation to your ListBot members to ask them to join your community.
If you choose to use MSN communities and would like to keep your ListBot mailing
list data, click on "View Members" in the ListBot control center to download
your lists. Then click on "Download All" or "Download Demographics" to download
your list subscribers. If you have problems with this process during peak times,
please try again during off-peak hours.
RETRIEVING YOUR DATA
Whether you are migrating to our List Builder service or choosing another
option, we realize that the e-mail lists you have developed through ListBot are
extremely important to you, and we want to ensure that you can retrieve and save
all your data for future use. To do this, just follow the step-by-step procedure
below any time before Aug. 20, 2001.
To download your lists, click on "View Members" in the ListBot control center.
Then click on "Download All" or "Download Demographics" to download your list
subscribers. If you have problems with this process during peak times, please
try again during off-peak hours.
To retrieve your archives, click on "View Archives" in the ListBot control
center. From there you will be able to access your list archives and copy the
messages you want to keep.
________________________________________
LISTBOT SHUTDOWN SCHEDULE
=> BETWEEN JUNE 20 AND AUG. 5, 2001 -- Time to choose your e-mail alternative,
List Builder or MSN Communities? If you choose List Builder, this is the time to
migrate your announcement lists and set up List Builder to meet your needs.
If you don't choose to migrate to List Builder, before Aug. 6 please remove all
ListBot signup boxes from your Web site, along with any mention of your ListBot
e-mail alias. After this date, if people try to subscribe or send e-mail to your
lists, they will receive a notice explaining that the ListBot service has been
discontinued. In addition, please inform your subscribers that as of Aug. 6,
your list will no longer be functional and that any messages sent to the list
will bounce.
=>AUG. 6, 2001 -- All ListBot e-mail and subscribe functionality will be
disabled. You will not be able to send messages to or receive messages from your
lists. New people will not be able to subscribe to your lists via e-mail or the
Web.
=>BETWEEN AUG. 6 AND AUG. 20, 2001 -- During these two weeks, you can still
download your lists and copy and paste your message archives to a local place on
your computer, but all other ListBot functionality will be disabled.
=>AUG. 20, 2001 -- The ListBot service will be turned off completely. All
ListBot servers will be shut down and all data will be unavailable. Please
retrieve any information you need before this date, since it will be
inaccessible from this date on.
________________________________________
We realize that this is a lot of information and have established a set of FAQs
at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for
answers to other questions you may have about ListBot. Additionally, if you
have other questions or comments about ListBot, please don't hesitate to supply
us with this feedback at lbshutdown@bcentral.com -- we will use your suggestions
to periodically update our FAQs.
We will be sending out reminder messages to all ListBot users about this
shutdown. However, we urge you to make a decision about List Builder or MSN
Communities soon, to give you ample time to migrate your lists and become
familiar with your new service.
Sincerely,
bCentral Member Services
(c) 2001 Microsoft Corp.. All rights reserved. Microsoft, bCentral and MSN are
either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United
States and/or other countries.
bCentral(tm) ListBot. This message contains important information about your
ListBot account.
____________________________________________________________ ____________
Dear ListBot User:
We are sending this letter to inform you that effective Aug. 20, 2001, we are
discontinuing the bCentral ListBot service. ListBot has become a very popular
free service, and we've been pleased to offer this valuable tool to both
consumers and business users. As a provider of services for small and
medium-sized businesses, our main goal is the continual improvement of services
to meet the growing needs of business users. To achieve this goal, we have
launched the new List Builder service, an enhanced e-mail marketing tool that
will take the place of ListBot.
We value our relationship with you and hope that you will choose to continue
using our services by purchasing a subscription to the List Builder service. We
realize that List Builder may not fit the needs of all ListBot users, so to help
ease any inconvenience this may cause, we have provided below a list of options
and actions that you can take to ensure that you will have an
e-mail marketing or e-mail community service to meet your needs after Aug. 20.
Special note: Our schedule for discontinuing the ListBot service is intended to
give you 60 days to choose another service option and/or retrieve your e-mail
list data. The ListBot service will be fully functional until Aug. 6, 2001. From
Aug. 6 to Aug. 20, you will have access to your data but the service will be
disabled.
