Email based Contest....??????????

[tanmay_79]

Hello Guys,

Here's what i wana do.

Want to start a contest with four to five questions daily which registered users can play for, But i dont want them to visit my site everyday,log in and then play for contest.

Instead i would like to mail them once they have registered with my site, a mail containing all the questions with a submit button , which would send the reply back to the database on my site right from their inbox. All this but without the user having to visit my website at all.........

Is it possible.............If yes please tell me how to go about it or any links or resources would be of great help.

Thanks .
Tanmay.

[wowewo]

It's not *totally* possible. Yes you can send a html e-mail to the contestants, but not everyone has the mime type in their e-mail program to view html, like old AOL.

Also you will obviously need the script that writes tot he database on your server. so assuming everyone of your customers can view html e-mail you will have to write it so it submits the form to your web site.

This method may leave holes, as unless there is some kind o verification method anyone, and I mean ANYONE, can submit multiple responses. I'd suggest some kinda of username and password verification to be entered with the html form in the em0-mail for accurate survey results.

There is also one other method that can be used. It's less attractive but more global. Send the e-mail in plan text with KEY text imbedded in the page body. Now ask the contestent to reply to your e-mail and have a special e-mail address for this reception. Make a script that will read the e-mail for the KEYs you imbedded and save the info to a database.

If you need help I can help you in detail. My first suggestion, I could probably code a skeleton in a week. wowewo@wowewo.net

[tanmay_79]

HI wowewo,

Thanks for the reply,

Ok now how do i find out whether the email service supports that MIME type? I am from india and most of the people use web based email like Hotmail, yahoo ,rediffmail, indiatimes etc.

Also thanks a lot for offering help, I would be highly obliged if u could. But what scripting lang u would be using. I prefer ASP as my backend would be either Access or SQL 2K.


Waiting for ur reply.....

Thanks.
Tanmay.

[wowewo]

There is a bit of code that can be imbedded within the e-mail message. Then you basically send two messages. After it determines which mime type the e-mail program is running it will display the proper message to them.

Sounds difficult but it's not if you know what your doing.