Greyhawk's Meanderings

1 - With all the blogging sites that are out there and all the new IBM wiki's coming online is there a need for this type of newsletter/email? Does it provide any information that you can't get anywhere else? If the answer is yes then why doesn't someone start a new newsletter/email devoted strictly to Domino and related products without all the extra bull. Maybe get some sponsorship from IBM? This might be a good way to win over some lost Lotus shops - getting the word out.

2 - [quote]You really have to wonder what the heck their sales & editor staff were thinking.[/quote] Acutally, I did wonder, so I sent the editor an e-mail. I included a link to this blog entry. I am looking forward to his response.

3 - Not that I actually want to defend these guys, but it's obvious that they're running the ad because they're being paid to do so, which means that Unify is out-bidding other potential advertisers. That, plus the demise of Advisor and various other occurrences over the past few years, begs the question: is there such a shortage of advertisers willing to pay to promote products and services to the Notes/Domino community? And if so, why?

4 - Good luck un-subscribing. I did that months ago, and I get all kinds of crap from the techtarget people (or whoever it is who owns searchdomino now). I am now on list after list after list. You can un-subscribe to each list, that works, but you just end up on another. It's like Whack-A-Mole.

5 - It was today that I really wished I had a blog. I received the same email and wanted to vent my displeasure with the lack of professionalism on the part of SearchDomino. I too unsubscribed, as I felt it was the only way to prove to the editors that this kind of rhetoric will not be tolerated

Ed, if you hear a reasonable reply will you please let us know.

6 - They have been working on me to invest in an email campaign for our Notes products via their opt-in list. I've been putting it off monthly because I'm not yet sure sure what the best timing will be. Their message on this one has made up my mind that it is never.

7 - This is also the third time they have sent this mailing out in the last 30 days... enough already!

8 - I had to check to make sure it was not April 1st. I am dumping SearchDomino also.

9 -
This is the second one I received as well. When I got the first one, I sent them back a memo indicating my displeasure. I agree, I'm leaving them as well, it's obvious they left us....

10 - @Ben,
If they keep spamming me, I'll just delete the e-mail address i registered with.

11 - Just went to the Unify website all of their customer stories are of clients migrating Notes to a Java platform (rather than MS) - interesting.

12 - I unsubscribed long ago - they simply have no content I've seen worth reading in longer than I can remember.

13 - I sent an e-mail like Jamie did. I very much doubt that I will get a response, even though it was nicely worded.

14 - Hello, SearchDomino.com community.

We have received several emails from you over the past couple of weeks with concerns about a sales campaign that has been running on the site and we’ve observed the discussions in the Domino blogosphere. Many of you have criticized the site for allowing this advertisement to appear on SearchDomino.com.

As Executive Editor of SearchDomino.com, I wholeheartedly agree that Lotus Notes Domino is a “modern” platform and I hope you will be happy to know that, at my request, our sales and marketing team has modified the offensive wording in the ad campaign to be more respectful to our Notes/Domino members. SearchDomino.com will no longer use this or any other vendor’s negative characterization of Notes/Domino in sponsorship initiatives on our site.

To be clear, as the site editors, Matt Gervais and I have minimal involvement in the sales and marketing campaigns on the site and we care immensely about what our readers need and want from SearchDomino.com. We work hard to make sure we are delivering independent editorial content that helps you do your jobs. By definition, this means that we will from time to time provide information on topics that are not absolutely aligned with the IBM Lotus corporation -- topics of interest to some of our members, such as tools to migrate off Domino to other platforms.

We hope you continue to give us the opportunity to provide you with helpful Notes/Domino technical information, and we apologize for the disruption and frustration this issue has caused for many of you.

Please continue to let us know your concerns and keep us up to date on other issues we can develop for the site. We always appreciate your feedback.

Sincerely,
Christine Herbert

15 - I bailed on them about two months ago, for the same reason. And I told them so.

16 - I was a little surprised, so I downloaded the 'white paper'. What a load of cr@p.

I looked at the list on page 8 and thought - yep Domino can do everyone of those, except the first one to C#

Business Logic exposed as webservice - domino can do that.
Lotus Notes flat files migrated to a RDBMS - DB2
The Lotus UI migrated to AJAX - Ext.Nd, Dojo etc
Security and Controls ported to a Directory - maybe not AD, but soon LDAP

Legacy architecture indeed !

I haven't bailed on them...yet

17 - At first I thought it was just a company pretending to be searchdomino, but you are right, it's the real thing.

Unsubscribed as well

18 - Ditto - enough is enough. I've unsubscribed.

19 - "and we care immensely about what our readers need and want from SearchDomino.com. "

From the general reaction from lotus users, the only thing you need to work on to keep your "readers" happy is speeding up the unsubscribe process.

Since I've only been a subscriber for a few months, I never had a chance to see it when it was a respected site/newsletter, but I must say this is the first time I've felt better after unsubscribing from something, like I was doing a spring cleaning of some sorts.

20 - Grey, just an update, I still haven't heard back from SearchDomino. Perhaps the editor is on vacation (it -is- that time of year). I'll give it a couple more days, then I probably will blog a similar "unsubscribe" meme.

@Rich, publishing is tough right now. But it's a good question -- how does Lotusphere's sponsorships and showcase sell 80%+ of the options within days or weeks of being available...while seeing other potential marketing venues fail. I wish I had the magic answer on that.

21 - I'm out also.

22 - I have been using searchDomino for years and have written code samples for them from time to time. when I got my first e-mail on how to leave Notes. I also unsubscribed. It is very insulting for them to send out such articles to Lotus Notes developer and admins.
Especially when microsoft is such a weaker platiform....

23 - Come on guys, where's the love? It is Valentines day after all. </TongueInCheek>

I too got tired of this junk and unsubcribed.
You really have to wonder what the heck their sales & editor staff were thinking.

24 - As a member of the SearchDomino "Hall of Fame", it's saddened me to see the direction their tone has taken of late. But you know what they say: "once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny".

@Todd - if you're looking to start a blog, check out BleedYellow.com...