I'm curious to know what people think about Blingo.com and how Google might look at a site like this....giving away random prizes for people who use 'Blingo' (powered by Google). Happy 2006!
OK, I did more research and there was a thread here in Digital Point back in September... people then thought that Blingo was against AdSense's TOS and that it would be banned soon. Evidently not as it's still around...giving away prizes randomly to people who search at specific times (though we don't know when those times are). Fishy? Sneaky? Brilliant? I'll let you know if and when I win something.
I've won something. Apparently Google doesn't mind because they still make money off of the ads. It's probably more of a special partnership than a straight up adsense account.
I gaurantee you that it's a special relationship. I've spoken to members from both parties about it and this not a regular adsense account. It's a similar relationship to which Opera had with Google prior to releasing their free version of the browser.
Thanks Fireside.. it didn't even occur to me that Blingo might have a 'special relationship' with Google...but that makes complete sense. Blingo appeals to a certain audience, while the straight-up Google appeals to another. Google simply wants to grow its market share. I'm sure we'll see quite a few more 'special partnerships' in the future. A Google for everyone! Now maybe I need to go work on an idea for a 'special relationship'....