Sharisse Bowen asked:


Have you ever wondered if people really won at sweepstakes and contests? Have you tried to enter as much as you can, but still have not yet won? Don’t give up just yet!

Winning at sweepstakes is actually quite common among sweep enthusiasts, if you have the right mindset and strategy. Yes, you do need a plan! The first thing is getting used to the terminology used, and some basic rules. There is a big difference between a sweepstakes and a contest. A sweepstakes is when a company holds a prize drawing with absolutely no strings attached. They do not require commitments or purchases. They are merely introducing a new product, company or maybe a new media, (such as movies & music). You may run into a website that offers various non related prizes every week, or month. It may not be their own products, but they would like you to see what they have to offer. Their sole purpose is for you to get to know them better.

A contest is a little different. They too, are offering a prize so that you will come and visit them, and see what they are all about. They may want to spice some things up and get you a little more involved with their company before you enter to win. They want to attract people to their contest that has a genuine interest in their product. They may ask you to send them a recipe or a photo. They may have a trivia game for you to play. Some contests have you find different things on their website. All are meant for fun, and for them to introduce themselves to you.

Sometimes though, you may run into a contest that has you pay to enter. I strongly urge you not to pay to enter a contest. To me, it is a large red flag when I see contests that you need to pay to win! Please, don’t waste your money! Raffles for charity causes are my only exception. I believe that if we have a charity that we consider to be important, than by all means please support them! If you win a prize of some sort, than it can be a little sunshine to your day!

So, what if you have entered in a few sweepstakes or contests and have never won? I have the answer to that!

The answer is in Part 2

You can win at Sweepstakes & Contests!

Join Our Winning Circle today

Get The Spirit To Win!

http://www.ourfrugalwinningcircle.net

Cynthia Marcano asked:


With so many proud parents in the world, no wonder baby photo contests are so popular. Of course there is usually only one winner and we all want our little darling to be it. Here are a few tips on how to submit photos to be judged for baby photo contests. Here is what the judges are looking for.

Can the judges see the baby’s face? If not, then how can they judge your baby or toddler’s appearance? If you have taken your cutie to a picture studio, chances are they have several shots of your child looking at a prop of some sort. These are no doubt cute pictures, but opt for the shot of your child looking at the camera. Close up facial shots are eye catching. Your baby is indeed a cutie, let the judges see that.

If you are a 1st time parent, you have probably taken too many photos to keep track of. Sorting through your tons of pictures can be a breeze if you follow this next suggestion. If it has a lot of background, move on. Family vacation photos with your little standing next to 10 cartoon characters won’t work. All the background distracts the eye away from the main subject- your little one. Pictures with background are ok, as long as the main focus is your child. For example, a child swimming in a pool would be good as long as the child takes up more picture than the pool water. The pool water is all one color and your child’s bright face and bathing suit colors are sure to bring the eye right to your darling.

Focusing on the baby is really important. While keeping background to a minimal is important, so is making your child the main subject. For parents with more than one child, I am sure to have tons of family shots. Keep these photos in the family scrapbooks and photo albums. Of course you can tell your children apart, but that may not be such an easy task for judges. If your children look alike that can be very difficult. Make judging as easy as possible by keeping pictures simple. Playing the guessing game will only frustrate judges. It doesn’t get any easier than one person in the photo to be judged. Of course this rule doesn’t apply to multiples or Mommy or Daddy and me photos.

I already know you have a dozen shots with your baby wearing huge sunglasses, daddy’s baseball hat, mommy’s jewelry, or a Halloween mask. Photos with props truly are cute, but they are not always suitable for baby photo contests. Props that hide your baby’s face make it hard for judges to see the true beauty of your baby. The key is to enhance, not hide their cute faces. For instance, wearing daddy’s hat is ok as long as its to the side or back where we can see the baby’s face. Halloween costumes with face covering masks or that require facial makeup, is not helping your toddler win.

Other Tips Include:

Send clear photos. Photos that are dark are pretty useless. You are not giving yourself a fair judging chance.

Red Eyes do not make appealing photos. Many online picture software can help fix that problem.

Pictures taken from far away distances can’t help judges see the child’s face.

Size matters. Judges prefer pictures larger than a wallet up to size 5×7 (3×5, 4×6, 5×7 and anything in between).

Josh Grossman asked:


Not just for bodybuilding or barbeque competitions anymore, contests seem to be everywhere nowadays. The most popular contest is probably American Idol where the winner is decided by millions of voters. The list of contests could go on infinitely, but one rarely considers what makes a good contest and why there are so many of them.

