I want to win a Peek for my wife. The Peek is a simple-to-use email device, like a cell phone but without all the cell phone stuff. You see, my wife checks her personal email about once a week, and spends hours doing it. Afterwards, I find a dozen or more of those wonderful “you’re gonna love this” emails that her sister and friends send her all day long. Oh, do I love reading all of those!

A blogger is giving away a Peek to one other blogger who blogs about the Peek and links to her blog. Since I would rather win a Peek (including 3 months of free service, normally $20 per month) than pay for one, here I am blogging for her. Her site is Musings of a Housewife, with the contest link here. I hope I win.

I’m not sure if this next part disqualifies me from the contest. I want to discuss this type of contest on Web sites and blogs. Does it work? Does it get backlinks and subscribers and new readers? I believe it probably does. I found Jo-Lynne’s contest because I’m following her on Twitter @dcrmom. I have a connection, so I followed her link. Because of that connection, I took her contest seriously. Because I want a Peek, and I take her seriously, I’m blogging about her site and contest, spreading the word. So in my case, at least, it worked. And I’m not a contest kinda guy.

Think about your site. Could you benefit from this kind of contest? Do you have products you could give away? It might be a great opportunity.

There are so many articles about Web design, usability, etc. on the Interwebs that it’s basically useless to even try to search them out. Most are old school, outdated amateur pap. But every now and then I come across an article so good that I bookmark it and recommend it. This article is one of those times:
Clear And Effective Communication [...]

 
I know there are a lot of Blackberry fans. Frankly, that’s why I chose the Storm. I didn’t want an iPhone because AT&T coverage in rural Indiana is terrible. So I figured for Verizon, the Blackberry brand plus the Storm’s supposed openness to third party apps, would be the closest thing to something iPhoney.
I’ve been highly disappointed. If more than [...]

Have you looked at the new Whitehouse.gov site yet? It’s a major transformation from just yesterday. It’s not just a change in look and feel, it’s a change in content. Bush and previous administrations used Whitehouse.gov as online brochures for self promotion. President Obama is using Whitehouse.gov as a source of information, to make his administration transparent. First promised kept, [...]

I’m 46 years old. Maybe that’s why I still love to read the daily paper – the printed daily paper, not the online version. I’ve found that I read full articles when it’s on paper, and skim them when they’re online. I’ve also found that newspapers (using the Indianapolis Star as my example) tend to have more in-depth coverage, and [...]