massive email

[nasht]

Hi,

I'm trying to make a newsletter application in php (using mail() ).
This application is supposed to look in a MySQL database and generate a
list of emails and first names.
Then it should send an html formated message.
In the theory, I know how to do that, but the hic is ... There are
about 30 000 members.
So I get different kind of errors everytime I try something.
Like 500 Internal Server Error,
or the page would load forever and actually not do everything,
or I would get "Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes
exhausted at (null):0 (tried to allocate 129 bytes)" ...

I tried both my sending multiple mail() functions in a loop (the way i
prefer), and only one mail() function with the whole coma-separated
list of emails.

Is there an easy way to send massive email?
Please help.

Thank You,

Nathan

[mark]

Hello,

I've never written an application to send such large batches of email,
but I may be of some help. Since the script is going to take some time
to run, it's not a good candidate for a web-based script. Instead, I
would create a script (could still be written in PHP) that runs
independently of the web server (e.g., apache) so you won't have to
worry about timeouts, etc. Shell access would be very helpful for
testing this.

I would call mail() with one email address per call, not a large
comma-separated list.

Hopefully someone with specific experience with mass emailing can help
more here.

Mark Aardsma

[Geoff Berrow]

I noticed that Message-ID:
<11************ **********@z14g 2000cwz.googleg roups.com> from nasht
contained the following:

Then it should send an html formated message.

Good. That'll make sure it hits the bit bucket good and fast with me.
--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the committee's, mine.
Simple RFDs http://www.ckdog.co.uk/rfdmaker/

[Leythos]

In article <11************ **********@f14g 2000cwb.googleg roups.com>,
ma**@aatechserv ices.com says...

I've never written an application to send such large batches of email,
but I may be of some help.

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but sending LARGE batches of email
is very likely to get the sender black-listed or have their account
yanked by their provider. I know of instances where sending just 2500
emails, from a non-profit church, to people that provided their email
address, got their service disconnected.

--
--
sp*********@rro hio.com
(Remove 999 to reply to me)

[Michael Vilain]

In article <MP************ ************@ne ws-server.columbus .rr.com>,
Leythos <vo**@nowhere.l an> wrote:

In article <11************ **********@f14g 2000cwb.googleg roups.com>,
ma**@aatechserv ices.com says...

I've never written an application to send such large batches of email,
but I may be of some help.

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but sending LARGE batches of email
is very likely to get the sender black-listed or have their account
yanked by their provider. I know of instances where sending just 2500
emails, from a non-profit church, to people that provided their email
address, got their service disconnected.

--

The non-profit I'm working with wants to do this to it's members. I
said for them not to or they're loose their internet connection. I
checked with their ISP and unless the list is double opt-in validated,
service would terminated almost immediately. That was a wake-up call
for them.

As an alternative, the ISP offered access to their mailing-list server
(majordomo) which is completely configurable. We created a list and you
have to send email to an address to request to be put on it. Then
confirm by replying a "Are you sure you want to do this?" email. It's a
simple matter to provide a button on the web site to "sign me up for
electronic notification" that sends the initial email.

My advise, don't send the large batches of email unless you've confirmed
the recipients want the email. And provide a way to "opt-out" when you
ignore this advise and send out the emails anyway.

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

[Chung Leong]

"nasht" <na*****@gmail. com> wrote in message
news:11******** **************@ z14g2000cwz.goo glegroups.com.. .

Is there an easy way to send massive email?
Please help.

Hire a spammer? Write your own variant of Netsky?

[nasht]

Thanks for those advices.

For the first one given (run it on local), it's a good idea (except I
run Windows on a laptop, which i think is not that great for php).
Also it could only buy me a little bit more performance, not a large
scale solution (the website I work for is growing fast).

For the rest of the advices, they seemed more like legal advices.
I'm not really concerned about the legal stuff, that's not my
department :)
But of course I'll forward them your comments about that (will they
care? I don't know...)