Some of the most common contests nowadays include writing contests, photo contests, video contests, sales contests, mega-millions lotteries, business plan contests, and model competitions. Contests are often used to increase brand awareness or reinforce what a brand stands for. They are also used to provide incentives. For example giveaways often encourage people to sign up for something like a newsletter, or respond to surveys.

The first step to a successful and profitable contest is to have specific goals and to consider what type of contest will produce the best results. For example should the contest require pure chance, a high skill level, or more general population entries? A second criterion in making a good contest is structuring it so that the rules are easily understood. Finally, the prize for the winning entry should be compelling enough to achieve a good number of entries for the contest.

Viewers generally like to see three kinds of entrants. Those that are really good, those that are really bad, and those right on the borderline of being great where the decision to vote for that entrant to advance is difficult to make.

Encouraging audience participation is a good way to generate buzz for the contest. The key factor in American Idol’s success has probably been the fact that anyone in the US can vote for a winner. The contestants themselves contribute to the appeal of the contest as well. They are everyday people who happen to be talented singers and have not yet been discovered. Through their singing and interviews the audience feels as if they are getting to know the entrants.

Online, allowing the entrant to promote themselves helps increase awareness for a contest, especially if voters help decide the winner. Sconex.com, a social networking site for high school students, recently conducted a contest for unknown musicians. It found that bands entered the contest and then promoted themselves on MySpace, leading to thousands of new visitors to the site.

In the past few years, the internet has enabled companies to conduct contests cheaply while gaining wide exposure. Doritos made a big splash in 2007 by having a contest where amateurs could submit a commercial for the company and the winning ad was shown during the Super Bowl. Not only was the ad widely considered to be a good one, but Doritos received a great deal of buzz due to the promotion.

Many people love to participate in contests – they even create their own competitions where there is no prize to win. One of the original websites for ranking people’s looks was HotorNot.com. Users were encouraged to vote on peoples’ looks and submit their own pictures to see who was the best looking. MySpace.com has been characterized as encouraging users to compete to see who has the most friends and deciding which friends get into their top 8 friends list. XuQa.com parlayed users’ interests in contests into a business. According to MSNBC.com “Xuqa (is) a social-networking-site-cum-contest, where users compete for popularity points by accumulating virtual kisses and hugs, winning poker games, spending ‘peanuts,’ and even filling out surveys and looking at ads, all to attain status levels.” Sugarloot.com is website devoted solely to contests such as photo and video contests for various categories like cutest pet, best tattoo, best spring break video, best magic trick, and more.

Why do people love contests so much? Everybody seems to want to be a celebrity and claim their 15 minutes of fame. With the internet, contests are easier to enter than ever and often the cost is free. Viewers can easily see various entrants to the contest and leave comments for them. All of these signs point to even more contest shows, websites, and promotions in the future.

Lintang Suminar Sari asked:


Asian Idol had been taken place in Indonesia on Saturday, December 15 2007 and Sunday, December 16 2007. This kind of competition is to find a new star regionally after the first finding of national scale stars. We will not easily forget Kelly Clarkson to Taylor Hicks as examples of American Idols. Nowadays, this long lasting singing contest reaches toward Asian countries.

Star qualities were found in these top 3 competitors: Jacklyn Victor from Malaysia, Mike Mohede from Indonesia and Mau Marcello from Phillipines. According to the professional official judges, they were the best. But unfortunately all their comments to guide the public in choosing the best one were in fact useless. When someone is to win means no professional taking part to give the clue. All the official judges’ comments would come to an ignorance that their words might sound a little bit fussy for voters. A fresh proof had already been shown. Sorted by ability the official judges recommended top 3 competitors but voters did the opposite by choosing one from bottom 3 competitors. Those bottom 3 competitors were Phuong Vy from Vietnam, Hady Mirza from Singapore and Abhijeet from India.

In the second half of Asian Idol Result Show, came the result announcement session which everybody had been waiting for. While the competitors were standing side by side, the hosts announced that Hady Mirza is the first Asian Idol. This good looking single was once assumed not having adequate capability to become even a Singapore Idol. Ironically now he is chosen in the bigger level still with his low skill. At once, the wish to shout ‘a new star is born’ was replaced by ‘a new shame is born’. Shame on us to let international quality skilled Jacklyn Victor for example was beaten by a ‘nothing special’ singer. Shame on us that for the bigger level World Idol we send the wrong competitor.

