Category Archives: E-Mail & Messaging

Change.org: Power to the People

After receiving more than 165,000 emails from disgruntled customers in one day, Verizon rescinded its $2.00 a-month-fee to customers who paid their bills online or by phone. Similarly, Bank of America abandoned its $5 a-month-fee for debit cardholders after being inundated by emails from angry customers.

How did these consumer victories happen? In large part the credit goes to Change.org, a website that makes it easy to mobilize people to fight corporate greed or city hall.

Also posted in Social Networking
Tags:
, , , , , , ,

Add a comment

6 Time-Saving Tips for Email

Do you have days where it seems that all you’ve done is answer email? Maybe you followed my advice on email (Ten Tools for Pruning Your Inbox, Email’s Five Golden Rules) and it still seems to eat up all your time.

Don’t despair. Here are seven time-saving tips to add to your email-busting toolkit.

1 Comment

How to Clean Out Your Email Inbox in Under 5 Minutes–and Why You Should

If you are an email hoarder, store all of your old messages in your inbox, it’s just a matter of time before your inbox implodes, wiping out everything. The simple solution is archiving old mail.

2 Comments

8 Tips for Using Email Safely

Over50s seem to worry a lot about privacy breaches on Facebook. But the latest announcement from EpsilonData Management that its email system was hacked makes me wonder if I should worry more about the safety of email and less about Facebook. Epsilon’s breach means spammers and con artists may have access to tens of millions of email addresses.

What can you do to safeguard your email? Here are 8 tips for using email safely.

Also posted in Safety & Privacy 4 Comments

Need Help: Who Ya Gonna Call? TeachParentsTech

Do you use your kids or grandkids as your Help Desk? Google staffers were so frequently presented with how-to tech list when they visited their parent, they created a website TeachParentsTech.org. It provides under two-minute videos to explain common computer and web tasks.

Also posted in eLearning, Video 2 Comments

How Do Boomers and Seniors Use the Internet?

If you’re like most over50s, you are a heavy user of e-mail, search engines and government websites. You go to the web to get news, health and travel information, and to shop. If you use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, it’s likely you’ve signed up in the past year, part of the rising tide of networked boomers and seniors. Social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older nearly doubled from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010. Find out what recent research by Pew Internet and American Life Project and AARP say about how over50s use the Internet.

Also posted in Research, Social Networking, Uncategorized 7 Comments

E-Mail’s Five Golden Rules

Managing your e-mail would be easier if your friends and colleagues followed these five simple e-mail rules.

1 Comment

In Praise of the Lowly “Listserv”

Despite the growth of newer social media platforms such as Facebook and Linkedin, e-mail discussion groups continue to thrive. That’s because they are simple to set up and join. And they use a tool you know and love–e-mail.

Also posted in Social Networking Add a comment

Ten Tools for Pruning Your Inbox

E-mail is like kudzu—turn your back and it takes over. Both kudzu and e-mail require constant maintenance and ruthless pruning with sharp tools. Here are some strategies I’ve adopted to prune my e-mail.

4 Comments

Half-Price Ticket Service Gets a Goldstar

The online ticket broker, Goldstar, offers half-price ticket to event in 13 cities. Subscribe to a weekly e-mail customized by ZIP code for a listing of all discounted events.

Also posted in E-Commerce, Fun!, Saving Money
Tags:
, ,

2 Comments

I Twitter, Therefore I Am

Twitter posts (called tweets) answer this question: What are you doing? Twitter limits answers to 140 characters. Twitter’s power is that it is instant and mobile. You can send and receive a tweet on just about any device—your computer or cellphone.

Also posted in Blogging, Social Networking
Tags:
, ,

2 Comments

Google Alerts: Get Updates on Any Topic

Google Alerts sent via e-mail are a great way to stay current on any topic.

Also posted in Research, Video
Tags:
, , ,

2 Comments

     
     
     

    Why WebOver50?

    You'd like to learn more about social networking, blogs, and other web tools. But who's got the time, and where do you start?

    That's where we come in. We'll sort through the jungle of web apps and tell you what's WebOver50-friendly and fun. We'll tell you how to web-surf safely. And we'll explain things in plain English--no jargon or web speak.

    It's easy to subscribe!
    Just enter your e-mail address in the subscribe field. You'll get new posts delivered to your inbox.