If You Love Something Give It Away
I want to give away some iPod Shuffles. I’d like to give away at least one a month and possibly one every two weeks for the rest of 2005 if that’s okay with everybody. This isn’t some freeipods.com network marketing dealio… I just really want to give some Shuffles away.
The only problem is, I can’t think of a really inventive way to give them away right now. Earlier this year, I gave Isaac Lin and Jay Robinson an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard and a Wireless Mouse in a haiku contest that turned out great, so I may go that route again, but I’m thinking there might be a better way.
In light of my lack of creativity at the moment, I’ve decided that the very first iPod Shuffle will go to the person who comes up with the best way for me to give the rest of them away. Here are some considerations to keep in mind when coming up with your pitch:
- Each iPod Shuffle will essentially be purchased by me online and shipped as a gift to the winner, so the contest cannot involve me personally doing anything with the iPod such as looking at a serial number and making people guess it.
- Entries should be relatively quick to complete. A haiku is a perfect example. I don’t mind if they take a few hours or a few days to do, but nothing ridiculous please.
- Entries shouldn’t involve performing any illegal acts.
- Entries can involve the written word, photography, natural media, or any other creative outlet.
- I am open to this contest changing slightly with each round, so the entry criteria don’t need to be exactly the same every month or week.
- If your idea for this giveaway involves a novel use of the internet that I hadn’t thought of before, it is likely to win.
- If no idea turns out to be better than the haiku contest, I will stick with the haiku contest and award myself the first iPod Shuffle. Woohoo!
Change the city in your live header and make them guess which city it is.
How about a photo scavenger hunt, maybe with Flickr. Create a group, then once a week pick, say, 5-10 things to photograph. The first one to do them all wins, or maybe make it artistic and pick the set you like the best.
The nice thing with that is it’d be fun for everyone, not just the winner.
I think you could do something creative with your “currently reading” column. Perhaps you could say the first person that comes up with the common category or common theme among a list of twenty links wins.
You could also maKe it subtle, for example: a list of links containing a story about flickr and a story about livejournal would be about mergers/buyouts, that sort of thing.
How about best publicity stunt? ;O) Whoever gets your blog the most publicity wins (preferably a screenshot on national tv news) :O)
Howabout the most creative “shuffle”?
I personally am able to shuffle cards, my feet/shoes, songs (in iTunes of course)..
ok, maybe that’s not such a great idea – i’m at a loss after 3 suggestions… ;-)
Ok, another idea (this one is a little weird).
The most creative url’s that the first letter of each spell out the words “iPod Shuffle”. Each url has to have something to do with the iPod shuffle of course.
Ok, i’ve had too much red wine – feel free to delete this comment..
How about picking some (slightly less than) random site that can be reached by following links from your site and then asking everyone to tell you the correct path to get there.
A sort of treasure hunt via hyperlinks if you will.
I can’t think of any novel internet use, but limericks would be better than haiku’s. More words, more fun.
How about giving them away to the person who can most convince you that they don’t “get” Ipods?
If someone really doesn’t see why Ipods are so great, or really isn’t feeling the whole shuffle concept then perhaps they need one so they can find out.
People who actually want one can go out and buy one easily enough, but people who don’t want to buy one maybe just need the opportunity to try. If they don’t like it they could always send it back again.
First, i have to give it a try, Can i have one please? pretty please. I think you’re really great.
OK, so that probably didin’t work, so:
Secondly, How about some kind of “7 connections of Blogs”, where people find a link between two blogs (that are totally unonnected), that use links from 7 other peoples blogs? It could be interesting to see where people end up, or how far off topic they can go?
How about giving it to the best giver? So, the guy who delivers the most valuable tip/trick/photo/resource/software theme/insert_anything_here to community in given period, gets the prize.
A few ideas:
Post up 5 completely random and unrelated photos. Whoever comes up with the best short story (under 150 words?) utilizing all of the photos wins.
Same idea as above, but different! — Post up 5 pictures. Using google, and google images, we have to find a picture that contains all of those images(or elements of each image) in one. Tie goes to the person who comes up with the most interesting image (Of course no photoshopping or personal photographs allowed — URL’s to the image would have to be provided)
Caption games. You post up an unusual photo, and whoever comes up with the most interesting/funny caption wins.
Make people find images of for example cities whose first letters make up your name, shuffle or something else and then judge it byt the weidest cities, finest images or something like that combined.