Some people not wholly agree with an opinion saying that Idol competition is a competition wherever it is held. Sometimes it happens that this competition is a popularity competition rather than an ability competition. By the interference of public on the way the winner determined, it looks more like a luck gambling event than a competition. A singing contest can easily turn into a good looking contest. Frankly, that is exactly the weakness of this Fremantle’s competition. It puts all in the same category so called idol and lets incompetence judges judge over the routine shows.

For so many years of the taking place of Miss World, there always be some other categories to win. Miss Photo Genic, Miss Congeniality are to name. MTV has its own competitions that provides awards for artists being chosen by viewers for example an award on favourite artist or an award on viewer’s choice. Those various categories which are not available in Idol competition help on preventing the most valuable appreciation from going to the wrong address.

Since the public are the incompetence judges, they massively perform their unreliable assessments based on personal appetites. It warns us that the judges with phones or cell phones are more dangerous than the official ones. Therefore a special space for them limited in seeking in category of favourite winner only is completely needed to put below the full authority of official judges who may choose the most proper winner instead of public’s full authority to determine anything.

It needs one president or king to run a country and that is the essence of running a country. It needs a little number of official judges to determine a contest winner and that is the essence of running a contest. Asian Idol and the smaller scale Idol competitions were from the very start lost their essence as competitions. What happened to Asian Idol and other Idol competitions were like thousands of presidents managed one civilian of their favourite, ignoring the maximal delegation to more knowledgable experienced persons. This Idol competition conjured morons to one night presidents, entraping people to yearly repeated mistakes.

A question to Fremantle Media is how much longer will this unexpected consequence be let, because to get along with the age is to develop by fixing the weakness to a better version. This sort of development usually happens to a great country, a law, a technology product such as a hardware and software. And how Oprah Winfrey becomes the most expensive TV show host is because she develops and so does the show. Everyone waits to witness no more ‘new shame is born’ because the utmost importance is to witness ‘new star is born’.

Bono asked:


About Bharatstudent.com – young soul of India

Bharatstudent.com is an online social forum for young Indians living across the globe.

Its core focus is in linking hearts and building bonds.

Bharatstudent.com helps young Indians to understand and explore the world around them.

It tries to provide mutual help and support and strengthen the feeling of oneness among all Indians.

In short, Bharatstudent.com is one stop NIRVANA for all the young Indian souls.

Social Networking – Linking hearts and Building bonds

With highest number of young people in the world, India enlivens to be the most happening country.

Bharatstudent.com targets this demographic segment of varied age groups, interests, talents, aspirations, priorities, and ethos.

India claims the world’s most productive human resources with ambitious Students, Fresh graduates, loyal employees, Young Entrepreneurs, Loads of Artists, galore of talented youngsters in different walks of life.

Each one – an Icon for themselves. Though each of these groups is independent, still have interconnectivity. They share a feeling of oneness.

To join Bharatstudent.com, one has to be of Indian Origin and can join into a school or work network, or they can join a regional network.

Meet Old friends and make new friends online. Find all your lost friends, start networking with the new ones and share your thoughts and ideas on India’s most happening community portal.

Create Gangs on your school/college/workplace and Share your thoughts and ideas on a common platform. Create Gangs to support any cause.

This site offers a host of features on Films. It is an all-inclusive filmi package – Bollywood, Tollywood, Kollywood, Malluwood, Sandalwood and a host of other regional film making industries. News, Views, Reviews, Photo Galleries,Wallpapers, Trailers, Events, Videos and more are on offer.

We intend to guide the estimated 1 million Indian students aspiring to study abroad in the critical and time-consuming process of identifying and selecting a short-list of institutes for higher education. Online Admission Service will guide study abroad aspirants to their favorite schools in the US, Canada, Australia, UK and more. Study Abroad @ Bharatstudent.com helps students in Career Guidance, Admission Process, Test Preparation, Visa advice, Educational Loans, Insurance, Pre-departure briefing etc. In simple, it is a one-stop solution for overseas study plans.

Campus TV is a place for members to engage in new ways with video by sharing, commenting and viewing campus related and user created videos. Campus TV is primarily focused at reporting latest happenings at Schools, Colleges and Workplaces. Members can earn money onlineor get gifts when other members watch their videos. Contests @ Campus TV offer a wonderful platform for the budding talents.

This feature is exclusively meant for Girls. Girls enjoy a place for self-expression on Fashion, Health Advice, Beauty Tips, Opinion Polls, Product Reviews and Women of Substance. Girls only is the favorite spot for girls to express and exchange.