Pixaprize Clues, News & Views

We Love the new colours and overall designs for the new Pixaprize site. I’m gonna tease you here with the mini-image, I’m sorry about that, but I’m gonna keep the features a secret until later.


Notice the new logo - well, this is the draft version as yet. I’ve requested an image of a “prize” to be added so it can be instantly perceived as a prize site. It still needs some work to incorporate some fun and excitement into it.


Overall, the new sky blue colours are awesome; in my and my “Design Guru’s” opinion!



Then Again! It’s not our opinion that matters and it’s true appeal will only be indicated by you.


I can’t wait to get this launched!

The PS3 is still up for grabs!!



Ok, it’s the final day of April! ………. And It’s hotting up over here at Pixaprize with April’s PS3 (ending today!!) mixing in with May’s new prizes. It’s gonna be doubly difficult to hunt down in the grid as that PS3 gets lost amongst all the new entries!



Here’s April’s final clue:

“Bong-Bong-Bong - but before it’s over!!!”

That should be “gettable” by the UK pixaprizers, so for the Americans I’ve come up with another clue:

“Before Kit-Up Time for the Wizards and Cavaliers”

I’ll be adding on one hour if Chelsea -v- Liverpool goes to extra-time & penalties! You should have figured by now that I’m crazy for football (soccer!!)



Hope that helps!
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Right! Moving onto other “news”: Pixaprize V2 is moving along quite nicely, I just can’t wait to make it a “3-pointer”. All the ideas you gave should make it a “slam-dunk” of a web-site when it arrives in………. A few months time!



Yes, unfortunately, it’s going to take some time to develop and i have so many tasks to complete to roll this out for you. I know I have your support and am hoping to move things very quickly. I should mention that I’ve re-considered doing the blog……….. Unless you really want it! I really did want to do the blog but I have enough on my plate with Pixaprize 1 & now Pixaprize 2!.. Sorry! I’ve already commissioned some graphics work to be done for version 2 and these should be back before mid-May. Actual programming will start after I receive the designs back - I might give you a sneak peak when they arrive.



Also - Don’t be telling your friends about Pixaprize just yet!! A few of you asked me whether I want you tell your friends about Pixaprize, but, to be honest, I’d rather you didn’t just yet. You may regret it!! I can understand that might be a little confusing, but the new Pixaprize will have a “Tell-A-Friend” program which’ll earn you points (and of-course prizes). On top of that, I’m going to include a system which’ll allow you to earn cash! Real mint green notes!! Hey, If you tell all your friends now, then you won’t benefit later when the “Tell-a-friend” Program comes in. I’m only being fair.



Ok, that’s all……….Have you figured the clues out yet!?



Oh Sugar! I nearly forgot! The mobile phone prize for May is in the “prize draw” format. Which means that everybody can enter for it at any time during the whole month. On June 1st, one winner will be chosen at random from all entries to win it.



Ok, now that’s definitely all !………Have you figured the clues out yet!?







c ya

Hey,



The Ipod’s gone! I’m still awaiting confirmation from the winner so if they don’t confirm soon then it might just go back on the grid.



Congratulations to all the people who responded to the last mail asking for the cut-off time for the Ipod and figured it out. The clue was:

“The Ipod ends during half-time”.

Now, you do know that footy/soccer is our national game and Arsenal played Derby tonight. It was the only Premiership game on so it shouldn’t have been that difficult……. Many of you really did go for it as soon as the referee blew that whistle! For those who didn’t mail…. you missed out!



Again, it’s a shame that there’s only one winner, but I hope you had some fun



We now have the PS3 and the final Amazon Certificate left. I think I’m simply going to leave you in the dark with these! Well, it’s not totally in the dark, is it!? You’re aware that they both have to go before midnight (GMT midnight) on Wednesday, so you have two days to play for them……….



We all know what you’re hoping to win… So go and hunt that PS3 down now!



Speak to you soon.

