Free Everything

I’m sure all of you have seen the ads for “FREE iPod!” or “FREE PS3!”.

The thing is, as crazy as they sound, quite a few of them are legitimate. In fact, it’s how I got my Wii.

So how does it work? Well basically you sign up, complete free offers and then refer a few friends who do the same. There are absolutely free offers like “Sign up for site Y” or “Free sample of X”, but the ones that get you finished faster will most likely require a credit card. One like the “Blockbuster 14 day free trail” where you need to sign up with your credit card, but you can cancel before you get billed. The more expensive your free gift, the more offers you have to complete.All these advertisers pay to get new sign ups, called “leads”. Anywhere from few cents to significantly higher amounts. The site that’s offering the free console gets paid, and then uses a chunk of their profit to reward you with your “free” gift.

Where am I going with this? Well it seems that everyone has seen the “Free iPod” ad too much. Marketers now need something differnt to catch your eye. I find it utterly hilarious the types of items their now hawking. Here are a few nontraditional things you can now get for free:

$70.00 worth of Trojan Condoms

$100 Hooters Gfit Card

Season 1 of Prision Break on DVD

$50 Gift Certificate From Burger King

$100 Gift certificate From Red Lobster

Gillette Mach 3 Razor

Wired Magazine

Seriously? Red Lobster? Trojan Condoms? Gift cards for HOOTERS?
What happened to the free stuff where you didn’t have to do anything? I remember for signing up for so many free offers when I was in high school. In fact, when 3.5 inch floppy’s were popular, I never had to buy any. Just call AOL and Compuserve daily for a free disk, then reformat and repeat.

All I can find now are offers for Free Tide Sticks and Free SpongeBob SquarePants Stickers. Everything else requires you to actually do stuff.

Oh yeah, if you wonder where I got my Wii, than go here. They also have programs for a PlayStation 3 that I’m currently working on. There’s also a program for a XBOX 360.

Anyways, enough ranting. Onto the auctions:

Virtual Boy Lot – Check out the complete games included.

Blue Debug Playstation (1 Day Left – No Bids at 9.99)

Game Boy Light “Skeleton” Version
I’ve never heard of these, but they look pretty cool. Very limited run as well.

Lastly, we have the worlds coolest pillow. Ever.