I’ve been trying to think of ways to allow you to use your iPod-fu powers for Good, and perhaps even Awesome. Haiku contests are really cool, but if we’re going at it for a year, you might as well run something that advances the art and science of web design via some devious challenges. Some ideas:
1) JavaScript Golf! Similar to Perl Golf, the idea is to implement a script to perform a nominated task in the minimum possible bytesize. I suggest at least some of the tasks you pose be in the adding-features-to-IE6 department, much like Dean Edwards’ IE7 initiative, so we come up with useful tools afterwards. In that case, the rules would be that the winning script must be able to be dropped into a document via a SCRIPT SRC tag in the HEAD of the document without modifying the inline HTML in any other way, no JS errors must be generated or inducible, and the uncompressed/commented source code must be posted if you’re using a compression facility. The idea would be to eventually build a modular library of drop-in scripts that could be used individually or in combination to allow adoption of CSS2/3/etc capabilities with a minimum of overhead. However, feel free to pose whatever challenges you want :).
2) CSS Golf! Post an image of a layout (e.g. boxes, lists, etc) and provide some markup complete with IDs and CLASSes, Zen Garden style. The winner will be he or she who makes it render correctly in the latest release of Mozilla Firefox and Opera (being the two most popular cross-platform browsers) using the fewest bytes of CSS. No images or JavaScript are allowed. This should draw attention to good optimisation techniques and clever selector use…
3) JS/CSS Obfuscation ASCII Art! The winning code must perform a simple task, but also physically resemble a picture or phrase in block letters, based on the formatting within your source file. There are already many examples using server-side languages, but I’ve never really seen it done in JS or CSS… :).
Anyway, however you go about it, push designers a little and hopefully make ’em come up with some new tricks and methods that add to the community’s knowledge!
How about coming up with a tagline for this site … your name sits up in the top right corner, so lonesome, it’s just crying out for a tagline?
How about a Tanka?
It’s a kind of haiku, but longer.
You could post a whole list of words, or better yet, point to a weblog or single post of someone.
Then we’d have to mix ‘n shuffle those words (not all of them, but enough) into something new, wierd and generally something totally different from the original.
Then the funniest/wierdest/most complicated would win.
Marko wrote:
I like that one. Then we give it to all the main contributors to that package. Mike, Shaun, Tomas, what do you guys say? ;-)
Okay, that probably won’t work. I do like story telling though. Might also be a good way for us webgeeks to do something else than designing or hacking. Mike gives us a theme, and we tell a story: either via photos, or words, or shuffled music… and then we store that on OurMedia!
(sorry for this, forgot to select the notify me checkbox…)
How about a Photoshop entry? Put the Shuffle into random movies but stick to the theme of the commercials. For example, one could Photoshop a Shuffle in the hands of Jackie Chan, but make Chan very dark with only a few details sticking out. Make him almost a black cutout, but with some detail. Keep the Shuffle white just like the commercials.
The funniest/coolest ones could be awarded every month.
Why not allow people to nominate a recipient? I don’t mean their best buddy but someone in their community or something, someone that would really appreciate it.
Example: My aunt who has recently been ill and is now wheelchair bound and can’t get out to concerts as much as she’d like, she spends a lot of time in her wheelchair and currently loves her portable CD player.
You could request photos as proof that the recipient has received it.
I lIke Keiths idea of using Flickr and doing some sort of photo scavenger hunt.
I’d be down for haiku’s about Croftie selling out ;) How ’bout I make you a widget that allows lurkers to subscribe to comments without having to make a comment and then you give me an iPod shuffle? Lame I know but I had to say something in order to subscribe to this thread :P
I don’t know – I personally like the haiku idea:
Love live the haiku
Dying arts need loving too
Elegance is bliss
Using such a form
Of ancient simplicity
For nerd gear is droll
How about haveing people take photos of their best rendition of an ipod shuffle made from food?
Name that tune: Post a painstakingly short clip of one of your favorite songs–see if anyone can recognize it. (Or, to play up the shuffle theme, make it a mega mix of 1-2 second clips from your ten favorite songs).
Let’s combine Haiku and Flickr. Each month (or however often) you pick an interesting photo from Flickr and all entries must write a creative haiku about that photo.
I agree with not having a design contest. Far too many of those and besides, do you really want to contribute to the devaluing of design?
;-)
(clicked the subscribe button)
Best playlist that parses as english.
For example:
“Waiting is the Hardest Part” Tom Petty,
“For Free” Joni Mitchell,
“I and I” Bob Dylan,
“POD” Bone Thugz and Harmony.
