In the last week or two there’s been a number of posts dealing with both the practical sides of email design, and the effectiveness of doing it right – as well as some of the considerations of branding.

Check out the following for some wisdom, advice, and thoughts:

• Designing for email? It’s just web design from the 90′s!
• Great Design Doesn’t Always Follow The Rules
• Brand Recognition and Design
• Let Data Drive Your Email Design
• The Ultimate Testament to Good Branding
• Design vs. Content

A piece of big news this week that doesn’t seem to have been given as much attention as it probably deserves, but will no doubt become more and more important in the near future, is that MySpace will now be giving out free email addresses @myspace.com. The reason it’s big news? Because MySpace are instantly now one of the top 5 email providers, right up there with Hotmail, Google, et al (not that many people will be using their accounts, yet). Look out for more about this soon.