I have an idea for an online contest for my site. Are there programs out there that can be installed on a website to create a contest allowing you to store the entries, add email addresses to mailing list, randomly choose a winner, and automatically send out emails? Or, would I have to pay someone to design such a program? Any help or ideas would be appreciated.
Sounds like a basic newsletter script would do just fine. For my sites, I just had everyone send an email out and then I had a random number generator pick the winner. Then I had everyones email stored. Im sure some type of survey software would work as well. Good luck.
I purchased TAFPro. My research was quite extensive, comparing free scripts, paid scripts and monthly paid online services. TAFPro is a tell-a-friend script you install on you web host's server and does everything you mentioned. It also keeps track of stats so contestants can check to see their current position in the contest. It does a lot more than that, so check it out for yourself. The URL is: http://www.tafpro.com/ I'm no techie but I installed it within 15 minutes on my web host's server. Hope that helps.