Have a book review contest. A twenty words or less review of a book that captures the spirit of the book. It could be off of a list you designate, or suggested by readers or everyone reviews the same book. Tons of variations for the twelve months needed.
To whoever first solves a riddle that you make up, or people could make a riddle in haiku form and the best one wins?
Photoshop contests are always entertaining, I like that Idea.
….. whoever can create the best web design using a few amount of elements, without letting the browser window scroll at all. Of course relating to the shuffle.
How about the most novel use sIFR in a production site or weblog? Kill two birds with one stone right there.
Perhaps a random idea, but one that I find sparks more debate than anything outside of politics or religion …
In 50 words or less, define what is (and is not) a sport. Your answer should make it (relatively) clear which of the following — among others — are or are not sports: stock car racing, boxing, bowling, golf, synchonized swimming, poker, ballroom dancing, ice skating, etc.
Mike judges the responses based on his own criteria, perhaps the winner is simply the most thought provoking. Clearly it’s a qualitative judgment, but that’s the point.
You could always take the haiku idea a step further and have:
HTML Haikus: Using HTML to creatively express yourself through the wonderful language we all know and love. Taking it further, there could even be plus points for validation! :)
CSS Haikus: Same concept as above, except letting CSS do all the talking for you.
How about using it as an award for most novel use of sIFR, as judged by a committee of experts, in a weblog or production site? You’d kill two birds with one iPod, so to speak.
Another twist on the haiku – require that each month’s entry be on topic for that month (would at least allow some sort of comparison). Another third grade idea would be to create an acrostic out of iPod Shuffle…
Of the above ideas, however, I like the “create a tag line for this site”.
Variation on a theme: how about a limerick contest? You choose the first line, suggest a theme, and then give the ipod to the person who best completes the limerick. There used to be a limerick contest at toastpoint.com – no prizes, but the best limericks would get gold stars. Tremendous fun – just what a contest should be.
Limericks require a bit of work on the part of the submitter, more so than haikus – but would be easy to judge. Look for limericks that best fit the theme and, above all, are funny. Give extra points for paying close attention to meter and rhyme. Limericks are fun to write and fun to read. When the contest is over, you’ll have a nice collection you can make a permanent part of the archive. Everybody wins.
I love Keith’s idea – the only difficulty being that doing the time zone math to figure out the FIRST first winner could be a full-time job by itself!
Hey, what is a haiku? A small poem?
If I’m allowed to write it in german I would love to participate.
Maybe you guys forgot there are readers who are not sitting in the USA, like me.
Why you don’t think about a global competition? It is the greatest opportunity of the Internet to lead people together from the whole planet. And i’m sure that nobody has a problem to share the shipping costs with you :-) )
However! My idea: Style your Shuffle. Create an iPOD-Tatoo. Tho greatest artwork wins.
How about one of those ‘zoomed in picture’ things. You know, where you zoom in on one portion of a photo, and have everyone guess what it is. Only, instead of a picture, you zoom in really tight on someones website. Only a few pixels at first, then if nobody guesses, you pull back a little.
It would be fun for everyone, and would get visitors to talk about the site used in the contest. Perhaps pick standards-based sites for charities??
Limericks. Limericks about sIFR.
Product/concept design…based upon the many past articles you’ve written around here regarding Apple. It could be anything as this is rather general, but it could be a piece of hardware, a software interface (for one of your imagined products or an invented product) or anything else a person can imagine.
As a backup, how about a competition to redesign the Microsoft logo. The brief though could include that Apple has bought them out after Longhorn goes terribly wrong… ;)
These are great…
I want to second the suggestion (#22) of a photoshop contest. How about involving politics/business, though? We could all grab our favorite leaders and CEOs at their most glamorous and chop in some shuffle-goodness…
Alternatively, how about a shuffle to the most original/elaborate/funny hoax website involving shuffles? (Think MAVAV here, people…) Extra points for actually registering the domain.
Me again.
Find a bug on “mikeindustries.com/blog/”! An iPod for the good guy who helps you to improve your website.
(I know two bugs here)
That photograph contest Keith proposed iss fine!
I like Angus Turnbull’s ideas – obfuscation or optimized programming for a given task is always a lot of fun.
