6 Comments For This Post

1. jkj1962 Says:
   October 16th, 2009 at 7:37 pm

   I would love to win this, but NOT EVERYONE IS ON TWITTER!!!!!!

   As a “non-Tweeter”, I find it frustrating, not to mention somewhat discrimanatory that this giveaway and some of the sites from the recent “Back to School Together Giveaway have/had as a requirement that one must “tweet” something to enter. I’m not on Twitter, I have no interest in being on Twitter, and I’m certainly not going to sign up just for a contest. I would suggest an alternate means to enter, but I imagine it would go like the “no purchase necessary” BS that Publisher’s Clearing House puts out. Anyone not “tweeting” their entry would automatically be ignored.

   I can only surmise that Twitter is at least a partial sponsor or gives some sort of consideration to the sites in return for helping to increase their new account sign-up rate.

2. Michael Anderson Says:
   October 16th, 2009 at 8:43 pm

   Discriminatory? What about those without internet access … without computers … There are 5 options they list, only one of which is Twitter.

3. Dan Cohen Says:
   October 16th, 2009 at 8:58 pm

   Thanks Michael, I was thinking about how best to respond and you put it well.
   This isn’t our contest but just a heads up about one that the good folks at Notebooks.com are running so I’ll add a thought or two.

   The site is running an AWESOME contest. They have made it so that people can enter without a whole lot of work and the winner gets a GREAT laptop.

   One of the things I have come to realize is that there were people who look for chances to be grateful and express it and there are people who do the opposite.

   My thanks to Notebooks.com for running a great contest.

   Also, jkj1962, your assumption about Twitter is JUST WRONG! Why not assume the best of people instead of the underhanded?? (Or if there is consideration, we are still waiting for ours from Twitter!)

4. jkj1962 Says:
   October 16th, 2009 at 11:05 pm

   I didn’t say it WAS Gear Diary’s contest. And it’s TWO of those options that involve Twitter, and the fifth one signs me up to be spammed. Most of the sites in the “Back to School Together Giveaway” had ONE option, and it was Twitter. After a week I gave up.

   Maybe you should contact Twitter about your “cut”. After all, you are helping promote something that will potentially increase their userbase, which will allow them to charge more for those “premium” accounts they want to sell to businesses. They can’t keep burning venture capital forever you know.

5. Judie Lipsett Says:
   October 16th, 2009 at 11:35 pm

   jk – I understand your cynicism that sites asking contest entrants to tweet might be getting some kind of cut or kickback, and that is so far from the truth it is laughable.

   But there is one thing we get that makes asking people sign up, “follow” our sites and tweet a particular phrase worthwhile – granted, maybe not as much if someone like you were enter, but there are people out there who will tweet about something, and because they have a lot of people following their posts, people that might not have otherwise known about the contest will learn about it.

   So sure, maybe we are helping to promote Twitter and potentially increase their userbase, but we are also trying to promote our sites and increase our userbases. Twitter and other Social Networking sites are a tool, and we are going to continue to use them for those reasons.

   That’s why we ask people to tweet, I suspect that’s why other sites ask people to tweet, and that is why we’ll all continue to do so.

6. Joel McLaughlin Says:
   October 16th, 2009 at 11:49 pm

   I have heard people say lots of things about twitter. It takes a while for people to “GET” twitter. People think ‘why do I need to know what you’re eating.’ That’s only ten percent of it. The rest of twitter is who you follow. That’s why contests do this. It’s the ol’ you tell two friends and they tell two friends and so on and so on…it’s exposure. Twitter gives web sites nothing. It’s a tool. Nothing more.

   I’ve always said if you don’t like the contest, don’t enter it. If you don’t enter it, then you won’t win. You may not have won anyway. What have you lost?

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