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Posted: 05 Dec 2008 01:06 PM PST

This is a guest post by Ben Barden of Top Ten Blog Tips, where every post contains a list of ten blogging tips.

As a blogger it’s very important that people can contact you privately. Many blogs use a contact form for this, and I highly recommend it. However, some blogs use a “mailto” link instead. When clicked, a “mailto” link creates a new message in your email software, instead of sending through a form on the blog.

I’m not a fan of these links - here are 10 reasons why.

1. It reveals your real email address.

Whether you display your email address on your site, or you put the email address in a mailto link - or both - making it visible is a bad idea. You’re probably going to receive spam anyway, but you stand to receive a lot more spam if your email address can be picked up by bots that search the web for email addresses.

2. Unpredictable results when clicking the link.

If you use Firefox and Gmail, you can get Firefox to open Gmail when you click a mailto link. But you can’t rely on all of your readers setting up Firefox in this way. Also, not everyone uses Firefox, and not everyone uses Gmail.

I’m sure there are options for other email services, but the default scenario is pretty embarrassing. Someone who uses a web-based email service clicks a mailto link, but they haven’t tweaked Firefox to open the link in Gmail. So it opens the default mail client on their computer, which they don’t even use. Bad move!

3. Crazy formatting or unnecessary “extras”.

HTML emails, stationery, signatures and attachments have their uses, but I can’t stand receiving emails with unnecessary bits and pieces like these. It’s just not necessary.

A contact form forces people to get to the point, to say what they want to say without all of the “look what I can do” bits and pieces. If you’re trying to do business with people, this kind of stuff looks really unprofessional, too… unless of course, the person you’re emailing likes them too!

4. Viruses.

Unless you allow HTML in your contact form, it’s a lot harder to get a virus through your contact form than in a direct email. To anyone who forwards emails with “funny” videos and other attachments - beware. Some of them may contain viruses.

If someone can get hold of your email address without having to wait for a reply to you, they might just add you to their address book “for future use”. Then perhaps they forget about you, but they open an attachment and get a virus, and bam - an email goes to everyone in their address book.

5. Return receipts.

Another issue with accepting “normal” emails and not using a contact form is the use of return receipts. I have met people who insist on using receipts for every email they send. Is it really necessary? (A clue: no.)

6. Blog maintenance.

Some bloggers include a “contact” link in some of their posts. If you link to a contact form, this is fine so long as you don’t move the contact form - I’m not sure why you would.

However, if you link directly to your email address from several of your posts, then your email changes - that’s potentially a lot of links you’ll have to go back and correct. What a pain!

7. Some information may be forgotten.

Let’s say you want to publish a few blog reviews and you invite people to send their URLs to you. With a mailto link, people may just send a message saying “please review their blog” and forget to include the URL. With a contact form, because you can have a field for the URL, you may find that people remember to include it. Then again, some people might forget it anyway.

8. Choosing the wrong email address.

If you have multiple mailto links for Sales, Advertising and so on, but each one goes to a different person, the sender might think “but I want this person”. So they check the links and choose the person they want. They may not be the right person to answer that query. A contact form makes life so much easier.

9. Some things shouldn’t really be an email at all.

A long time ago I ran a music reviews site. People would email reviews to me, and I would put them online (see, this really was a long time ago). It would’ve been easier to cut email out of the equation altogether, and post the information directly to the site - with approval, of course.

10. It can reduce the volume of “pointless” queries.

Although it should be easy to get hold of you, if it’s too easy, you may find that you get a lot of emails “just because”. That’s fine if you don’t get too many emails, but it’s going to be a problem if you’re looking to grow your blog. Make it easy to get in touch, but not so easy that someone can fire off a 5 second “quick query” email - only to follow it up 5 minutes later with “never mind, figured it out now”.

Do you use mailto links on your blog? Can you think of any other pros or cons?

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The Future Of Blogging - As They See It

Posted: 05 Dec 2008 06:02 AM PST

In this post Jeff Chandler takes a look at the future of blogging.

CrystalBall Every Wednesday, I publish a new interview on BloggerTalks.com and as part of the interview process, there is one particular question which is asked to each individual that I interview which is “What Is The Future Of Blogging“? Well, for this weeks installment on Problogger, I thought I would compile the answers I’ve received thus far. At the end of the article, feel free to contribute by leaving a comment explaining what you think the future of blogging will be.