SUGGESTED OPTIONS
OPTION 1--BCENTRAL LIST BUILDER. If you need a business e-mail marketing tool,
we encourage you to move your ListBot announcement lists to the recently
released bCentral List Builder. You can do this in a couple of easy steps, right
from the ListBot control center. You can migrate your data to List Builder and
use it for 30 days for free. After that, you will pay just $149 for your first
year. To proceed with the migration or to find out more, visit
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
List Builder was designed to meet the needs of businesses, large and small. It
comes with a greatly improved control center and many enhanced features,
including better subscriber database management, improved HTML e-mail
capabilities, and more message-targeting options. With List Builder, you will
have a complete view of your customers in one centralized marketing database.
From this database you can execute e-mail marketing campaigns targeted according
to your customers' interests and demographic information or other factors you
choose.
In addition, in the coming year we will release some great new List Builder
features, including link tracking to help you understand the return on your
e-mail marketing, e-mail personalization, and even more customization options.
FOR YOU TO DO: If you choose to move to List Builder, go to
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and proceed
with signup and migration. You can even try List Builder for free for your first
month. After that you pay only $149 for the first year.
OPTION 2--MSN COMMUNITIES. If your interests lie more in a free community e-mail
service, we suggest you go to MSN (R) Communities at
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and create
your new community.
FOR YOU TO DO: Go to the MSN Communities site,
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, sign up and
create your own community. From the MSN Communities control center you can send
an invitation to your ListBot members to ask them to join your community.
If you choose to use MSN communities and would like to keep your ListBot mailing
list data, click on "View Members" in the ListBot control center to download
your lists. Then click on "Download All" or "Download Demographics" to download
your list subscribers. If you have problems with this process during peak times,
please try again during off-peak hours.
RETRIEVING YOUR DATA
Whether you are migrating to our List Builder service or choosing another
option, we realize that the e-mail lists you have developed through ListBot are
extremely important to you, and we want to ensure that you can retrieve and save
all your data for future use. To do this, just follow the step-by-step procedure
below any time before Aug. 20, 2001.
To download your lists, click on "View Members" in the ListBot control center.
Then click on "Download All" or "Download Demographics" to download your list
subscribers. If you have problems with this process during peak times, please
try again during off-peak hours.
To retrieve your archives, click on "View Archives" in the ListBot control
center. From there you will be able to access your list archives and copy the
messages you want to keep.
________________________________________
LISTBOT SHUTDOWN SCHEDULE
=> BETWEEN JUNE 20 AND AUG. 5, 2001 -- Time to choose your e-mail alternative,
List Builder or MSN Communities? If you choose List Builder, this is the time to
migrate your announcement lists and set up List Builder to meet your needs.
If you don't choose to migrate to List Builder, before Aug. 6 please remove all
ListBot signup boxes from your Web site, along with any mention of your ListBot
e-mail alias. After this date, if people try to subscribe or send e-mail to your
lists, they will receive a notice explaining that the ListBot service has been
discontinued. In addition, please inform your subscribers that as of Aug. 6,
your list will no longer be functional and that any messages sent to the list
will bounce.
=>AUG. 6, 2001 -- All ListBot e-mail and subscribe functionality will be
disabled. You will not be able to send messages to or receive messages from your
lists. New people will not be able to subscribe to your lists via e-mail or the
Web.
=>BETWEEN AUG. 6 AND AUG. 20, 2001 -- During these two weeks, you can still
download your lists and copy and paste your message archives to a local place on
your computer, but all other ListBot functionality will be disabled.
=>AUG. 20, 2001 -- The ListBot service will be turned off completely. All
ListBot servers will be shut down and all data will be unavailable. Please
retrieve any information you need before this date, since it will be
inaccessible from this date on.
________________________________________
We realize that this is a lot of information and have established a set of FAQs
at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for
answers to other questions you may have about ListBot. Additionally, if you
have other questions or comments about ListBot, please don't hesitate to supply
us with this feedback at lbshutdown@bcentral.com -- we will use your suggestions
to periodically update our FAQs.
We will be sending out reminder messages to all ListBot users about this
shutdown. However, we urge you to make a decision about List Builder or MSN
Communities soon, to give you ample time to migrate your lists and become
familiar with your new service.
Sincerely,
bCentral Member Services
(c) 2001 Microsoft Corp.. All rights reserved. Microsoft, bCentral and MSN are
either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United
States and/or other countries.