I always believe that curiosity is one of the core characteristics that one needs to cultivate if he/she wants to thrive in the digital medium, and thought I’d just point out a small case in point that I personally experienced 15minutes ago.
I was just clearing my emails, and this being a Sunday evening, I just happened to have a *little* more time on my hand and decided to do some simple analysis of one of the usual email marketing newsletter I receive rather than sending it straight to the thrash. Selecting the “Show Original” option on the right-click menu, i noticed a few email headers that I didn’t recognise
- List-Unsubscribe
- X-List-Unsubscribe
- X-Unsubscribe-Web
None of these email headers were those which I’m personally familiar with. A quick check with Google shows up the following interesting articles:
- http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/web1/list-best-practices.htm
- http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/web1/list-email-headers.htm
Apparently these headers are specified in RFC 2369
Going through the intro of this RFC, tells you that these headers are optional, but meant to extend the functionality of list managers and their respective functions.
Quite a bit of things that you learn in 10minutes of quick research, all because of the curiosity of examining the email message body. So now, I can learn more about what the latest technical implementations are, what other people think about email best practices, from their point of view, both technically, and from a messaging angle.
Always be curious. You’ll be surprised how much you’ll learn this way.