LetterPop

Well, we’ve gotten some attention from bloggers and Digg.com the last couple of days and that has created a huge influx of new members. To all of you: Welcome to LetterPop! We’re glad you joined and we hope you stick around to help the service grow and become better than it is today.

As we’ve written before, we’d love for you to drop us a line about what you like and don’t like about the service; what you would like to see changed, added, or removed; or just to say “hey.” The best way to let us know what you think is by posting a public comment to one of our blog posts or, more privately, by using the “suggestion box” link at the top right of every page.

We are still working on adding a lot more templates and we’ll be releasing some new ones as soon as we can after New Year’s day (taking recovery time into account).

Sure, everyone is on Winter break now, but school (in most places in the US) will be back in session sooner than you think (and for some of you, sooner than you’d like!). If you’ve got news to share with family, teachers, or pupils, this new school-themed template should get you an A+.

Christmas is over, we had a great break, but we’re getting back into things here with a great new template. This one has an elegant front page that is heavy on pictures and light on text. We hope you like it.

Every member now has a personalized home page to replace the generic site home page when you are signed in. The new home page for members now shows the latest LetterPop! news from the blog, your most recently worked on newsletters, and your most recently uploaded images—all in one convenient spot.

2006 is almost over. It’s been a very good year to me and I hope it’s been great for you as well. To help remember it, a new “Year in Pictures” template is available that lets you showcase 16 of your favorite moments from 2006 all on one page. This template works a little differently than our others. Click the Add Page button to choose from one of seven different color schemes. Add the one you want and delete the first page (unless, of course, you like the color on the front page—I do).

So are you confused a little bit about what that “publish” button is on the Create Page between the email button and print button? The publish button is also found in your My Account Page under your My Newsletters tab.

One wife of a LetterPop! co-founder rolling her eyes exclaimed, “I don’t get it. What is the publish thing about?” (She wasn’t the only one who asked, so her husband is not picking on her.)

Well, here is the short of it. Right now, all of our beta users receive a LetterPop! account that includes a “profile page.” It looks like this, guynameddave. A profile page is a place where you can put a picture of yourself, write a little bit about yourself, link to your blog, and link to your published public newsletters.

Here’s how it works. You create an exceedingly creative newsletter (or announcement or mini-photo album or whatever) and save it. From either the Create Page or your My Newsletters Page, click on the “Publish Button”. Your newsletter is now published, i.e. you think it looks great and you want to do things with it. Now, if you want your beautiful creation to be visible to everyone who visits your profile page you need to click the “Make Public” link next to your newly published newsletter on your My Newsletters Page.

Why? And cannot you make this more intuitive? Good questions. Well maybe you want to use LetterPop! as a sort of mini-blog or website. Maybe you are a Real Estate Agent or High School Teacher and want to update people regularly in newsletter fashion. A LetterPop! profile page is the perfect solution! And, yes, we are working on smoothing out publishing public newsletters on your profile. For now, though, practice!

It must be template Monday because we’ve got another one for you! This fancy, floral template is just begging to become an invitation for your next event.

You can now change the font face and size in all text areas. Woo hoo! There are also a couple of new buttons that let you add and remove links to other websites (they look like little chain links). Just select the text you want to change and then choose a new font, size, color, or click the link button.

Another template is now available with a friendly, casual theme. This one features two extra-large photos on the front page with a few smaller areas for text.

Two new enhancements were added today. Newsletters now automatically save themselves every few minutes while you are working on them and also whenever you navigate away to another page. If you accidentally go to another page without saving, your modifications will not be lost. Just go to your newsletters page (in your account) and choose the newsletter you were working on to continue where you left off.

The second enhancement makes it even easier to sign up as a new member. Non-members (and members who are not logged in) can now save the trial newsletter they are working on. When they join (or sign in), the newsletter will be automatically added to their account. So, your friends and family can have fun playing without worrying about losing the newsletter they were working on before they opened a free account.