What about the best “Where’s Durstan?” photo? Or perhaps, the best music recommendation (for music that you haven’t heard yet). Maybe you could present a CSS-related problem, and whoever fixes the problem or figures out a good workaround wins the prize? What about the most practical use of Ajax? Best Firefox extension or extension idea (for those who can’t or don’t have time to actually create an extension)? Just a few thoughts…
Idea 1: Give 3 or 4 colors… Give the RGB/CMYK values and see what people come up with when keeping with those colors – in web/illustration/Print medium/photography mediums.
Idea 2: Find a site (front page and one interior page) to redesign – working web url or mockup submissions.
Idea 3: Using typography to coming up with a desktop background. Give a subject (running, sleeping, parents, friends, Europe, America, etc.) and see what words/images/color people use to develop a desktop background.
Idea 4: An extension of Idea 3 — Desktop Calendar Creations… Winner’s for each month from May to December
I think a most fitting way to celebrate the Shuffle’s shuffly song scheduling shenanigans would be a ‘song chain’ contest, where the last word of a song title becomes the first word of the next. You could tailor this to your particular fiendishness, for example one for 70s and 80s Europop might look like this:
Winner takes it all woman in chains of love plus one more night fever…
which comprises:
Winner Takes it All (ABBA)
All Woman (Lisa Stansfield)
Woman in Chains (Tears for Fears)
Chains of Love (Erasure)
Love Plus One (Haircut 100)
One More Night (Phil Collins)
Night Fever (Bee Gees)
You could then award prizes on the most inventive / most dense / longest etc.
(Editor’s Note: Mike, nice idea. But you’re disqualified for mentioning Erasure and “Chains of Love”.)
My first thought was that you should ask for suggestions for new music to purchase that you might not otherwise be exposed to. Whoever suggests the band, album, or track that you like best, wins. Bonus points if it’s available on iTunes.
Oh, and Neil, I believe that Haiku is the plural of Haiku.
in the spirit of Where’s Durstan, why not add the IPod Shuffle into the mix just like the scroll from Where’s Waldo. For an added flair, you can add yourself in as the wizard.
the person to find all three first wins the shuffle.
You could do something like the IRON CHEF.
Post a picture, a theme, a word or something and have people create an icon, logo, website, image or similar using the theme of the month.
It would be fun to see some of the stuff that might come out of something like this.
I remember you mentioning you had a cat when I met you at SXSW. You should have a cutest cat contest among your fellow online readers, it may sound typical but it could be interesting to see everyone’s cat or you could just open it up to any pet.
There are no skills involved but it could be fun.
If you want to add skills to the contest than have a contest making an “ipod poster” using you pet in it.
People create in a myriad of different ways. Bob is great working with images, but doesn’t know how to code worth squat, while Bill is a master coder who secretly admires Blake’s writing talent, even though Blake can’t photoshop or code to save his life.
If you plan to give away several shuffles through a number of contests, why not use several types of contests that all correlate to a central theme? For example, let’s say you want some creative entries based on web design. One competition people submit haikus, another for CSS code to a particular design aspect, one for those can whip up something in photoshop related to your theme, etc, etc. I would think that as long an interesting central theme was chosen, we would have fun trying to create something to that theme in a variety of different ways (like in any number of the ideas posted above).
How about a series of pictures (10?) doing the dance on those iPod commercials? That would be funny to see what people will come up with.
Two words: nine saltines.
How about giving a Shuffle to the person who can come up with the most serendipitous sequence of song titles one might hear?
As in, you won’t believe that my Shuffle played these five songs in a row…
I like the Flickr scavenger hunt. Another idea would be to co-op Cameron’s Screen confab idea and award the shuffle to the most interesting shot.
How about a Playlist Poem!? Something like a limmerick or free verse. There are enough songs and song titles out there that you could very easily write a poem using song titles / album titles / bands and it would be very interesting! It would also be a way for people to come up with new music to listen too :)
I think it would be an interesting idea to do a lost and found contest. For example you’ve “found” an iPod Shuffle. You won’t tell us where you found it, because then anyone could claim it. So in order to find the owner, everyone has to submit their story about how they lost their brand new iPod Shuffle.
You pick the best “lost” story and they get their shuffle “back”. I can’t wait to read the stories for this one!
Ok, so this might have already been suggested, I just didnt read through all 58 comments…
How about each user take a photo of their iPod, and whichever one is in the worst condition, gets the Shuffle… This way, you know it is going to a deserving winner. Or you could substitute taking a picture of the iPod, with a picture of a laptop in bad shape, etc etc etc…
Similar to the photo scavenger hunt but more artistic and less media-specific.
