Best way to set up mail list on user site?

[billygoatkaraoke]

Hi

I have a user registration based website and desktop app in beta testing. I only have a small number of users, but am beginning to plan my email list practice to cater for a larger list.

I have a couple of questions if anyone experienced can help out:

1. do user registration sites with a reasonable sized member base typically use services like Get Response, or do they somehow use an internal system?

2. at the moment I'm planning the code that will let users change their details, such as their email, and it occured to me that if I did eventually use an email service as mentioned above, how does such a service keep track of an action such as a user deciding changing their email address on your website (using php and mysql)?

Thanks for your time and help guys.

Shaun

[egami]

First things first.

1. I would never ever use an outside company to keep track of my users, or any of their information, ever.
- This is how spam is created
- This is how users get their identities stolen.

2. It's relatively simple to create your own system and mailer to acheive your goal, and there really isn't a best way to do it, but there are lots of good ways to accomplish this. Your best bet is to check out some of the O'Reilly books on PHP & MySQL. They have authentication examples and show you how to build your own CMS, and other various projects.

[billygoatkaraoke]

Thanks Egami - I will have to look into a better way than an external co