Gawker Media Weekly News Updates

Gawker Media, the company that runs some of the best-known blogs ever, last week started to offer weekly updates of the top 5 stories via FeedBlitz. You can subscribe to Gawker's weekly newsletters from any page on a Gawker site using the form at the end of the contacts section in the left hand column. Now they're up & running, newsletter management and delivery is completely automated, giving each site's fans another way to increase their engagement with their favorite online media resource.

Each Gawker site extensively of customizes the newsletter and subscriber pages, to parallel their parent web sites. All this is achieved using FeedBlitz standard templates (although, to be fair, we added some features to accommodate Gawker's needs, but these capabilities are now available to everyone; more in a later post).

Click on the preview links below to see the current online version, and click the "subscribe" links to see how the subscription forms are laid out with each sites branding. Might as well subscribe, while you're there :-) You can click through to the main site from the logo at the top of any of these pages. (N.B. If you're not familiar with Gawker sites, be aware that they are well written but often irreverent, somewhat profane, sometimes politically incorrect and frequently deal with topics you might not want to discuss with your mother. Which is why they're so popular, of course, but don't say you weren't warned...).

• Consumerist Top Stories of the Week - Shoppers bite back - Subscribe
• Deadspin Top Stories of the Week - Sports news without access, favor, or discretion - Subscribe
• Defamer Top Stories of the Week - Defamer, the L.A. Gossip Rag - Subscribe
• Gawker Top Stories of the Week - Media gossip and pop culture round the clock - Subscribe
• Gizmodo Top Stories of the Week - Gizmodo, the gadget guide. So much in love with shiny new toys, it's unnatural - Subscribe
• Gridskipper Top Stories of the Week - The urban travel guide - Subscribe
• Idolator Top Stories of the Week - All about the music... If only it were - Subscribe
• io9 Top Stories of the Week - Strung out on science fiction - Subscribe
• Jalopnik Top Stories of the Week - Obsessed with the cult of cars - Subscribe
• Jezebel Top Stories of the Week - Celebrity, sex, fashion. Without airbrushing - Subscribe
• Kotaku Top Stories of the Week - Gossip, news and leaks for obsessive gamers - Subscribe
• Lifehacker Top Stories of the Week - Tech tricks, tips and downloads for getting things done - Subscribe
• Valleywag Top Stories of the Week - Silicon Valley's Tech Gossip Rag - Subscribe
• Wonkette Top Stories of the Week - The DC Gossip - Subscribe

My main point is this. Look at the art of the possible that these newsletters show can be built with FeedBlitz, and consider: Is your brand - personal, professional, corporate - being carried through to your email conversations like these? And, seeing these newsletters, do you think you could do more to reinforce your identity?

All is achieved with the FeedBlitz template capabilities, accessed from the "Graphic Design" section of your Newsletter Center. If you are currently using the FeedBlitz default layout (friendly orange logo in the upper left), take a look. You can customize subject lines, from names and addresses, and (as these Gawker titles show) almost everything about the look and feel of your HTML newsletters and subscriber landing pages. All publishers can customize their template; you don't have to be a premium (paying) publisher to do this.

I hope that we've inspired you to revisit your emails look and feel. Tomorrow I'll write in more detail about how the templates were constructed and the new HTML newsletter template capbilities we now offer.

Need more convincing? Here are some more designs that have been built and used in FeedBlitz mailings.