But back to the technical issue itself, there has to be a way.
Very large scale companies do that sometimes (like Amazon, yahoo,
microsoft...).
Look up the email addresses, send them a message. It looks simple like
that. How do they do it?
They must have much more than 30 000 customers...

Thank You,

Nathan

[Stuart Millington]

On 17 Dec 2004 14:24:03 -0800, "nasht" <na*****@gmail. com> wrote:

I'm trying to make a newsletter application in php (using mail() ).
This application is supposed to look in a MySQL database and generate a
list of emails and first names.
Then it should send an html formated message.
Presumably you mean that it will send an HTML e-mail to those who
chose bloat and plain text to those who did not?
In the theory, I know how to do that, but the hic is ... There are
about 30 000 members.

IMO, your safest bet is to send the e-mail once - to an outsourced
delivery service, based upon a "double opt-in" list. That way you send
one e-mail and they handle the distribution to the validated
recipients. I can't tell where you are posting from, but the details
of a legitimate UK based service are at:
http://www.dsvr.co.uk/Services/E-Mar...Marketing.html

There is a point where re-inventing the wheel is pointless, and
30,000 recipients seems like you have passed it.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------
- Stuart Millington ALL HTML e-mail rejected -
- mailto:ph***@ds v1.co.uk http://w3.z-add.co.uk/ -
begin OE is broken read MS knowledgebase Q265230

[Stuart Millington]

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:58:15 -0800, Michael Vilain
<vi****@spamcop .net> wrote:

The non-profit I'm working with wants to do this to it's members. I
said for them not to or they're loose their internet connection. I
checked with their ISP and unless the list is double opt-in validated,
service would terminated almost immediately. That was a wake-up call
for them.
One of work's customers was told this before they signed up to us.
Almost a year later, after spaming me (postmaster at their "ISP") they
have stated that they will ignore our T&C's and continue to use their
non-verified mailing list which they compiled in the years before
their contract with us. I would like to terminate their account now,
but I'm the only person they've spam'ed so far and they are friends
with the company directors :(
As an alternative, the ISP offered access to their mailing-list server
(majordomo) which is completely configurable. We created a list and you
have to send email to an address to request to be put on it. Then
confirm by replying a "Are you sure you want to do this?" email. It's a
simple matter to provide a button on the web site to "sign me up for
electronic notification" that sends the initial email.

I set that up for free for them (not Majordomo, which I've used for
internal lists, but a simpler script - mailman?) and they are still
unwilling to use it to validate their previously un-validated list. I
gave up :(

--
------------------------------------------------------------------
- Stuart Millington ALL HTML e-mail rejected -
- mailto:ph***@ds v1.co.uk http://w3.z-add.co.uk/ -
begin OE is broken read MS knowledgebase Q265230

[Michael Vilain]

In article <1h************ *************** *****@4ax.com>,
Stuart Millington <ne**@dsv1.co.u k> wrote:

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:58:15 -0800, Michael Vilain
<vi****@spamcop .net> wrote:

The non-profit I'm working with wants to do this to it's members. I
said for them not to or they're loose their internet connection. I
checked with their ISP and unless the list is double opt-in validated,
service would terminated almost immediately. That was a wake-up call
for them.

One of work's customers was told this before they signed up to us.
Almost a year later, after spaming me (postmaster at their "ISP") they
have stated that they will ignore our T&C's and continue to use their
non-verified mailing list which they compiled in the years before
their contract with us. I would like to terminate their account now,
but I'm the only person they've spam'ed so far and they are friends
with the company directors :(

As an alternative, the ISP offered access to their mailing-list server
(majordomo) which is completely configurable. We created a list and you
have to send email to an address to request to be put on it. Then
confirm by replying a "Are you sure you want to do this?" email. It's a
simple matter to provide a button on the web site to "sign me up for
electronic notification" that sends the initial email.

I set that up for free for them (not Majordomo, which I've used for
internal lists, but a simpler script - mailman?) and they are still
unwilling to use it to validate their previously un-validated list. I
gave up :(

Just report the spammers to the Department of Homeland Security. Oops.
Wrong country. Never mind....

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...