OK , that was just a starter! The first prize that’s just been won was an Amazon Gift Certificate! Not the Ipod or the Playstation that most of you are expecting to win…… But I can tell you that the next prize is the Ipod……… Yes…….. Definitely……. the Ipod……. Not the PS3, but the Ipod!!



You probably want to know when it’s going to end…… Right? Wouldn’t that be too much information?.. Oh go on then ok…….. i’ll only tell you if you reply to this mail!! Just click the reply button and ask.



Oh ………. Mark Powell, winner of the Xbox 360, just sent me a couple of photos - one is of his daughter hugging the Xbox and the other looks like the delivery receipt (you can actually read the delivery note!) …… He had this to say:

“Dear Ismail
i would like to say a big thank you to Pixaprize for the x-box 360 its a nice surprise when you win something and just goes to show that all the clicking on Pixaprize was worth all the time and effort . hope you like the pic of my daughter ….haven’t been able to get near the x-box since it arrived , it seems to be permanently glued to my nine year olds fingers so what more can i say , great site , good fun , and keep up the good work and to all the other Pixaprize players out there keep clicking, its worth it.”

Click the links for pictures: (large images so it may take a few seconds to load!)



Pic 1: www.pixaprize.com/images/markpowell.jpg



Pic 2: www.pixaprize.com/images/markpowelldlvry.jpg



Good Luck to you for the Ipod.

Hey



I know you’ve already figured out that there are just 3 days (+/- a few hours) left for all the remaining prizes to disappear from the Pixaprize grid! All prizes will end 100% “BY” midnight on the 30th of April. It could be in the next few minutes, it could be at midnight on the 30th! It would be crazy for you to spend your every waking moment from now until then to hunt down the correct prize and find it just at that perfect moment before it goes…….



I wouldn’t be that cruel! ……….. So……… Here’s a clue!



The first prize to end will end at an ‘o’ clock! It could be 6 ‘o’ clock, 9 ‘o’ clock, 10 ‘o’ clock or any other ‘o’clock (does that make sense?!) …….. This eliminates you hunting for the prize at 7.35, or 1.10 or 12.20 (or any other time without an ‘o’ clock in it!)



The first of the four prizes will end at an ‘o’ clock. The next clue for the next prize will be sent as soon as the first prize ends, so keep an eye on your inbox!!



Remember, the site works on GMT (UK) time, so if you’re time difference is “something and a half” hours from GMT, then you need to adjust your playing times.



Congratulations to Amy Vye who won an Amazon Certificate and to Mark Powell, winner of the Xbox 360. I’m still waiting for that photo Mark! You promised to send it as soon as you received your prize - I guess you’re just too busy playing those shoot ‘em up games! My inbox is open! Send it in asap so i can display it on the new blog!!! Hmmm! Just goes to show that winner feedback forms need to be definitely included in the new Pixaprize…… and they will be.



Yes, the blog has been created! I’ve secured a domain name and installed the Wordpress blogging platform - I’ll send the link within the next message (hopefully!)



Cheers and Good Luck.

Hi

This is long so you might wanna grab a coffee!
.
Congratulations!…………. To Tobias Kaplan from River Forest, Illinois, USA and Christopher Poulton from Glamorgan, UK. They’ve won two of the 5 Amazon gift certificates on Pixaprize. There are just 3 remaining now ……. along with the Ipod Touch, the Xbox and the PS3… All of these will disappear in the next few days so get hunting ……… You could be our next winner………. (that’s my silly sales pitch over with - i hate doing that!)……… No, but seriously, sincere congrats to Toby and Chris……… My subscribers have been telling me that no matter how small the prizes we give away, they’re a major thrill to the winner! See, I’m learning!

.

