Shameless 2 - Shameless...er

So, the last post titled "Shameless" (here) I talked about 3 different sites that gave some sort of daily incentive for using them; ClubBing, Swagbucks, and Lockerz. Today a quick recap plus an additional topic Pogo.com:

Now, I've already talked about ClubBing in excess (missed it? click here) so I'll just leave that one at a simple "it's worth it if you have time to play a few games each day". Seriously worth it.

Swagbucks has actually pulled up in the ranks as well, just a few days back I turned in another 45 Swagbucks in exchange for what is now my second $5 Amazon.com reward code. It's been easy to just use their search bar in my toolbar... while they do have more sponsored ads in their results than Google seems to they've generally done alright for my searching needs (and a little trick... when they don't fill my needs I search for "google.com"). Racking up Swagbucks has been easy as can be and they offer loads of rewards (for me the Amazon.com reward code is the best deal). If you are interested in signing up with them, again, feel free to use this referral link. Again, worth it.

Sad to say that Lockerz seems to be striking out. It's an amazing site as a social experiment... see how many people you can get to visit a site on a daily basis when there's really not much in the way of content (and next to no interesting content) while offering rewards that never seem to become available. Of the three this is the only one that has yet to pay out... at all. Boo to you Lockerz.com, boo to you. Not worth it.

Lastly I'm going to talk about a long running play for points site - Pogo.

Pogo is great if you are just looking to play any of the games they offer for the heck of it. They offer a number of popular, brand name games as well as some of their own making. In theory it's totally possible to take the tokens you win in game and turn them in for chance to win a daily, weekly or monthly cash prizes. If you check their self-affirming ads it happens to regular people all the time. Additionally people actively playing games are often awarded Pogo themed prizes (mugs, shirts etc).

That being said I'd like to note that if you are playing in hopes of actually winning something you seem to have better odds in Vegas. There are an excess of auto-playing programs made available by individuals for many of their games, some of their games are exclusive to paying members only (or folks like me who tried out a free month of club membership via some incentive program) and there's just not enough time in the day to play enough to gather enough tokens to have any chance against the millions and millions people have gathered already. I'd imagine Pogo is doing just fine as a business but as far a site that actually pays out? Don't bother, not worth it.

Bing, Bing, BingBingBing... Bing. Bing.

So over the holidays the one thing I did keep up with relatively well was collecting my ClubBing tickets from Microsoft. ClubBing, like its predecessor ClubLive, has continued to provide some of the most worthwhile prizes available. (see what's available now, click here) They offer a lot of simple little things but stuff that's worth having.

I've started to get a second sense for when my ClubBing packages are arriving as well. One day I was thinking about how the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W230 Camera I ordered should be due any day/time I went to check to see if I had missed any package drop-offs and just as I was going to look up rolled my favorite brown truck (many of the people who are big into sweeps talk about getting to know their local UPS drivers due to the number of packages they get sent to their homes).

It's nice to finally own a pocket-sized digital camera... it has a lot of nice intuitive features, pretty easy to use from what I can tell... sad to say that right now I can't actually tell much. The darned thing uses a memory card that, as far as I can tell, is exclusive to Sony. The Memory Stick Pro Duo is the official name; used for many of their cameras as well as their PlayStation Portable, which does me little to no good. I'm a photographer, I have memory cards all over the place but I've never owned a Sony camera so Ive never had need for this particular type. Boo to wins that require purchases to function. Boo I say.

Still a camera is a camera, who am I to complain?

Other recent ClubBing turn-ins include a DVD copy of Up, a present for the girlfriend (but I can't say which just yet), an Ogio half dome bag, and in the next few days I'll be turning in for my own copy of The Black Eyed Peas' The E.N.D. CD, and they've brought back a variety of American Airlines' AAdvantageFlyer Miles, which I will work on collecting any time there isn't a larger prize worth aiming for.

All in all, ClubBing still has my loyalty (even if their search engine still sucks).