Sent to you by Hemi via Google Reader:
What is it good for?
LetterPop is not a terribly sophisticated tool and the newsletters are mainly available through an online profile. However, it's a great way to quickly publish a few photos and text, for example to connect with family members during the holidays or for a birthday. Since a newsletter can contain several pages it may also work well for small businesses to introduce a series of new products. It may also serve as a handy tool for clubs to post a summary of past and upcoming activities.
How does it work?
To try it out you can jump right into a test project without having to sign up first. Click on the >Create tab and you'll begin the journey on a blank canvas. With this system you have to work based on a preset template. Fortunately, there is a great selection of 289 different templates and you can pick a different one for each page of your newsletter. Below is a screenshot of what that looks like.
Once you selected a template, you can begin to customize the empty text and image fields. The very easy to use, but basic, text editor is displayed below. To use your own images from Flickr or upload photos from your hard drive, you have to sign up. For the purpose of testing, LetterPop provides a few standard images.
When you decide to sign up you'll be able to save and manage your newsletters. Private newsletters can be distributed via eMail or manually with their custom URL, but they will not appear on your profile. The screenshot below shows all published newsletters. Drafts (not shown) are displayed to the left.
The small profile you can create, links to all your public newsletters. Below is a compressed screenshot of my profile. Check out the test newsletter to see what it's like.
Once you have published your first newsletter you can either share the link to your profile or the direct link to your newsletter or send the news out via the integrated mailing list. However, this list is limited to 25 contacts in the free plan. Before you distribute the mailing list you can send a preview to yourself.
Frankly, I would not use the mailing list option, it's not very fancy and you can do it much better on your own.
Overall, LetterPop is a very straight forward tool which anyone who dares to use a computer should be able to use. The great advantage is the way in which text and images can be combined creatively. I find it much better than standard eMails with a ton of photos attached. Plus it won't clog up inboxes.
Do you have an idea what it could be used for? Please share!
(By) Tina is a regular MUO author. In her offline life she's a PhD student interested in unraveling signaling events that determine cartilage and bone development.
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