You might have figured this out already! But since the flood of responses I received after my last couple of e-mails, I’m 99% certain that I’m going to create Pixaprize version 2. I’ve decided upon the fundamentals of the upgrade and I’ve spoken with a couple of consultants ( i’ve spoken with the Mrs too and she’s ok with it) about how and why the new features should create more value for you and for Pixaprize’s advertisers………

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And it’s all thanks to your ideas and suggestions! I’ve already mentioned to you that suggestions which are implemented in Version 2 will definitely be credited back to you….. I mean, the site centre’s around the theme of giving! ……. So people who give! ………. shall receive! (there are conditions to that promise ofcourse! 1. I have to actually build and complete the site and 2. It has to be successful)

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I’m going to be planning for the next few days so only after that will i know how long it’ll take to create version 2…….can’t give you any definites at the moment…. Should be much clearer probably in 7 days after i speak with my developer friends to figure out which features are do-able and which aren’t. I’ll keep you posted.

.

A message to my newer subscribers: all those subscribers who only joined in the last few days may be confused as to what I’m chatting about! Well, a quick summary: My website (pixaprize.com) had a breakdown! It wouldn’t work so i sent a mail to all subscribers to notify them of the breakdown, but i got a bit carried away because of my frustration and asked them to tell me whether i should just shut the site down! They responded, my god! they responded alright! Every response encouraged me to keep the site open. They gave me hoardes of ideas and suggestions which I could use to upgrade the site……………. I’ve just finished going through all the mails and umm, well…. That’s where we are now……… Stay tuned……you’re in for a thrilling ride…….. or you might see me fall flat on my face!! We’ll see what happens!!

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One last thing!!……….These e-mails that i’m sending you about version 2 are a pain!? Are they? I hope not, i certainly wouldn’t want to be a pest! All my previous mails had an unsubscribe link, which has only been used by 1 person to date!! So I’m thinking that you’re ok with them……….. Maybe my mentioning the unsub link might prompt some into clicking it! Please don’t!

.

Here’s something of value then - and only subscriber’s to this newsletter will receive this insider information - one of the two consoles which are being hosted on the pixaprize grid will definitely end within the next 24 hours!! It might be in the first hour (highly unlikely because I want to make sure this mail is delivered to everybody first!!)……..or it might be in the last hour ………which console? i hear you ask………. Now, that would be telling!……… You have a 50/50 chance of choosing the right one……. Goto www.pixaprize.com to play now!

.

Watch out for my next newsletter……… I’m thinking of starting a blog for you folks - I should have the link for you in the next episode!!

.

later

Hi,


I’ve just spent the last 3.5 hours responding to replies from yesterdays e-mail! So many e-mails. My inbox flooded with messages. Words of encouragement, opinions on the site, what you like, what you don’t like and many, many suggestions and feature requests.


I didn’t expect that much feedback. A lot of people are happy with everything they find on pixaprize and don’t want anything changing. But wouldn’t that mean that the same number of people wouldn’t win anything!?


You see………This is my biggest issue…… The current setup on pixaprize only allows for one winner per prize; the lucky one to register for the prize before it disappears. Right? But what about all those other players who also found the prize but never win….. Wouldn’t it be great if i could arrange for something for all the players? I’ve been cranking my brain for ideas to fill this gap and although i’ve come close to figuring the solution, it just doesn’t add-up financially………obviously! Adding to my
frustration was the site break-down which resulted with the e-mail of yesterday.


OK. I had some great feedback. Before yesterday, i had no idea how people actually felt about pixaprize, but now i do. Most of you enjoy playing, despite not winning much, you believe it is
different and worth your time in playing alone. That’s re-assuring.


I also received a couple of offers from people who were interested in buying the site from me. That’s testimony enough to realise that I’ve been doing something right. I’ll follow these through and see what’s on the table. I’ll keep you posted on how this pans out.


