A one-way list might be used for sending out news and minutia about the local pro football team. A newspaper can host lists for community groups, allowing their members to create an ongoing dialog online. Many newspaper online services invite community groups to take part in their Web sites, offering them self-publishing space within the newspaper site to give their memberships news of group events, etc. This is another way to step up community group involvement in your publication's online service. Lists, much more so than Web threaded discussions or Usenet newsgroups, create a deep sense of community among their members.
Mailing lists can help.
Don't forget, also, to consider the advertising opportunities inherent in lists. The reason I'm excited about Lyris is that it will take much of the drudge work out of administering my lists. Buckman says that a list administrator using Lyris will not have to do anything to insure that all the addresses in a list are functioning. Lists traditionally have been administered primarily by sending e-mail commands to the list software, but Lyris puts a Web interface on administration. If you haven't looked at mailing lists as a component of your publication's online service, the advancing state of the art makes now a good time to look into it.