Each contest should have a central theme, something vaguely communications-technology oriented, like “FM radio,” “blog,” “TV,” “news,” “CAT-5 cable,” etc. Contestants would upload media (text, sound, image, video, etc.) to Ourmedia.org expressing something about the uniqueness of the theme. The result of all the contests would be a growing body of information, in a great place on the Internet, about how the Internet relates to all the overlapping technologies that embody and precede it.
The iPod Shuffle, which could itself be the first or last theme for the contest, would go to the person who was most creative in representing the theme — through thoughtful writing, an unexpected medium (like sound to convey something about TV), or making links between the theme and the form in which the entry is presented.
This would be creative, fun, and productive — everybody’s energy would be incorporated into developing something interesting and useful.
How about an iPod shuffle Designologue ? You could start us all off with an image as a jumping point, and we’d all go from there. Each round would be the next iteration in the design.
Or, more music oriented, how about an iTunes playlist challenge? Using 10-20 slots, come up with a themed playlist and people have to find what ties it all together.
Initial thought (using recent posts): put videos of ourselves on ourMedia trying to eat 6 saltines in 60 seconds. (Could be fun whether or not for a prize!)
There are so many great ideas from this list, I’m hoping there will be many different contests to spread the chances of designers, writers, programmers, and free iPod Shuffle seekers of all kinds to win.
Let’s take this even further by combining Mike’s community to develop a complete site utilizing all our talents. Initial contests build a site, subsequent contests populate it.
Not only would there be some happy iPod Shuffle owners, but there would be a souvenir site to share with the world.
Thanks for the generosity (with fingers crossed)!
In 20 words or less write the most creative dictionary-style definition for the iPod Shuffle. You could have separate contests, too; defining it once as a verb and then as a noun. Or incorporate how the person would use the shuffle into the definition.
i-Pod Shuf-fle v.
– A series of constrained, involuntary movements that occur when a highly rated song begins playing.
How about something like this?
I think that choosing a single contest format to follow repeatedly may not be the best option. I’d love to see something that played on the random nature of the shuffle.
So I’d like to suggest that a number of basic formats (limerick, haiku, rewritten song lyric, shakespearean sonnet) be chosen, and every [interval] a contest format be selected, and coupled with a suitable (or timely) subject – so you’d end up with something like “Write a limerick about Apple’s upcoming release of Tiger”.
I know my suggestion is a little more labor-intensive that doing a single repeating contest, but think the variety would be a great addition.
And for a less labor-intensive and more musically-oriented suggestion:
Something like this could be fun, but it’s possible that a lot of good songs have already been done.
What about creating a song on GarageBand for Mike to share with all of his readers?
For a lot of new Mac addicts out there, GarageBand is a great creative outlet. I know it is for me. I had pretty much no music background before I started using it, but it’s really simple and I’ve created a couple songs that I’m not too terribly embarassed to share. Like this remix of the Jon Stewart/Crossfire debacle: http://www.icompositions.com/auditorium/showphoto.php?photo=8419
So the idea would be have people create interesting little songs that we all can share and put on each other’s iPods/iPod Shuffles. Mike, you can suggest a new theme or genre every week or two and then you can post them on here for everybody to listen to. It also dovetails nicely into the whole podcasting phenomenon we’re seeing lately.
Best,
-jpg
Mark Wubben wrote:
Lollelskates! What I meant was not neccessary OS themes, even though you’re right, it sounds like that and maybe I wanted to push somebody into you_know_what train : ). What I meant was more like moderate icon collection for the browser and such.
Anyway, here are many great ideas. Looking forward to creativity explosion for the next Shuffle. (oh, and thanks for the ‘notify’ reminder)
How about a “comp graveyard” contest, in which folks submit unused comps from their collection and you pick the one one you like best.
Or have people submit their best advice about running a design shop (dealing with clients, financial things, inspiration, etc.). The collection would make for a great website/book/whatever when it’s all over.
Or have people compete to see who can come up with the most interesting/useful PHP script in 5 lines or less.
Or have people post their favorite web-smart hex colors. Most interesting/underused color wins it.
Or have people post their best “someone oughtta do that” website ideas. Lots of interesting ideas will be tossed around and something might come of it.
Or have folks submit their suggestions for what panel you should do at SXSW next year (“My Summer in San Serriffe”).
Or have everyone design a typographical an image that captures the spirit of that month. It’d make a great calendar at for next year.
