ASP in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Chapter 15. Collaboration Data Objects for Windows NT Server

The ability for the server to send messages to clients and vice versa is an increasingly important aspect of many web sites. Using messaging back and forth between web server and client, you can alert the webmaster of issues with the site or send webmasters suggestions and comments. More important than either of those, however, is the ability to send notices and reminders to your users, turning infrequent visitors into subscribers.

"Subscribers" are the most important facets of any web site. With a list of people (or even a count of those people) who have subscribed to your web site (to be notified of updates or changes, for example), you have a concrete, quantifiable estimate of your site's average users.

In the past, such messaging required that the client machine activate a mail program and send the webmaster email. The webmaster would receive this email and, in turn, add the sender to her site's mailing list. As technology for web sites evolved, webmasters were able to send and receive mail from within server-only applications (through web forms, for example), and separate email functionality was not required. The web applications used mail behind the scenes. Such web applications were usually CGI applications and were written in lower-level languages. These applications are simple and work well. However, for the work that goes into writing them, they sometimes lack flexibility. With the advent of Collaboration Data ...