We've always been big fans of the work of The Web Standards Project, tirelessly fighting for support from browser makers and encouraging web developers to jump on the standards train. Everything we do is fully standards compliant and we make every effort to keep our team up to date with industry best practises (and to innovate some of our own!), so it's no surprise that we're throwing the full weight of our support behind the new Email Standards Project. Launched in part by the fine folks at Freshview (makers of the awesome Campaign Monitor), their stated goal is:

The Email Standards Project works with email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email.

The fruits of their labour is already visible in things like the compliance reports for various email clients (Apple Mail [Excellent], Gmail [Poor], Outlook 2007 [Poor], and Windows Live Hotmail [Average] to name a few), and in their development of an email Acid Test to compliment The Web Standards Project web version. Standards make the world better for everyone, so if you work with email, read it, or send it (which should cover just about everyone who reads this blog), you should stop by their site and lend a hand.