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If you find value in what The MUG Center delivers, please consider making a donation so we can continue to deliver it.
Thank you!
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The MUG Center Survey: What Articles Do You Regularly Include in Your Group's Newsletter?
There are a variety of sources for newsletter content available to user groups. They include some created and/or managed through The MUG Center, as well as other, independent sources. This week, we ask about the options that you *regularly* include in your group's publication.
| What articles do you regularly include in your user group's newsletter? |
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Response Percent
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Response Total
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"Mac 911" by Chris Breen
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72%
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99
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Articles from other groups (from The MUG Center's Newsletter Content Email List)
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68%
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93
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Articles from TidBITS
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64%
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88
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Vendor Offers
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60%
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82
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"Web Watch" from The MUG Center
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48%
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66
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Information from the Members section of the Apple User Group Bulletin
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28%
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38
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News items from The MUG Center
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16%
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22
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AppleWorks News Service articles
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4%
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5
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Total Respondents:
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137
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Other sources:
- Original content, including reviews and announcements
- Mac comments in other publ.
- Reviews by members of our MUG
- Stuff found on the Internet
- Info Manager content
- Home grown articles from our MUG
- info and comments from our online group
- Articles written by our members on experiences with their Macs. President's message.
- Tips and hints from various sources
- Crosswords from the Australian
Comments:
If you specifically don't include one or more of these resources, why not?
- Our newsletter is geared towards providing all kinds of Apple/Mac-related information that helps our members do their work. We try not to repeat information provided by multiple sources. We try to tailor the content to what our can use.
- Most of our group that cares about news hears it and discusses it on our listserv WAY before the newsletter comes out. The rest primarily use older software and hardware and don't care.
- Heavy US bias, items/offers often not relevant on our side of the planet.
- The TMC-NLC email list articles happen to "fill the bill" quite well. I figure that Chris Breen's articles are so widely distributed that our members already have other sources. As for those others listed above, I either simply have not used them before (okay, maybe once or twice) or I didn't know they existed till now. The bottom line is that the emailed TMC-NLC articles come straight to me, instead of me to them. All I have to do is select the ones I like and search for pics on the Web to add to the article. Simple is good when you have a 28 page newsletter.
- I try to keep the newsletter focused on our group's interests, although it's becoming harder to get members' articles and input.
- Did not know about some of them. Will look into some.
- Mac 911 is on our Members Only section of our web site.
- weren't aware of them...
- Most of the Apple Bulletin stories are out of date by the time they would appear in our newsletter
Other comments or thoughts on newsletter content?
- Only just joined the email list -- will be using some of that content (and submitting some).
- I think it would be extremely useful to provide as much coverage as possible on total cost of ownership of Mac, Windows, Linux etc. We need ammunition to avoid being swamped by Windows.
- I have not figured out how to post TO TMC, so you have gotten no reviews from our MUG
- I really liked the "resubscribe" series, which contained links to a lot of other MUGs, where I can download and see their entire newsletters, for layout and content ideas.
- I also print a lot of articles from Small Dog Electronics' e-newsletters, with their permission.
- I wish someone could put enough pressure on MacWorld to get them to permit reprinting of their HotTips, with appropriate acknowledgement, the way Adam Engst does with TidBits. It is actually good advertising for folks like that to permit reprintes with thier name attached.
- Being in Australia, I edit out some items specific to USA or not relevant to our members - otherwise, very useful. Please keep it coming.
- I often reprint book reviews and product reviews on our website. The site functions as a newsletter and is updated monthly.
- The TMC-NLC collection of articles is a VERY useful source I draw from several times in each of our AMUG News issues! But I have noticed lately that a fair amount had to re-edited(?) by our editors for spelling and grammar. These articles come from a diverse group of voluntary writers from many MUGs so quality control is understandably non-existant. This is just a "heads-up".
- I keep a folder of interesting sites and shareware that I haven't seen elsewhere, and include some items in a 'found objects' or 'potpourri' column. Photos are a big plus. Recently, members have been submitting photos, but it's not a regular feature.
- ready made content is helpful, but it doesn't really replace group involvement & "personal" content
- 90% of our magazine content is "home grown" with members writing content - we have 3-4 regular contributors each month and a few semi-regular contributors
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