All New CommentMILK Version 1.0Random Blog News… Contest, Content and… uhmm… OK we got nothing else
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Item 1 –> As mentioned last week, tomorrow we will be announcing a new COWtest here at the Johncow pasture and this one is a little less intense (heck it is way less intense) then the COWpetition. The prize is a brand spanking new iPhone… plus we will probably through in a couple extra things too. We will give all the details for that tomorrow but we thought that we would also take this opportunity to share with you a great post from Contest Blogger called…
“How to Avoid Getting Cheated in a Blog Contest”
This is a pretty relevant post with all that is going on with contests as of late and it never ceases to amaze us how many scum bags there are out there and that we even have to consider this issue… but the world is full of selfish idiots (could have used much more colorful words but decided againt it 
). If you know of a blog that is holding a contest that looks suspicious, please tell us about it.
Item #2 –> There is a contest over at http://www.kushmoney.com/2008/06/01/june-competition/ that is coming to a close very soon. This is not a big item contest but it is a legit one and if you use entrecard, they are giving way 10000 ec credits plus some advertising.
Item 3 –> The auction of GamerzReviewz over at sitepoint is going ok… we approved a bid of $700 and have a few pm’s asking for a buy now price. The contest is to have the site up for 30 days but to be honest we would love to just be done with it. We love the site and would rather keep it but on the other hand it is frustrating to keep it and manage it when you know you are selling it… which leads us to a thought that just came to us.
Right now our blog is at $700 and Garry’s is at $255…. would it be wrong if we pulled it out to keep it for ourselves and just donated $1000 (which is $300 more then the current bid) to World Vision?
As readers of this blog please let us know your thoughts on that… we do not want to put one more thought into it until we hear your thoughts.
PS –> We promise we will finish the keyword research series this week and we should have the cowpetition and keyword research material all put into a PDF for everyone who subscribed to our rss feed via email. If you are not subscribed then do it!
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Glad to see your action is going so well. Personally, I don’t see a problem with you “buying” you own site back. The point was to prove that you could build a better site than Garry and sell it for more. I’d say mission accomplished.
In all fairness, maybe you let the auction run the full 30 days and see where the bid ends…but, on the other hand, it’s your site and you can do with it what you please.
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I think it’s important that you both take the sale through to the final point….. I am sure you have both had points of not wanting to carry on throughout this contest.
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Personally I think it would be most fair to let it go the full course, but that’s really between you and Garry.
I’m looking forward to the iPhone contest. I wasn’t a winner in this one, but I’d rather have an iPhone than any of the other, more expensive prizes!
It doesn’t happen to be a 3G iPhone, does it?
You are the real winner… 700$ is a lot more money
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John,
Congrats on accomplishing your goal. In the strictest sense, for me, the auction needs to go on as originally arranged. I see no problem with you being part of the bidding market, and if you place the final bid and that money goes to charity, that fulfills what was represented and the blog is yours. I’m also okay with you keeping your decision about whether you’ll be bidding secret and bidding through a representative so bidding abuse can’t occur (i.e. potential adversaries bidding against you, knowing you are bidding the final bid, just to make it cost you more to keep true to your word).
The people who promo’d you on twitter and their blog and everywhere else did so with those provisions in mind. This question seems especially pertinent when positioned in a post about questionable blog contests…don’t want to be one of those “scum bags”, right?
You have built enough cred with me to believe that you are wearing a white hat….this is all just IMHO, though.
Best of success whatever you decide to do, John. Great job!
Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman
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Oh, final thought…I guess if you do end up being the last bidder, the official winner should be based on the highest non-owner (you or Conn–he might want to keep his too) bid.
Sounds like a concensus is building. Very interesting to see the comments.
Vicki
You should allow the auction to run its full course,you might never know what will happen Garry’s blog might pick up and enventually win.If you and Garry have decided to end it now ,well that’s okay with us.You can buy your own blog back that is no crime.
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I think it is perfectly fine for you to be a bidder for the site. But I think the contest should run to the end. I will not get upset regardless of what you decide, but I think the people who are actually bidding on the site will feel cheated. I’m not sure it is worth the hard feelings. Glad I don’t have to make that decision. Good luck with it.
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perhaps you can just give them a bin price John,
i think $1,500 is ok, so you can donate $500 higher
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Thank you for putting up my contest.
As for buying back your blog. I think its a great idea. The game blog is a good asset to the network.
KushMoneys last blog post..Another Site Up For Sale
Webmasters pull out of auctions like this all the time so I wouldn’t worry about it.
The real value in all this to your readers has been the learning process, you’ve been so open that there is NOTHING stopping anybody who wants to own a GamerzReviewz from going ahead and creating their own, after all that was the point of all this?
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As someone who bid $650 on the site, It is your site. You can do whatever you feel like doing. Donating $1000 to a charity for ‘buying’ the site from yourself would be quite a descent thing to do. Building your own site, buying the site, and giving the money to charity. There must be an ebook in there somewhere.
I can definitely understand your frustration about letting your site go. But I think you have to let the auction stand as is.
If it was something you were auctioning privately (i.e. without deliberate publicity/promotion) I’d say fine. But you’ve created a lot of publicity for this (excellent) cowpetition and when generating publicity you really need to stick to the letter of your commitments.
The only thing I can think of would maybe to add a clause saying you reserve the right to pay 10% or 20% over the closing price in order to keep it yourself.
As I say I can understand your wanting to keep it - I’d pay to keep it too!
Cow, you have to sell. It was part of the comp. Sorry mate, just my 2 cents…
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I think Liam spoke best. Many people posted about the cowpetition all over the web. Sure, this was part of the cowpetition and helped them gain an edge in winning , but–speaking at least for myself–if I didn’t believe in the merits of the cowpetition as it was originally presented to me, I wouldn’t have promoted it to anyone, anywhere. That goes the same if you were giving away $270,000 in prizes, or $2,700,000 for that matter. To change the rules now may betray the confidence of some.
You have gained a lot of credibility with the cowpetition. That value alone is perhaps exponentially immeasurable compared to the value you gain by keeping the site. I personally don’t care if you buy back the site, what I think is most important is how you go about doing so.
In my opinion, to retain credibility through the cowpetition you need to allow the auction to proceed with no help or hinderance from anyone in your organization. Once the auction has finished and someone has locked in a buying price you are free to negotiate with that person for a buy-back.
I think the essence of the question you need to ask yourself is, “What will make me more profitable, my impecable credibility w/o buying back at the cheapest price, or somewhat tarnished credibility perhaps, while buying back quickly and even likely a little bit cheaper. I think I would go with the former.
i think it is not about competition at all. It is also part of the learning process. The competition just happen to make it more juicy.
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Keep it bro, no worries.
Héctor
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Thanks for the feedback everyone… we are not going to bid on it, too many do not feel it to be the right thing to do so even though lots of you do not have an issue with it, we will keep everyone happy and just let it run its course.
I’m sure you’d have no probs replicating it again for yourself.
Thanks for the shout-out!
Winningtheweb never gave out the t-shirts he said he would give. Everytime I write, he says its being sorted out. It’s been 3 months and it’s kinda sad that he’s doing this.
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Hi friends, I won the 10K EC prize!!
. This is the first time I win something so I’m glad I won
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you can learning from contest and testing your skill about SEO and not only to grab a price prizes…
Actually Prizes is the Bonus, because if we win, that is the bonus, if we lost, we earn the knowledge.
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