For my own giveaways, I prefer to send out an e-mail to the winner. That way I know I have tried to contact the winner. I can put a time-limit on how long I’ll wait for a response and mailing address from the winner. The next step is to either send out the prize or pick another winner (if the first one doesn’t respond). Then I can move on to the next giveaway.
If I wait for the person to find their way back to my site, they may never realize they’ve won. Especially during a giveaway carnival, people enter multiple giveaways and it’s difficult to remember where you entered and for what prize. They may never find their way back to your site without a little help! If the winner doesn’t know they’ve won, that holds me up: I can’t mail out the prize or pick another winner because I don’t know if the winner has been notified or not.
Of course, you can always implement the rule that participants must check back at your site to see if they’ve won and that winners will have X number of days to e-mail you to claim their prize before you choose someone else. My opinion on this is that, if you’re holding the giveaway, you need to be responsible for following through and contacting your winners yourself.
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I found your blog through the giveaway site. She has a blogroll and you’re on it. I agree with what you’ve said 100%. My own daughter has been entering contests for a year now. She enters at least a few dozen per day. There is no way to remember on which date she would need to visit which site. We both check our spam folders daily just to be sure. I’m enjoying reading your blog
I wish people would do both. Occasionally I wonder if I’ve won and missed the email in my spam folder (which is overflowing). When I check back at the blog it’s frustrating to see that the contest is over but not know whose name was drawn.