13 months ago, I asked you guys when you thought Gmail was going to lose the beta tag. Obviously, that still hasn’t happened (unless it happened in the last twelve hours, since I wrote this before I went away). Here’s how your guesses have gone:
December 2006: 25, 26
January 2007: 1, 18, 22
February 2007: 1, 22
March 2007: 1, 15, 17
April 2007: 1, 24
June 2007: 3
August 2007: 1, 15
September 2007: 19
October 2007: 14
December 2007: 6
January 2008: 1
February 2008: 20
April 2008: 1, 15
August 2008: 1
April 2009: 1
As Jack pointed out, more than 60% of your guesses have already passed. Does that mean Google is exceeding expectations? Sure, lets say that!
Anyway, if your guess has expired, add a new one, and submit a guess now if you haven’t already. I’ve got plenty of DVDs now to give away, so the winner of this is getting something nice.
Personally, I think it would be really cool if Arjun won and Gmail lost the beta tag in six days.
September 12th, 2007
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Contests, Services, Gmail |
2 comments
Google OS notes that Gmail is still in beta, two years, four months and twelve days after being released. Ionut Alex. Chitu says that the reason might be that Gmail has frequent server errors, and I agree that capacity is probably the reason. Google News took four years, and Gmail probably won’t take as long, and we can expect some nice features between now and then.
We should hold a Gmail release clock, and closest wins a free DVD. Seriously. Post below when you think Gmail will lose the beta tag, and when it does, I’ll come back, find the winner, and send him/her a free DVD of something from the prize pile. Remind me when I get back home to post a photo of the growing pile.
(Found on Findory)
August 13th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Contests, Services, Gmail, Email, General |
32 comments
Time for our first giveaway, a copy of the new DVD of “The Producers“. Based on the entry formula (1 entry per comment, 2 per comment on other blogs, 3 for links), we have exactly fifty entries. That means I’m going to ask random.org to give me a single number between one and fifty, and the number chosen will be the winner.
Entries:
1-2 CH
3 -8 Conall
9 Devin
10 everyone just stop
11-13 Jason Schramm
14 scarcock
15 Ryan Govostes
16 Audrey
17 Nathan Litwiller
19 Kevin Armstrong
20 Huw
21 Dave
22 Mike
23 leah
24 deprofundis
25-26 GamingFox
27 Jerry Smythe
28 flostog
29 Brock
30-31 Stu
32 Ross
33-37 Niraj
38-39 mcow
40-41 Cassidy
42 Warman
43 Christopher
44 * Search Engines WEB
45 Anas Hashmi
46-47 Chris
48 laura
49 My lordship
50 Amit Agarwal
So, I’ll hold the drawing in fifteen minutes, at 1 pm, just to build some excitement…
*DRUMROLL*
3!
That’s makes the winner… Conall.
Conall commented on the contest post, on Apple Watch (for two points) and linked from his blog (for three more). Definitely shows the advantage of multiple entries. His odds of winning were 8 1/3 to 1.
Congrats, Conall! So, do I give away The Bugaloos or One Last Thing next?
Oh, and what’s the cheapest way to send a DVD in a standard movie DVD case?
May 24th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Contests, General |
8 comments
Okay, so, after asking around, today’s the day I start giving back to you guys. Today you can win a free DVD of “The Producers“, starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, just by being a faithful reader. Everyone who comments between 7 am Eastern time Tuesday and the same time Wednesday will be assigned a number in a random drawing, and that person will get the movie in the mail.
Every time you comment, you’ll get one entry, so the more you comment, the more chances to win. And because I want to push more traffic to the other blogs, if you comment on InsideMicrosoft, Business Bits, Apple Watch or InsideMovies, you get two entries. Obviously, I don’t want people to comment for no stupid reason, so if you say something pointless, like “Yeah” or “Here’s a comment so I win”, that won’t count, but as long as you are adding to the conversation you’ll be fine.
Also, if anyone wants to link to this page or my review of the movie, I’ll even give them three entries, but only do it once. And if the link doesn’t show up in Technorati, it doesn’t count.
Considering I have to pay to ship these things out, I’m hoping to see some sort of obvious gain to cancel out the tiny shipping costs. I want to do this all the time, and it could add up if I hold all these contests without anyone but the regular readers showing up. So, if you want to spread the word, you’ll probably also be increasing your chances of winning, since I’ll be able to do this a lot more often.
Obviously, the methods will evolve over time, and I would really appreciate feedback so we can iron out any kinks. Two things immediately come to mind:
- Obviously, I’m not eligible to win. However, I don’t want to get called a cheat if Miel or Jason win, but we all know that would happen if they did. I owe those guys big time, so I wouldn’t mind giving them free stuff, but I don’t want to create angry conflicts. Thoughts?
- Also, who knows of a reliable web-based random number generator?
May 23rd, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Contests, General |
13 comments
Today, I got a second copy of the DVD of The Producers, in addition to the one I already had for my review a few days ago. What does that mean? Some lucky reader gets to walk away with it.
So, we have to hold some sort of contest to decde who gets it. I have two ideas so far:
- A link/SEO contest with a random drawing. In this case, you’d link to the review of the movie on your own blog, and after a week, I’d grab a list of all the links from Technorati, and choose one person at random with a random number generator, and they’d get the DVD.
- A comments random drawing. In this case, everyone who wrote a legitimate comment on any blog on this site over a designated period would get one entry, and then a winner would be chosen at random.
Does anyone have any other suggestions? I’m tempted to go with option 1, but I’m going to leave it up to you guys, since you have to deal with it.
May 18th, 2006
Posted by
Nathan Weinberg |
Contests, Blogs, General |
4 comments
