What is the best way to alert members of a new topic?

I have been trying to figure out how to alert members when a new topic is started. It appears this cannot be done through email by forumotion (re: SOLVED Email pr new topic?). Has anyone stumbled upon an elegant way to do this? Members get email alerts when they get private messages - I guess I could send a pm to all 50 members of our forum whenever a new topic appeared. That would clog my message boxes pretty quick and I’m not sure if group mailings are possible.

What have you done to let your members know there’s a new topic?

Yes. To send a mass pm you need to add every single user to a group.
To do this go to your group thing in the admin panel and create a new group, hidden or visible doesn't matter. Once you've done that there will be a little box(circle) that you have to check for the group to auto subscribe. Conveniently this is called the auto subscribe field. Make sure the text field that asks you for the post count is set to 0. Then, it will automatically add new users.

Regardless of all that, I don't think there is an elegant way to do this unless you just put a big banner on your forum to attract the members. Some people like mass pm's but most don't.

Some people don't even check their email until they register for something so it's not like it's that effective.

OK figured out how to do the mass p.m. Thanks so much.

I do wish there was a better way of doing this.