2 simple web 2.0 mashups / tools to make your Blogger site more interactive

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One of the dilemmas I had faced after publishing my blog on Blogger was how to integrate forms? A simple feedback or Contact Us form can go a long way in making your blog more user focused and interactive. I have found to simple methods to overcome this handicap. And yes you don’t need to be a coder to do this!

1.  Use formstack (http://www.formstack.com) to build professional looking online forms:

A simple but very effective solution is offered by www.formstack.com . Formstack allows you to design and build forms online and then allows you to embed forms on any blog or website. The simple drag and drop interface allows you to easily create an HTML form and add any type of form element (e.g. Text fields, email field, file upload). You can manage your field types, add sections, and rearrange your fields. The Process is very simple:

1. Sign up on Formstack (http://www.formstack.com) .
2. Build your forms using the form builder. The interface is intuitive. Use a few minute is get familiar and no harm experimenting.
3. Assign the email address where you want to send form data. This is important as this is where you will receive the feedbacks.
4. Select a suitable design template and Save your form.
5. Generate the code to embed on your Blog.  Save the code in a notepad file.

You are pretty much done with Formstack!  Now log in to your Blogger account to integrate the code on your Blogger website:

1. On your blogger add a page using the page widget. . If you don’t have the widget already you can do so my going to Design > Add Widget and Select Pages Widget. The page widget on Blogger allows you to add up to 10 static pages on Blogger.
2. After added the page widget go to Posting  > Edit Pages > Create a new page.
3.  Create a new page with the name “Contact Us” using pages widget
4. On the page editor click Edit HTML tab.
5. Paste the embed code generated from Formstack. And Voila! You have a working feedback form on Blogger!

Do a quick preview. You may have to do small adjustments to the form field lengths if there are any overlaps with your Blogger sidebar but that is simple. The Formstack form builder interface is so simple that you can quickly find your way to generate a visually pleasing feedback form. You can view a working example of a contact us form on my blog http://xrecnet.blogspot.com .

2.  Use feedback tool from getsatisfaction.com (http://www.getsatisfaction.com)

Get satisfaction is one of the most popular feedback tools on the Internet. Integrating this on blogger requires some careful template code embedding. The Integration process is simple though:

1. Sign up on getsatisfaction.com (http://www.getsatisfaction.com).
2. Generate the code for embedding.
3. There is not straight forward blogger integration widget here so you will have to go to your blogger template source to integrate the code.
4. Go to blogger Design  > Edit HTML
5. On template XML source code look for tag.
6. Paste the get satisfaction embed code just before the and save the template and you have the feedback widget on blogger!

You can view both these forms in action on my blog http://xrecnet.blogspot.com . Do not hesitate to send me your feedback! Just use the form at http://xrecnet.blogspot.com/p/contact-us.html !