YellowPages.com Mobile Ultimate Giveaway

According to the rules the giveaway ends 12/31/08 11:59pm. Went to enter for the last time and received this message:
"This promotion ended on December 31, 2008
Looks like you just missed it. We hope you had a chance to enter."

Yes, giveaways can pull their entries early, but usually it's a case of an error in programing the date.

It was very easy to enter, while it lasted.

LG Rumor is True

Flash based. Lousy entry form. Skips over male/female option buttons when tabbing. Can't always tell which field has the focus. Get to listen to the audio about the promotion during the whole process unless speakers are muted. The promotion does have a great prize.

The Barber Foods Sweepstakes and Philips "FREE Dental Care For Life" Sweepstakes

Both the The Barber Foods Sweepstakes and Philips "FREE Dental Care For Life" sweeps have been very easy to enter. Very straightforward, leaves a real good impression of the company.

AT&T Rewards for Referrals and Play it Safe

Play it Safe giveaway you have to answer their trivia questions to qualify for the instant win. Sometimes you have to listen to a sales pitch before the game loads, like in Rewards for Referrals.

Which brings to mind, I tried entering Play it Safe today and couldn't get past JavaScript disabled message, so I tried in IE and then found out I had already entered the sweeps for the day.

These are administered by ePrize, but you can tell AT&T has total control.

ePrize

ePrize is a company that administers sweeps and contests.

You can pretty much tell when you are entering a sweeps that ePrize not only administers, but has designed. Register once then you log in each day to enter, play the game. They usually have a pretty clean look and there is an option to not play the game (click here if you have Flash disabled) on the ones that offer instant wins. That leaves a good impression not only for ePrize, but the sponsoring companies.

ePrize also administers some "surveys", many times sponsoring the large prize. In this case you just take it for what it is, either you take the time to go through the "survey" or not.

The others, you can tell the company sponsoring the giveaway has the control and ePrize is just the administrator. In many of these, to have a chance to win the instant win, you have to play the game or answer trivia question.

Sites that limit entries by IP and the use of multiple identities

Sites that limit entries by IP address

I've mentioned this on a site I set up for friends and family, but it is something worth mentioning here as well.

It would seem that sites that limit entries by IP address would exclude those who use public computers. There are other ways of determining cheating or someone using an entering service. Besides, it's way to easy to work around at home. Just turn off your modem and turn it back on or in the case of dial-up, disconnect then reconnect, and viola, a new IP. Not very effective.

A little twist in IP tracking. Bravenet services are tracked by IP. At one time I entered about half a dozen different daily sweeps that used Bravenet and would receive a warning that I might be banned, it was seeing my entries as possible spam.

Another example, when I visit my Dad, I use his computer to enter some of my sweeps. Had he entered the same sweep limited to one entry per IP, it would have been a duplicate IP, even though it's two different households.

Using multiple identities

Using multiple identities is cheating, plain and simple. However, my roommate also enters a few sweeps, some, the same as me, as long as it's not a one per household. How is it determined that we are two different people? Are we disqualified because the entries originate from the same IP? That would lead to the same problem as above. Do they use cookies? Again, not very effective. Many people, like me, have their browser set to delete cookies when the browser is closed. If you have more than one person using the same computer and only have one user set up or you are using a public computer this wouldn't be the answer.

If someone has a mind to cheat, they will find a way to cheat.

ABC Family Channel 25 Days of Christmas and Lifetime's FaLaLaLa Sweepstakes

The ABC Family Channel 25 Days of Christmas has been a dream to enter. Don't have to log in to your account, just a nice simple form.

The same with Lifetime's FaLaLaLa Sweepstakes. Simple and straightforward.

Both leave a very good impression.

Rue 21

Rue 21 has been running a sweeps, you have to register at the site first. Registration form for the site sucks. Will not take RoboForm to register, really makes a dandy first impression for a store. At least you just have to register once.

You can use Robo to log in after registration.

Valpak Sweeps

If you enter online, you have to request your password each time if you delete cookies or don't allow persistent cookies. Stupid that they want you to keep a persistent cookie. Password should be taken care of server side, not client side.

You can usually enter by phone, but that is beside the point.

HP Magic Giveaway Winding Down

Well, the HP Magic Giveaway is coming to a close soon. My goodness, did the rules and method of entry vary.

Some of the sites required membership, which is no big deal, many sites offering giveaways require that. You also can't blame them for wanting to increase traffic. I have found a few sites that will prove useful in the future that I would not have thought of visiting prior to the giveaway. There are some I would not visit again.

I'm really glad for the blogs that after meeting their minimum requirements, which in most cases were easy to follow, used a random draw to choose the winner. A lot fairer way to all involved. I personally stayed away from the contest type and the ones wear the blog owners were looking for a "best" story. Many of us have plans to giveaway a portion of the prize, but just don't have the ability to write a WOW story. For many of us, giving to family and friends is more important than to give to an organization, which seemed to be what a few of the sites preferred (many of the ones looking for the WOW entry). I do believe that the majority of us that entered have intentions of sharing, one way or the other. Question. How do you make I want to give (these items) to my dad just because I love him, he would have fun with them and it would give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside, sound exciting?

