fantomNews™ — the ultimate know

(rt) Attracting eyeballs galore isn’t the easiest of tasks these days, if it ever was, so what’s an upstart search engine to do? Cross strategies by offering search tied in to a sweepstake, someone must have thought.

At least, that’s what search newcomer Blingo is doing, freshly launched out of beta limbo. From their home page:

How Blingo works:

1. We pick a bunch of random winning times.
2. Search at the right time and you win. No registration required.
3. Then tell us where to send your prize.

So what are the prizes? They’re listed right beneath the explanation cited above. For March 2005 they were: “An Apple iPod” (nice), an “Amazon Gift Certificate” (amount not specified, hum), “A Year of Blockbuster or TiVo” (well, yeah) and, finally “Movie Tickets” (which movie, which location?) And if I search, say, from Belgium and hit the right time, will I qualify? Ah no, unfortunately I won’t, for on another page it says: “In order to win, you must be at least 18 years old, you must live in the United States, and you must have Internet access.”

Wonder what they’ll do when every SEO and his dog comes along with a spider to automatically check their clients’ rankings and winning movie tickets in the process. But then again, if your spider happens to be 18 years old and is domiciled in the United States …

Blingo’s search is powered by Google, oh well, so what’s new? Ah yes, let’s not forget Blingo Friends:

Still, the idea itself may not be so bad: Of course, the gifts are “donated” by commercial sponsors, so if they can sucker enough of those to pick up the tab, I guess they might actually make a buck or two in the process. So much for Search Gambling …

So check them out here if you must:
↗ www.blingo.com …

But if you’re an advertiser, do weigh your options shrewdly – there’s no way you can be sure that surfers aren’t simply blasting away at this engine merely to win a prize.

And perhaps you’d like to read what Tim of Oneupweb (↗ Keyword Length and Conversion Rates:
Four Is Your Magic Number
) thinks about it: → “Be Afraid?”

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