Christina Warren:
Microblogging (Twitter, Friendfeed, Tumbler, et. al.) is already changing personal sites and blogs — I think that will continue. I also think that blogs will continue to become more interactive, more immediate and that video will continue to grow in importance. I think the hard part about video is that for anyone wanting to do anything other than the stare at the webcam in bad lighting YouTube confessional, there are skills and techniques that are necessary to its success.

Mobile blogging and mobile communication is also certainly going to continue to take off. The iPhone has played a huge role in that and Google's Android platform will help push that as well.

Steven Hodson:
I think blogging is definitely here to stay. Hell it hasn't even really hit the mainstream yet as far as readership so the marketplace is still to be developed. I also think that over the next few years we will see a real amalgamation of heritage media and new media - we can learn so much from each other if we'd just stop being so territorial. Yeah, I think the future for blogging is still very bright and I hopefully will still be doing for a very long time to come. I look forward to growing with it.

Kevin Muldoon:
I think blogging will be here with us in some shape or form for a long time. Over the next few years I believe the major growth will be in mobile blogging. Most smartphones are now coming with blogging type software pre-installed (eg. lifeblog) and most can use Twitter and other microblogging software too. Just a few months ago Wordpress released a version for the iphone so that people could blog on the move.

Over the next few years I'm sure that we will see more and more blogs being launched as there are still many countries where Internet usage is increasing by a large amount every year.

David Peralty:
I am not sure. Any guess would be pulling at straws. I see it continuing to take over more attention from mainstream media, enough so that those businesses continue to dump more money into the space to drag people back to their brands, but other than that, it really depends on the advancement of technology, and the sociological issues and changes.

John Kolbert:
The future of blogging looks very bright. I believe that blogging to going to play a significantly bigger and better role in how the average person gets their daily information. Even major news sources understand the necessity of blogging (just look at CNN's news blogs) and people reported news (iReport.com, anyone?). It is important to remember, though, that not everyone will be a big time, money making blogger. Blogging has basically no barriers to entry, economically meaning that there are lots of bloggers and low profit margins overall. But it's not, and shouldn't be, all about the money. Blogging is a healthy, enjoyable, lifestyle or hobby that's here to stay.

Jonathan Bailey:
I definitely see the future of blogging as being more multi-media. I know I personally have been dipping my toes more in audio and video over the past year and plan to increase those efforts after the beginning of the year in a major way. This is partly due to the YouTube revolution but, more importantly, due to the declining barriers of entry into these media, especially in terms of skill required.

Other than that, the future of blogging is going to be about growth in all directions. We're going to see more of the ridiculous and silly, but also more of the serious. More and more great minds are going to get involved with blogging and more and more of the dialog about our society is going to take place on the Web, away from TV and newspapers.

I'm not one that thinks mainstream media is doomed, it will always have a place, but its role as an influencer of policy and of people will wane some as it moves more toward being a straightforward news source.

The real question though is will this idea of blogging as a profession become more common and that is a tough one. Most pro bloggers, like myself, do so indirectly from their activities, the advertising revenue simply is not there for 99% of bloggers unless you do something unethical.

I see nothing wrong with blogging as an amateur activity and most great bloggers are amateurs, but as with anything the more time and energy one can afford to put into their work, the better the product and, at some point, that is going to require funding.

If blogger business models can be hammered out, the sky is literally the limit for what blogging can do.

Lee Robertson:
The future of blogging is to help in creating community. To connect with those around us, whether they live across town or across the world. Blogging is about telling stories, whether the stories are for your business, your hobby or your family. Blogging makes it easy to tell those stories and connect with the people that want to hear them. I might be a bit of an idealist that sharing information can help us actually get to know each other and understand each other better. I have to wonder if the future for blogging is perhaps to take a step back from the professional blogging that we are seeing so much of and becoming a little more personal again.

Conclusion:

Magic 8 Ball I have to admit, when I ask this question to each person I interview, the first response I get is similar to ‘WTF’. It’s a tough question to answer considering the mold of blogging can change rapidly into something none of us see coming

You’ve read their responses, now it’s time for you to give us your thoughts as to what you think the future of blogging will be. As far as I’m concerned, there can be no wrong answer as we won’t know until after the fact. At that point, hindsight becomes 20/20.