All good things must come to an end. Unfortunately, the end is here now.
Good bye Contest Junkie. I'll be officially leaving the team with effect from 7th February 2012. Cee Jay (after taking her long break) has decided that she will not be coming back to the blog, and I won't be taking over the blog from her. Contest Junkie will then turn into a huge archive for contests with nearly 3000 contest!.
Why? Partially it's because of the lousy contests (which I'll touch on later), and the behavior (cheating, hacking, unsporting, selfish, greedy) of participants, and I find that I'm putting in too much effort for the ever decreasing payout each month from the blog. I suppose the tide has changed and a contest blog is no longer as profitable as compared to the past. Facebook is an easy to use, amazing traffic and (quite) cheap advertising platform for companies to promote their contest. And there are many companies out there that provide apps to create a custom contest page for their facebook page, and that eliminates the need to host their contest on blogs like this one. On average, I take about $50 or less a month, and that relates to $0.80 per hour, if I work 2 hours per day. If it wasn't passion and the support from readers, I would have thrown in the towel months ago. Of course, we can also choose a pay to view model, but how many people are willing to pay just $1 a month to see 30 to 50 contest a month? Not many. So that makes the model not profitable as well.
My next point is about all the cheating and all the lousy contests that is going on. I'll touch about the cheating part first. Since over half the contest that is going on is now on facebook, many companies (mainly small ones) who are lazy to pay for a proper facebook app, turn to using the "Like" feature as the main mechanics of the contest. We've seen enough. People like Joan Teo, who create multiple facebook accounts to vote for herself. Where is the fun in contest now? Years ago, contests are mainly based on lucky draw, and others required effort like writing essays, taglines, taking photos and such (and they are judged, not voted). And that comes to my next point. Lousy contests. I don't understand how companies can create complex and fancy facebook apps for their contests, and leave out important information like closing date! Other things include missing information on how the winners will be chosen, misleading information (which I touched on not too long ago), and what many of us dislike: voting contest. It makes perfect sense to a company to hold voting contest. They have a budget, and they want to get the maximum exposure for every buck spent. Maybe they know participants hate that, or maybe they hate that too. But business is business. I could make a thousand word essay rant on this topic but I'll pass, because I don't want to bore you.
So will this be the end? I suppose you could say so. I won't be going back to my old contest blog "CornFlict" (if you still remember it), or starting up a new contest blog. But, I have created a facebook group:"Special Contest Zone", where you can join to share and see contests that others share. However, I won't be posting on the group everyday like on Contest Junkie. My ultimate goal is to set up an exclusive place for people who actively share contests. It won't be for everyone. I've seen my fair share of selfish people.
So what's next? Now that I have more time for myself, I'll be putting in more time into my photography blog: http://dallaseye.blogspot.com and train harder to be a professional photographer (that's my dream!). Do help me out by dropping by often and sharing my photos if you think it's nice.
That's not all! Special thanks to Cee Jay for the awesome blog, and Contest Junkie's loyal readers for dropping by daily and sharing valuable contest info and great lobangs! Also to readers who have been following me since 2008! I'll still be participating in contests, so if you need people to spam your invites to increase your chances of winning, you can always direct them to me if you add me up on facebook. That's it! I'll see you soon on my photo blog or the facebook group!
Edit: My apologies. The facebook group will only be opened to those who are willing to share. It will be stringent. Not everyone will be accepted. Only those who prove themselves. If you think you have what it takes, then drop me a facebook message or email me about your application after applying for the group.
Good bye Contest Junkie. I'll be officially leaving the team with effect from 7th February 2012. Cee Jay (after taking her long break) has decided that she will not be coming back to the blog, and I won't be taking over the blog from her. Contest Junkie will then turn into a huge archive for contests with nearly 3000 contest!.
Why? Partially it's because of the lousy contests (which I'll touch on later), and the behavior (cheating, hacking, unsporting, selfish, greedy) of participants, and I find that I'm putting in too much effort for the ever decreasing payout each month from the blog. I suppose the tide has changed and a contest blog is no longer as profitable as compared to the past. Facebook is an easy to use, amazing traffic and (quite) cheap advertising platform for companies to promote their contest. And there are many companies out there that provide apps to create a custom contest page for their facebook page, and that eliminates the need to host their contest on blogs like this one. On average, I take about $50 or less a month, and that relates to $0.80 per hour, if I work 2 hours per day. If it wasn't passion and the support from readers, I would have thrown in the towel months ago. Of course, we can also choose a pay to view model, but how many people are willing to pay just $1 a month to see 30 to 50 contest a month? Not many. So that makes the model not profitable as well.
My next point is about all the cheating and all the lousy contests that is going on. I'll touch about the cheating part first. Since over half the contest that is going on is now on facebook, many companies (mainly small ones) who are lazy to pay for a proper facebook app, turn to using the "Like" feature as the main mechanics of the contest. We've seen enough. People like Joan Teo, who create multiple facebook accounts to vote for herself. Where is the fun in contest now? Years ago, contests are mainly based on lucky draw, and others required effort like writing essays, taglines, taking photos and such (and they are judged, not voted). And that comes to my next point. Lousy contests. I don't understand how companies can create complex and fancy facebook apps for their contests, and leave out important information like closing date! Other things include missing information on how the winners will be chosen, misleading information (which I touched on not too long ago), and what many of us dislike: voting contest. It makes perfect sense to a company to hold voting contest. They have a budget, and they want to get the maximum exposure for every buck spent. Maybe they know participants hate that, or maybe they hate that too. But business is business. I could make a thousand word essay rant on this topic but I'll pass, because I don't want to bore you.
So will this be the end? I suppose you could say so. I won't be going back to my old contest blog "CornFlict" (if you still remember it), or starting up a new contest blog. But, I have created a facebook group:"Special Contest Zone", where you can join to share and see contests that others share. However, I won't be posting on the group everyday like on Contest Junkie. My ultimate goal is to set up an exclusive place for people who actively share contests. It won't be for everyone. I've seen my fair share of selfish people.
So what's next? Now that I have more time for myself, I'll be putting in more time into my photography blog: http://dallaseye.blogspot.com and train harder to be a professional photographer (that's my dream!). Do help me out by dropping by often and sharing my photos if you think it's nice.
That's not all! Special thanks to Cee Jay for the awesome blog, and Contest Junkie's loyal readers for dropping by daily and sharing valuable contest info and great lobangs! Also to readers who have been following me since 2008! I'll still be participating in contests, so if you need people to spam your invites to increase your chances of winning, you can always direct them to me if you add me up on facebook. That's it! I'll see you soon on my photo blog or the facebook group!
Edit: My apologies. The facebook group will only be opened to those who are willing to share. It will be stringent. Not everyone will be accepted. Only those who prove themselves. If you think you have what it takes, then drop me a facebook message or email me about your application after applying for the group.
