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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MIDDLETOWN, DE – OBSNewswire.com – In an era where millions upon millions of internet users spend hours on social networks like Facebook and MySpace it is refreshing to know that at least one website devoted to social networking is committed to giving back financially to its user base.

Social networking website HopOnThis.com is committed to helping its users connect with each other and earn money in the process. Basically, the more members interact within the social network by making referrals or just by using the parent company’s meta search engine, eZanga, the more stuff they can earn including cash and cool stuff like iPods and other gadgets like Wii systems.

eZanga operates a premier ‘meta’ search engine at www.ezanga.com. Their experience in aggregating best of breed search results from across the web’s multitude of search engines earned them a loyal following of fans and repeat customers.

CEO Richard Kahn of eZanga.com stressed that his company has been giving away cash and prizes to users of his search engine for many years in addition to giving them what they want in terms of search results. “We’re also honored that our regular web searchers were the ones who insisted we incorporate a social network on our site so they could share us with their friends and family. It kinda blew us away.”

Kahn apparently listened to his customers and reports that his initial subscriber base of about 25,000 people to his first generation social network has expanded well beyond 150,000 since the new version debuted after beta testing on November 1, 2008.

Kahn is also known as a search engine marketing expert and his company also offers innovative SEM consulting services. He points to his company’s focus on preventing click fraud via real time monitoring for ads on his own pay per click marketing services next to his search results. eZanga also works as a search engine marketing consultant to help businesses spend money and monitor their ROI on other major search engines pay per click advertising campaigns.

SOURCE: OBSNews

The eZanga team is back in Middletown after a trade show trip to Ad:Tech New York.  The show had an amazing turn out and the entire eZanga staff was there to witness it!

November 4th, the second day of the trade show, was very busy for eZanga!  Our CEO, Rich Kahn, gave a presentation to the attending press about our newly designed search engine. Rich explained how our new eZanga search engine can pull results from more than 100 unique content sources in real time, while sorting and displaying them in a user friendly format in about one second!  He also informed the press how our five year old Cash Giveaway Program has transformed into an Incentive Social Network, HopOnThis.com, with even more raffles and prizes than before!  Our members are now able to stay connected and win cool prizes!

We also did our business card drawing for a Nintendo Wii gaming system.  Fifteen cards were pulled before we found a winner! Remember, in order to win you must be present for the drawing. eZanga would like to congratulate Dan Waxman for being there to claim his Wii!  Here’s a picture of Rich and the Wii winner Dan:

eZanga is on the move again and all set for AdTech New York! We will be exhibiting on November 3rd and 4th at the Hilton in Manhattan.  If you are in the area, make sure you stop by and say hi to the eZanga team!  We will be at booth #810.

The good news seems to never end! Our CEO, Rich Kahn, was picked to present our recently launched social network, HopOnThis.com, to the attending press at AdTech.  He will be introducing HopOnThis on November 4th between the times of 1:30-2:30PM.  eZanga is honored to have the opportunity to discuss our new social network involving our integrated giveaway program.  We know Rich will do a great job!