Free g-mail invites (i have 49 of them)

joshlink01 · Post by **joshlink01** » Fri May 27, 2005 11:12 pm

Hello. To get your free g-mail invite all you have to do is click the URL below and complete a offer. it is for a free mac mini so you might be interested anyway. once you do that, PM me or reply and i will send you one.

http://www.macminis4free.com/default.aspx?r=389014

EDIT: I will send you TWO or THREE for completing an offer!

MacOSX · Post by **MacOSX** » Sat May 28, 2005 6:10 pm

Nice way to get people to complete the offer....

Post by **Cat_7** » Sat May 28, 2005 11:44 pm

You can have an invite from many people, including me, without the hassle.

It seems joshlink01's little sceme didn't work on pearpc.net, now why would it work here?

Cat_7

joshlink01 · Post by **joshlink01** » Sun May 29, 2005 7:23 pm

Haha Cat_7

PPC_Digger · Post by **PPC_Digger** » Sun May 29, 2005 8:11 pm

I would look into it, if I'd lived in the US

.

Havin_it · Post by **Havin_it** » Mon May 30, 2005 1:21 pm

Cat_7 wrote:You can have an invite from many people, including me, without the hassle.

It seems joshlink01's little sceme didn't work on pearpc.net, now why would it work here?

Cat_7

At least here, he can't use the dirty big banner ad

Josh, I'm just curious: what type of 'offers' are these that people must complete for you to get your referral credit? What offer did you do in order to register?

robojam · Post by **robojam** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 1:22 pm

It's just bullshit marketing. There are offers for mini macs, iPods, etc. all over the Internet. It's just another marketing scheme to get email addresses for spam.

Havin_it · Post by **Havin_it** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 1:58 pm

Being rabidly curious, I went to the site (minus the referrer parameter, sorry josh) and they don't say anything about the nature of the offers, but they actually advise you to create a throwaway Hotmail or similar account to sign up with ... y'know, just if you're worried. That's an interesting statement on their own relationship with these 'advertisers'...

joshlink01 · Post by **joshlink01** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 7:21 pm

The offer I did was from that Tickle IQ thing. And, I signed up abotu 3 weeks ago and I have had not ONE piece of spam yet.

robojam · Post by **robojam** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 7:22 pm

joshlink01 wrote:The offer I did was from that Tickle IQ thing. And, I signed up abotu 3 weeks ago and I have had not ONE piece of spam yet.

I'll bet you've not had one mini mac yet either...

joshlink01 · Post by **joshlink01** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 7:47 pm

Not yet because I still need referrals. That is why I posted my link!

robojam · Post by **robojam** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 3:20 pm

Do the math - the Mac Mini costs $499, so that means that the company needs to make $45.36 from each of those 11 referrals in profit. This is assuming that each of those 11 referrals is going to purchase or perform some task, which they are not obliged to do.

Searching on the Internet I have found out that those 11 referrals have to provide a valid credit card to complete the referral process (aah, it's all becoming clear now...), and the site itself says that you should search for "OfferCentric proof" to get some examples of satisfied customers. These are obviously all written by the company itself, and the text is exactly the same on different sites sometimes.

Why would the company get you to search for that string? If you search for "macmini4free" you get a different story... there are the same glowing recommendations (same copied and pasted text again), but there are also the sites that describe the truth.

Check this page out if you want some opinions on AccessMedia, which is what the site is actually selling:

http://www.ratetheoffers.com/offer_profile.php/47

joshlink01 · Post by **joshlink01** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 7:17 pm

I did Tickle:
http://www.ratetheoffers.com/offer_profile.php/75 which has a 88% good rating!

robojam · Post by **robojam** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 8:07 pm

Call me a cynic, but those comments just seem too good to be true. They're all too enthusiastic and sound like the work of a marketer who has lots of time to go on the Internet and promote his product by entering these comments on sites like this.

It's up to you what you do, but I don't believe that you'll get that Mac Mini. I'd love to be proved wrong and see you get it, but I really doubt that it's going to happen.

joshlink01 · Post by **joshlink01** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 11:07 pm

Ok. I guess we'll have to see

Havin_it · Post by **Havin_it** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 12:45 pm

robojam, I don't know what you did to get 'real' sites by searching for 'macminis4free' - I got up to page 15 of the results and nothing but "Join my conga dudes!"

...oh and a couple of links to (expired) pages from the blog of Kevin Rose (he the former G4 TV guy who promo'd PearPC, long ago? not sure...) that really grabbed me. Just look at what happens when a geek blogger allows comments (from Google cache):

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:Mi ... scam&hl=en

Whether you call it a Pyramid scheme, Matrix scheme or whatever, the bottom line is that it's unsustainable. It expands quickly, sucking in everyone who:

(a) Wants the free thing
(b) Isn't concerned about who they give their info to
(c) Doesn't mind downloading trojans
(d) Doesn't read privacy policies as carefully as they should
(e) Knows (or can convince) ten people who meet the above criteria.

When all such people in the ecosystem have signed-up, and there's no resources left to feed the marketing machine, it stops paying out, and the people who just signed-up but can't get the referrals, get squat.
Due to the 'pyramidal' structure of the scheme, this can be a colossal number of people (I have heard estimates in the 5-figures).

Look at the forums where people go to join congas - look down to the older threads, you'll see they are locked. Why? Stopped paying out. I saw a free notebooks conga that had died-out particularly quickly - could that be because it required 18 referrals, not 10?
Seriously, do the math, and tell me your conscience doesn't trouble you just a tiny bit.

Post by **Cat_7** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 10:53 pm

From the terms and conditions from macminis4free:

"Sending your referral link to others in an unsolicited or excessive manner (this includes but is not limited to: email, instant messages or chat rooms) or posting your referral link in newsgroups or online forums where not allowed."

I would dare to say to Joshlink01 that by using that signature on pearpc.net you have disqualified yourself to be eligable to receive a "gift" 11 other people have to suffer for too.

Cat_7

PPC_Digger · Post by **PPC_Digger** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 2:32 pm

Havin_it wrote:(he the former G4 TV guy who promo'd PearPC, long ago? not sure...)

Former? Promo'd PearPC?

Havin_it · Post by **Havin_it** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 8:11 am

Memory is hazy, but I'm sure someone (either here or 'over there') mentioned TechTV/G4TV being where they first heard about PearPC, and the presenter was called Kevin Rose. Some or all of this could be apocryphal.

Stephen Coates · Post by **Stephen Coates** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 2:03 pm

These free stuff sites are legal and do work. Obviously some are set up just to scam people, but most are not scams.

visit http://www.exceem.co.uk for more information.