Get free stuff using Google Blog Search

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google

Get free stuff using Google Blog Search

by Brad Linder Mar 1st 2007

I discovered something interesting when I was in college. If you want to win free tickets to a concert, it's not much use trying to be the 95th caller to the local Morning Zoo-style radio station. Just be the first or second caller to the local college radio station.

In fact, once I remember the deejay saying that the third caller would get free concert tickets. I walked over the phone, picked it up and dialed. I was the first caller. So I hung up, waited a moment, dialed again, and I was the third caller.

What does this have to do with Google Blog Search? Well, with radio stations, there are big well-known web sites with huge audiences, and there are small college stations. On the web, there are A-list blogs and web sites that have thousands or entries every time they give away prizes as part of a contest. And then there are small blogs trying to build traffic for their sites.

The other day I entered "contest" into Google Blog Search, and thousands of results popped up. And most of them were for legitimate contests being held by blogs. They were giving away everything from iPod Shuffles to concert tickets to a Nintendo DS.

Some of the contests were easy. Leave a comment on the post and a random winner will be chosen. Others are more complicated, requiring you to correctly identify people or gadgets in photos. And some are just downright self-promotional such as "write a review of this blog on your website, linking to at least two blog entries on my site." But all of them look a lot easier to win than your state lottery.

Tags: contest, contests, google blog search, GoogleBlogSearch

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jaymoon said 9:30PM on 3-01-2007

Actually at the radio stations I work at, the DJs simply wait a couple minutes for the "x caller".

It's funny to hear them in the room...
"Sorry, you're caller number 1"
"Sorry, you're caller number 5"
"Caller number 7! You're the winner!"

If nobody calls for 5 minutes, whoever calls next is the winner. And if nobody calls, well they just make up a name and say they won.

;)

Tony said 10:42PM on 3-01-2007

Wow...some editing is needed to get rid of the large repeated section.

Mark said 2:53PM on 3-02-2007

Good tip. I'm actually running one of those blogs that are giving away stuff for a site review. Of course I'm giving away an iPod Shuffle so it should probably be worth it to someone.

http://www.productivity501.com/2007/02/ipod_contest_re.html

Lumar said 3:19PM on 3-02-2007

Well it's a cool idea, but there's this site I used to visit in the past (they were on Digg 1 or 2), and basically they said they were giving away $5000 US dollars to anyone who could suggest the best way spread the word about their site. I suspected it was a scam because that was too large an amount, and basically people entered and at the very end of the contest - they didn't update the page for a few weeks.

Finally when they did, they made a fake post from some user saying "Get a link on Google" (that doesn't even make senes). Then a few days after that, they said they gave the prize to the user that had posted that - and they said that the user rejected it and instead chose to work with them for free.

The site was not a company, and it was clear that it was a single person project and again they put this video up on metacafe about their site, and now they're pretending like it was one of the visitors that did that and they claim they gave '$1000' dollars to that guy. The thing is that the owner of the site put a screenshot once that showed his desktop along with an icon for a very rare and unused program (I recognized it because I used it once, it's a bandwidth monitor) that was in the corner, and that same icon appears in the video (which is supposed to be a video capture of 'some random guy's' desktop as he browses and uses that site). He also censors comments on both his blog and the metacafe site because people keep posting about how the competition was fake.

Anyways the url for the site (not going to promote them, hence the asteriks - but you can get an idea of what the url could be):

http://www.ch**sea*d*wa*ch.com

Since then I'm not visiting that site, I'm not going to support a site that fakes competitions, and even worse for that site - I help admin my universities admin network and since the site in the past (perhaps not by choice) has had some very inappropriate and frankly sick (not porn) advertisements - so I added it to the block list.

Gary Lee said 4:48PM on 3-02-2007

I have to say that I've actually won a pair of Lakers tickets from a radio contest before. I had to unscramble some letters to form a players name - Latrell Sprewell if you'd like to know . . . . now i just entered Productivity501's contest to win a new ipod . . just wrote his review - http://www.mrgarylee.com . Hope I win! hahaha

jigsaw hc said 11:32PM on 3-02-2007

Cool I was able to fine mine on there.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/ytngap

Christian von Kleist said 2:21PM on 3-03-2007

Awesome! More companies should give free products to good bloggers. I bet Apple could afford to give away a few thousand iPods to promote good feelings among the blog-reading public. Actually, Apple probably doesn't need the extra promotion, but it's a great idea for smaller companies.

I work at Dirty Microbe (http://dirtymicrobe.com/) and we love sponsoring blog contests because endorsement from a blogger is great exposure. Whenever a blogger with a pretty big readership e-mails us asking for some free t-shirts to give away, we always say yes.

It's great advertising and everybody wins! ^__^

josh said 6:53PM on 3-06-2007

http://www.3604free.com/index.php?ref=3785235

to get a free xbox 360

Sara said 7:06PM on 3-23-2007

I think giveaways are great for PR. However, it really annoys me when you sign up for something free from some viral marketing campaign and the free product is simply a splash page advertising a $97 e-book or something.

Sara :: Pajama Professional http://www.pajamaprofessional.com

Rick said 5:47PM on 4-04-2007

You can get great things but you usually have to sign up - even free offers are not free, it is usually a trial. I have tried many offers and a few came through but with a cost - it was either very difficult to cancel the free trial or there is such a small window that you forget to cancel.

There has only been ONE free site that you actually get truly free stuff - and that is with NetWinner. You simply play a game and get points - there are advertising but all I do is minimize the screen to just the playing area (which can still take up a fourth of your screen) and have another window like this open. Here is the link if interested:
http://jackpot.netwinner.com/?signupCode=EgleEye

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