Mailing lists differ from most other push technologies, such as AvantGo, in a couple of other important ways.

First, mailing lists can be set up to be either uni-directional or bi-directional in operation. Not only can information simply be pushed out to subscribers, but the subscribers themselves can also be allowed to post information to a mailing list. This posting operation simply involves sending a message to a special email address associated with the mailing list. Any information posted by an individual subscriber will then be pushed out to all other subscribers. This bi-directional capability can turn a mailing list from simple information delivery mechanism into a virtual communications forum for its subscribers.

Second, mailing lists don't require any special software to use them. They'll work with any device that supports email. If you want to participate in a mailing list with your Palm handheld, all you need is the standard built-in Mail program. If you've got a fancier email program that allows you to directly access the Internet through a modem or wireless connection, so much the better.

How can my enterprise use mailing lists?
Mailing lists can have many uses in the enterprise. Anytime there's a need to share information with a group of people, a mailing list can be used.

Uni-directional mailing lists can be used to pass along important information to employees from management. Examples of uni-directional mailing lists include daily enterprise news items, new product announcements, new human resource policies, etc. You can also use uni-directional mailing lists to distribute information to the customers of your enterprise.

Bi-directional mailing lists can be used as a way of getting employees to share information with each other. They can provide an electronic bulletin board service for employees to post requests for information or to share acquired knowledge with one another. Sales people can ask other sales people for contact information or share thoughts on how to most effectively sell an organization's new product or service. Technical staff members can ask questions of one another and share experiences in how particular problems were solved.

In the end, the use of mailing lists by an enterprise is limited only by its imagination!

An example mailing list message is displayed in Figure A.

FIGURE A

Here's an example of a mailing list message.

What does an enterprise need to do to set up a mailing list?
There are two primary ways of creating mailing lists: setting up a listserver program on one of your enterprise's internal computer systems or using an external service to host a mailing list. Many of the mailing list hosting services are free of charge.

Since a discussion of setting up listserver software on Windows 2000, NT, or UNIX systems is well beyond the scope of this article, let me simply say that it's not a big job for the typical enterprise IT staff. Available Listserver software is either in the public domain or quite inexpensive. It typically works in conjunction with a standard enterprise email system and scans incoming mail for email addressed to the mailing list. Any such email is then copied and distributed to all subscribers of the mailing list.