Moving onto a serious matter: I received a mail this morning which pointed out a post in a forum where someone (i know who that someone is now!) posted yesterdays e-mail as a “copy and paste”.
The complete e-mail was posted into the forum which started with the line - I’m 99% sure that this was a scam!! I shouldn’t really pay any mind to this, but I should just follow-up and state:
Yesterday’s e-mail was in no way a scam…… What did i have to gain from it?…. To tell people that my site doesn’t work doesn’t really help public perception………. I’m of the mindset that any publicity is good publicity, so i’m not too bothered about it, although i wasn’t too happy that they didn’t hide my e-mail address….. I’m gonna receive so much spam (that’s not funny!).


Here’s the link to that site and post:
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?p=10958445#post10958445


Back to the ideas and suggestions:


Here’s what you came up with. Most ideas are on similar lines:
- 50/50 split on “last clicker wins” or “prize draw” format - could just do both!
- more lesser-valued prizes
- voucher (coupon) codes from our advertisers
- Amazon/other gift certificates
- Real-life/ internet wide scavenger hunt
- a re-rising of the blog
- Smaller grids. More grids! (what! the original isn’t even full yet!) currently, the site has many UK advertisers, you want US, Canada, Rest of Europe, etc to create localised grids.
- free e-books, ringtones, games/applications for your mobile (that confused me a bit!, but i got it - a downloadable list of these usually payable items, which runners-up can download and use for free)


There are plenty of other suggestions which are just undoable, sorry Jack, I can’t giveaway $1million to every player - well not yet, anyway!!


Some of the ideas you’ve come up with are perplexing me and i’m going to be contacting some of those people to get a better idea of what you want and why. Keep an eye on your inbox. Right, ok, you’ve sent plenty of ideas that i need to go through, so let me get to work in my private, secret Batcave and see what i can come up with!


Speak with you soon.


p.s. Keep the ideas coming though - hit reply now & send a message to me directly

It’s Ismail again.




Yes, i really did it! I broke Pixaprize! Am I in a whole host of trouble. Especially with the prizes that were on offer on the grid! Now I have to arrange some other way to get those to winners…… I’ll let you know about them very soon!



I don’t know what i did and no matter what I try to fix it, it doesn’t want to work! The way I feel right now; Good riddance! May it rest in peace!



For some time now, I’ve been considering my options with Pixaprize. What do I do? Do i give it up as a bad job? ….or do I try that much harder and make it work in it’s present condition (before i broke it that is!)?… or do I delve deeper into my box of ideas by adding a few extra features which may help to gain a few more visitors?……….. Or just add a few more prizes?



Don’t get me wrong! Pixaprize has added a few pretty pennies to my income since it first arrived in February 06, and I’ve received some accolades from distinguished people, but all those hours I’ve
spent hunched over my PC? That just can’t be justified. I’ve spent countless hours away from my family. It’s not right.



I know the site lacked sparkle in terms of regular prizes, but saying that, it had something that the other prize sites failed to provide…….. And it was all just me, on my own, trying to keep it going, trying to make it the next big wow!



Anyway, sorry to go on!



The reason I’m sending you this mail is firstly to notify you that the site is down (and may remain down unless I find the correct switch to push)………. And secondly………. I need for you to tell me what to do. I know you’ve got things to do, but it shouldn’t take long and you don’t have to reply straight away, you can mull over it for a little while and shoot off a reply later….. But i do need your input to figure it out.



Ok, ok, enough groveling from me. This is what I’m requesting from you: Tell me what you think I should do?
1. Add more features to the site - if so, do you have any particular features in mind?
2. Fix the site and get on with finding more prizes - if so, which prizes do you want?
3. Give up and find something else to do!



If you think about it, I’m a whole lot like you. We both sit at our PC for hours hoping for a win and when there’s no win it’s kinda frustrating, hence option 3!



There is another thing - do you like the “last clicker wins” format of pixaprize? Where the last clicker wins the prize before it disappears?…….. or was it better where all the players who found the prize go into a prize draw and one winner is chosen at random?



I’ve got a whole host of questions I could ask you but let’s keep it at that. I’ve taken enough of your time already! So, please just send me a mail with your ideas, features and opinions on pixaprize Feel free



All the best