I am curious about a couple of things, on most of the sites, it was said the prize was supposed to be to one winner, but there were three of the blogs that split up the prizes and ran the giveaway as a contest. Two blogs (one for sure) dropped out of the competition. I wonder if HP will find a way to distribute those prizes.

Congratulations to those who have won and the best of luck to all of us for the final draws. Thank you to the blogs hosting the giveaway, they had a lot of extra work on their hands.

ABC Water Cooler Moments

ABC's Water Cooler Moments is another example of a lousy entry system. Both the area of the log in button and the log in area are Flash. You have to log in in to your account, which is no big deal, but after pressing the button to take you to the log in form, you have to scroll to the top of the page. When the log in form shows up, it looks like it has focus in the user name field, but if you try to type your user name in, nothing appears. You have to click in it first to give it focus. After logging in, you have to scroll down again to see the confirmation. I should be able to use RoboForm (it has all my log in data) to login, but no way.

GE Appliances and GE Lighting

Both GE Appliances and GE Lighting make entering their sweeps very easy, fast loading site, nice simple forms. GE Appliances has a game, but there is a direct link to bypass the game and enter the sweeps only. The sites in general have a nice clean look and load fast. Leaves a good impression.

Loser?

This ties in with my previous post about being a good sport as it does have to do with attitude.

When I have found I have not won something, in my case, a giveaway of any sort, I figure that I didn't win this one, maybe next time. My day will come. (Especially for the big one). That doesn't mean that I might not be a bit disappointed at times, I just move on.

It seems to me that the ones who consider themselves a loser make excuses, they whine and complain...the same behavior as a bad sport.

What's your attitude?

Good sport?

Checking out a site for the winner of a giveaway this morning reminded me of something. There were a couple of posts congratulating the winner, and I believe like me, even though they would have loved to have won and may have been personally a bit disappointed, their congratulatory posts were sincere. I don't often post a congratulatory note, but I do find myself congratulating someone with a nod (a symbolic tip of the hat, hats off to you type of thing) and a silent congratulations.

There was one post however that caught me off guard. He whined and complained about not being the winner. It's nothing new really, we've all seen that before, in anything that is competitive, but that kind of behavior sucks. Personally, after seeing his post I'm glad that this person didn't win.

Are you a good sport, or are you one who whines and complains about not winning?

Winners Lists

It would really be nice, especially for the larger sweeps, the Dream Come True series, Reader's Digest and Hearst Magazine's Dare to Dream, as examples, to either publish a winners list online, or allow you to email a request for an email version of the list. Think of the postage and labor it would save.

Opt out buttons under submit button

Don't you just hate having the opt out fields under the submit button? Entry forms for US Weekly and Rolling Stone Dream Come True Sweepstakes are examples, but they surely aren't the only offenders.

Palm's CLAUS Santa's Gone Centro

A fine example of a badly designed form (whether a sweeps entry form or not). You can tab through the fields, but you have to be careful. You can tab to the first field eventually, next tab takes you to the third field, three tabs later you're on the fourth field and two tabs after that, you're at the second field. The form is designed in Flash.

If you use your mouse to enter the first field, then you either have to select and delete the existing text or backspace it away.

MasterCard Overjoy of Giving Sweepstakes

Lots of problems with this site. You can log in for your daily entry fine. However the instant win portion is very badly programmed. You're allowed to play 10 times a day. The CPU usage while playing the game is outrageous and the performance degrades with each game played. At about the sixth game, for most of us, you receive a message that there is a problem with the script in Flash running slowly and if you continue, it might effect your computer. A lot of us have learned so close the window after 5 (or less) games and then go back to finish the rest. Others have just stopped playing completely out of frustration.

Those who have contacted customer support have not received any real support. They've almost always been told it's their computer or settings. Too many of us have a problem to be that. For me, this not only happens me on my computer, but on my dad's when I went to visit him.

Shouldn't a company that deals with banking have a game that works smoothly? From others comments, their customer support for this issue sucks. Personally, I never even received a reply.

Woman's Day Entry Forms Big Disappointment

I'm really disappointed in the change Woman's Day has made on their sweepstakes entry forms. Now, the state field on the form is through mouseover, no other way to choose the state. You should be able just to tab through a form and use your keyboard, if desired. You shouldn't have to use a mouse to enter a sweeps.

Caffeine administered sweeps

Entry forms are the same, still entirely Flash and still can not tab to the submit button. I addition, all I had to do to enter the new round of sweeps was enter my email address and password. The databases were never emptied from the last round of sweeps. Wouldn't be so bad except there is no way to change any of the information from the original registration if needed.

Cheer Year of Bright

My roommate enters using the JavaScript version, I enter using the non JavaScript version. A big praise to Cheer for providing the alternate entry.