UKNM: Lotteries (was Mailing List Servers located overseas)

[Ben Thompson]

> > Give your visitors £1,000,000 reasons to return.

> > Add a LottaLotto.co.uk lottery to your site.

>

> Ok, everyone knows competitions are quite fun and useful to get

> people to visit your website, but given that so far in the UK we have

> Banana Lotto and Freemoney both "giving away £1million" - and

> Uproar are also doing this too shortly - and that the odds of winning

> aren't particularly good (in fact a smidgeon away from almost

> unlikely) - wouldn't it be nicer to give visitors something more

> realistic in return for their efforts - and offer something different so

> that all these "win a million" style games don't just become one big

> blur of unlikely to win boredom?

>


Unfortunately, the cost of offering smaller prices simply doesn't add up.

The maths is not difficult big prize * very high odds = small cost of

insuring the prize. In most cases you'd be lucky to offer a bottom of the

range branded computer for the cost of the insurance on a £1,000,000 winner.


Secondly, lotta lotto is not designed to drive people to any site of our own

(ala bananalotto, jackpot.com, that annoying monkey banner....). It is

designed as a plugin system for sites that wish to use a lottery to attract

and retain customers. We wanted a cheap and easy way to retain customers for

something else, came up with one and decided to share it with others.


Basically, the system is designed as plug and play, operates in a pop-up

window and the user never leaves your site. To add the lottery to a site you

need about three lines of javascript and any promotional text yu desire.

Then, Voila, one lottery up and running. Oh, you do need to provide some

text / adverts to attach to the two emails we send to  every entrant (one

contains the selected numbers (entry ticket confirmation) and the results

provide an excuse to remind the entrant to return to your site (and of

course try again)). But we organise everything else (including the large

independent professional firm that draws the results).


We can also do scratch cards and jackpot type systems. Trouble is, the

running costs are roughly the same, a suitably interesting prize costs more

and you don't get the two emails attached to every entry.


I suppose the simpliest thing to say is to go to http://www.lottalotto.co.uk

, look at the demo and then come back here and slag it off. (and yes I know

the rest of the site is dire, I write it in 30 minutes flat on the way to

the office last Monday morning, and as I did it what did you expect).


Ben




PS Jason, I meant to invite you down to the Quayside on Wednesday for a

drink (Sorry, Sam London is just too far from Newcastle). The offer's still

open.



--

Give your visitors £1,000,000 reasons to return.

Add a LottaLotto.co.uk lottery to your site.



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