NEW YORK – The slowdown in the American economy has spurred many businesses and individuals to look for ways to increase their income and to reduce their expenses. Popular television shows like “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and “Deal or No Deal,” have captivated the public’s fascination with earning large amounts of money, albeit at long odds, with little real effort.
Internet-based sweepstakes, cash giveaways, and contests, on the other hand may be less high profile, but they have been popular for many years, and their use is increasing according to internet experts.
Consumers throughout the US and the world have entered offline contests to win free prizes and money since before the 1930s, and the trade-off has usually been that they thereafter been exposed to large amounts of direct mail and other marketing offers.
One online social network, HopOnThis.com (http://www.HopOnThis.com) is out to change that basic paradigm and simply reward its users with free goodies for doing what comes naturally, namely sharing their photos, blogging, and inviting friends and colleagues to join them in a virtual community.
The new social network is a recently launched outgrowth of ‘meta’ search engine eZanga.com (http://www.eZanga.com) and it expands on the giveaway traditions that eZanga has become famous for. The company launched the HopOnThis network a little over a month ago, and their user base has steadily increased since then.
According to the company their main user base is women between 25 and 45. It is probably no coincidence that some of the most cost-saving focused consumers are this exact demographic who often are tasked with raising their families on limited budgets.
Search engine marketing expert Rich Kahn is the CEO and co-founder of eZanga.com and HopOnThis.com, and he claims that his companies have given away, “Over $100,000 in cash and prizes over the past five years. We started our social network because the regular users of our search engine wanted to find more ways to get free prizes like Wii systems as well as cash. They wanted to refer their friends and to be rewarded for it. We just listened to them.”
SOURCE: OBSNews.com
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