A short history of newsletters 

The reason why newsletters are able to withstand the onslaught of electronic messaging in modern society is this: newsletters offer unique information to a niche audience. 

Research shows that the first newsletter appeared in 1538, long before newspapers became the standard medium for news stories. However, the exact name of this newsletter continued to confound historians. The first known newsletter, however, was The Continuation of our Weekly News from Forrain Parts. Distributed in England in 1631, it featured happenings of locals overseas. In another part of the world –  in the US – the first newsletter to make its appearance in 1704 was Boston News-Letter, which eventually became a newspaper. In fact, in the 1700s, many newsletters flourished, and in the 1800s, most went the way of newspapers. 

By early 1900s, newsletters made a comeback. Apparently, businesses and industries needed specialized information badly and newsletters filled up that vacuum readily. The first to surface during this time, 1904 to be exact, was Babson's Report, an investment advisory newsletter. This was followed by the Kiplinger Letter in 1923, which up till now, continues to be the most widely-read business forecasting periodical in the world. 

In 1930, corporate newsletters emerged rapidly. Telecommunications Reports (a telecommunications industry newsletter) took the lead in 1934; this was followed by a series of business newsletters. All types of newsletters ranging from farming to fashion also became commonplace. Then in 1964, the first newsletter about newsletters, Newsletter on Newsletters, came out. 

In mid-1980, the advent of personal computers altered the concept of the workplace rapidly. Jargons such as telecommuting, job sharing, flexi-hours, and email became part of our vocabulary. It was during this time that Desktop Publishing – the use of PCs to produce print materials – became important buzzwords.

Newsletters met these changes with open arms. With desktop publishing, creating newsletters had never been easier – it was just a matter of using personal computers to design and print professional, quality typeset documents. 

In the 21^st century, newsletters appeared in another medium – online or web version. Known as electronic newsletters, these are usually distributed by email to people who voluntarily subscribed to them online. 

Initially, electronic newsletters contained hyperlinks to webpages – a method employed by website operators to draw surfers to their sites. By increasing their hits and pageviews, website operators could get revenue from banner ads put up by advertisers. 

However, it became clear that Internet users were more interested in getting information from their email accounts than from websites, so electronic newsletters are now full-fledged, content-rich publications. Advertisers are also more willing to sponsor such newsletters as they believe their ads are better-targeted and more effective than banner ads. 

By 1998, more than one million newsletters have been estimated to be published in the US. And that number doesn’t even include worldwide contribution!

References :

America's First Newspaper. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2002, from 
     http://earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/newspaper/index.html  

Newsletters: 400 years old…and still going strong! (n.d.). Retrieved November 19,  
     2002, from http://www.newslettersonly.com/newsletters_history.htm

Kitalong, Karla Saari. (1999). What is Desktop Publishing? Retrieved November 21, 
     2002, from Michigan Technological University Web site: http://www.hu.mtu.edu/
     ~kitalong/ Workshop/dtp.html 

Microsoft Corp. (n.d.). Periodicals. Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia. 
     Retrieved November 20, 2002, from http://encarta.msn.com/encnet
     /refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761567699

The Newsletter Company. (n.d.). A short history of the Newsletter. Retrieved 
     November 18, 2002,  from http://www.newslet.com.au/newspage5.html 

Copyright © 2003 Temasek Polytechnic
Information deemed correct as of Feb 2003