Rok: Let us look more in-depth in to refusing to use e-mail from a purely communicational viewpoint. How difficult was it to stop using e-mail, especially considering that nowadays e-mail is the preferred communicational tool for most of the business world? And, on the other hand, isn't one of the elements of guerrilla marketing doing all you can to come closer to your target audience? How can you do that if you stop using the communicational tool they are using and by trying to make them jump through hoops just to communicate with you?

John: To answer your question about how difficult it was to quit using email, let me say this:

Hi, my name is John Botscharow. I am an email addict. But I am on the road to recovery thanks to the Quikonnex community!

As far as email being the preferred system of business communication, I want to say two things:

1. Preferred does not mean the best or even better than ______ (fill in the blank)

2. Maybe it is preferred because we are all addicted to email and are either ignorant of that fact or in denial of our addiction.

See my series on email addiction for my thoughts on that.

As for your comment about guerrilla marketing, that is true with one proviso. Do everything you can to get close to your target as long as it is ethical. I no longer consider email marketing as all that ethical. Anything that is as pushy and dangerous (scam, viruses, trojans, etc.) as email marketing has become is not something I want to be part of. Sooner or later, the rest of the business world will catch on. I can wait, I'm patient.

To answer how can I do that and your comment about jumping through hoops, I want to ask you a question. Do you not think asking for an email address is NOT asking someone to jump through hoops?

I visit a business site and they ask me for my email address. Anyone with any brains does not do that unless they know who this business is. But there are a lot of very large businesses who do not even post a telephone dumber or a snail mail address on their site. No way are they getting any email address from me.

Another perspective on this is that there are more and more companies now who ask for or even require your email address so they can contact you. But they do not accept email from anyone. To contact them you have to use a form. To me that is good business practice because of the scam problem. That is why they are doing this and I apport that.

But to ask me to receive their email is hypocritical. If you will not accept email from your customers, then do not ask them to accept your marketing emails either.

The only exception to that is for a membership site like 3R Marketing. A one time membership verification email is necessary for security reasons and because server operating systems are built to to use sendmail of some sort, is acceptable. After that, the server may send an email only if it is spherically requested by the member and it is NOT a marketing message.

I quit a very reputable affiliate program that I had been with for a long time over this issue. If you want to send me email updates about your program, then you had better be willing to accept email from me, not make me jump through hoops every time I need to contact you. I am a business person too and my time is as valuable as yours!

I do not make you jump through any more hoops than this guy wanted me to jump through. Probably fewer. U have my QMTP (Quikonnex's private messenger send form on both my 3R Marketing page, with a link to it on every page and it appears on every page of the Daily. Plus you can add it to your bookmarks in any browser you want. One click and you are there. You can put your email address there, but unless it is really important, I do not reply via email and if you email me back from that reply, I more than likely will reply, depending on what your message is. But I will come down like a ton of bricks if you abuse that confidence.

Yes, I do have a business email address. I never said I did not. But I do not do email marketing and I do not give out that address unless absolutely necessary.

I have that email address not because of any positives about email. I do that out of necessity. I am waiting for the rest of you to catch up with us who use Q, especially since getting your own QMTP is free.

Yes, from one perspective we do make you jump through a few hoops to get QMTP, but no more than any legitimate business should do as well. We ask for your full contact information and we ask you that you get QuikView, our browser-based RSS reader. QMTP messages are RSS and you do want to read them.

Remember back to when you first got online. You bought a computer, probably Windows-based. That cam with at least Outlook Express if not Outlook. What did that cost you?

You had to get an ISP account. When you signed up with them, how many hoops did you have to jump through? How much information did they ask for? How much did that cost you?

Getting QMTP is not joining some affiliate program. It is getting a new communications tool like you did with getting started with email. We make you jump through much the same hoops for the same reasons your ISP did. Being an affiliate of Q is just a perk, one you can or cannot take advantage of - you choice.

I firmly believe that the day is coming when every legitimate business online will stop requiring email and that someone will design a server operating system that does not need email. Until that day, I make as few accommodations to email as necessary, but I do not do any form of email marketing!