Web to eMail is a mechanism where a mailto link in an eMail, newsletter or on a web page can make an eMail request to a Web to eMail server to collect the URL and mail it to the requesting email address as an attachment. This means that any link of interest to the reader in a newsletter can be mailed to their email account for them to read when they wish. A free service is available by mailing a URL in the subject line to web2mail@web4w3.com. Using this service mailto links, links which initiate an email, can be made in newsletters as optional links to request web pages as eMails rather than clicking on the link and waiting for the webpage to load in a web browser.

These links are also very important for subscribers who only have eMail access; cases where web access is restricted or not part of the subscriber’s internet package. They are also an interesting option which can be coded, using html, within a newsletter, which acts a bit like an on request RSS feed, which delivers articles from inbuilt links to requesting subscribers mail addresses.

Case I

Organisations can build their own web to eMail servers. A simple web to eMail server can be developed using Outlook, collecting eMails received in a set format on a dedicated eMail address and VB.Net to processes all unread eMails at intervals of 60 seconds. A low cost control from ChilKat (http://www.chilkatsoft.com/downloads.asp) can be programmed to request the contents of the URL and deliver it to the subscriber as an attachment in an eMail. This takes a bit of programming, but can be set up in less than a day using this control that costs less than USD300