FixOutlook.org: Best Use of Twitter to Date

FixOutlook.org, a service provided by Campaign Monitor / the Email Standards Project, is the best use of Twitter I’ve ever seen in my life. The site has only been up a few hours and already over 4,000 people have tweeted to let Microsoft know they’re disappointed.

A little background: Microsoft have confirmed they plan on using the Word rendering engine to display HTML emails in Outlook 2010.

This means for the next 5 or so years email designs will need tables for layout, have no real support for CSS and lots more ugly technical stuff. Want to see why it makes web designers cringe? Here’s the same email in Outlook 2000 & 2010:

Basically, the purpose of fixoutlook.org is to tell Microsoft (since they’ve apparently been living under a rock for the last 10 years) that the design community knows they’ve been living under a rock for the past 10 years. And maybe if they know that we know, they’ll come out and see the light.

It’s a long shot…but if there’s even a chance that someone at Microsoft will just realize that they’re really making themselves look bad, it’s worth the shot. And if they actually make the logical changes to Outlook 2010 that will allow for email styling to begin moving beyond tables etc., I’ll buy you all a PC with Windows 7 and Office 2010.

So. Even if you’re not a designer, do what you can to help the rest of us out. You’ll get your twitter avatar on the page, and you’ll get to see a really cool Twitter integration—all you have to do is visit the site and click the nice big orange button.