Are you wondering, "Can I offer HTML email on my own site?" Yes, you can. But before taking the plunge, beware of the challenges of any email endeavor: list management, bounced mail, and angry subscribers. And if you think designing for multiple browsers is fun, you will love HTML email agents that ignore your tags. Let's spend a moment dwelling on the technology's limitations.
The current specifications for HTML email do not support frames, page anchors, or custom backgrounds. You will need to use absolute links, since the user will view your page within a foreign domain. (Relative links can be converted to absolute links using a simple search-and-replace.)
The <base> tag will work in some environments, but Hotmail seems to ignore <base>. Also, some mail agents skip the bgcolor attribute in the <body> tag. One trick is to specify bgcolor in a <td> (table cell) and put your whole page within the one-cell table.
Don't forget the folks who accidentally receive your HTML email through a standard ASCII-text mail agent. If you're not careful, your audience will be looking at all your mark-up mess (the raw links might work, but the page won't look pretty). For this crowd, insert a comment tag - so it won't appear when it shouldn't - with some friendly unsubscribe instructions. In my opinion, friendly unsubscribe instructions should be included as a basic courtesy on any email sent to a subscriber list.
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