Or just give one to me. That might work too.
How about the best story (true or fictional) that has to do with iPods? IE, if you had an iPod that you dropped and then following that, it only played Metallica, one might write about that.
i think mike roberto has the best idea that is not mine!
celebrity wedding vows
pick two celebs in any industry as the to be married couple… and have people write proposed (at the alter or ceremony) vows.
cheers,
brianb
Or, even better — pick to celebs and have them actually propose on this site.
At a recent conference I attended, various speakers gave out free copies of books using various methods like who came from the furthest location, etc. But I thought they should have given the books to those that couldn’t afford them, like non-profits. I recommend giving away shuffles to those that are working on community-based, non-profit sites, etc. Not sure how this could be done, maybe with a rating system or something. Anyhoo, just a thought.
1. Imagine Mike is super rich and wants to open his own movie studio. Pitch a scenario idea to make a movie about web developers. Remember that he is rich/famous/busy, so you have to be concise.
2. Imagine Mike reaching his centenary. His many grandchildren want to hear a story about Mike at work? What kind of colourful tale would he tell them?
3. Mike is running for President. As the wise guru on the mountain, what advice would you give him?
4. Imagine you won an iPod Shuffle on some contest online, what would your thank you speech be?
5. Imagine geeks and nerds ruled the world. What would fashion be like?
^_^
1) what’s an Ipod shuffle?
— no matter, I just like the idea you’re giving things to people. that’s nice.
2) thanks for helping my office mate out with his web design issue
3) Seems like you do a lot of giving. Maybe it’s time someone gave back to you!! Maybe something for your site. Maybe an Icon, a photoshopped creation, a slogan. that way it could be changed up every week, so, every talent would have a chance, and you’d have something new and spiffy. Not to mention, the benevolent act of showcasing some original “art” (be it script, or what not)
just my .02.
How about: most creative use for the Yahoo! Search Web Services API?
http://developer.yahoo.net/documentation/
Yahoo stinks, Tony. They’re a ripoff of Google’s API. Use Google’s API instead. ;-)
Question: Is it possible/allowed to win more than one iPod? If so, is there a limit? If so, what is that limit? I wouldn’t be interested in more than one iPod, but I was curious.
Reward the best/worst use of sIFR.
Well, they are iPod Shuffles, how about a music related contest? I am always looking to broaden my musical horizon so when a great song bubbles it’s way to the top of my random playlist I will often hop into iTunes music store, look up the song, and check the “Listeners also bought…” section. A few clicks will often lead you into a whole new genre of music nowhere near the original song, but I have found some great stuff that way. So, how about opening this up to your readers by naming a song you are particularly fond of at the moment, and ask for recommendations based on it. First great discovery wins.
A new Shuffle for one lucky player and new music for you (and thus, all of us). Like Keith’s idea, it’s a win for everyone.
I think a song suggestion is a great idea, but just suggesting one might not be enough. What about whoever creates the best iMix for everybody to buy in iTunes gets it. The judge of course would be Mike. You could also play with genres too. This week we’ll have x genre and next week we’ll do y genre.
Thoughts?
What about this? Each month offer a different genre of music. The contestants will have to take album art from an artist of that genre (or some other qualifying category that you choose) and photoshop an iPod shuffle into it in some creative manner. I really think this kind of contest could get fun and interesting.
If I may, I’d like to put my vote in for one of these (after reading a majority of them and being unimpressed). Mike Atherton, that’s a heck of an idea, in my opinion. Incorporates music, searching, creativity and guts.
Doesn’t: 1. Require technical knowledge (Photoshop or HTML skillz); 2. Copy something already done; 3. Require money or too much time; 4. Require remote linking.
Mike (D.), if you choose this as one of the nine, I’ll be happy.
How about hiakus made out of tags from technorati, flickr and del.icio.us?
Each word would have to be a link to that tag…
Jonathan: Sure, Google’s API is nice, but it requires SOAP…wherease Yahoo! uses REST. No SOAP required. Simply build the necessary URL and you’re done. Allows for some pretty powerful stuff without the heavy lifting. It’d be fun to see how creative people can get with it…Since they’re fundamentally different (Google vs. Yahoo! API’s), it’s safe to say there’s no ripoff involved.
Most of the uses I’ve seen (for either API) are standalone type applications. I’d like to see how creative people can get integrating (either) API into their web sites. Not just for the sake of doing so, but to truly add function and value to the site.
That would be my choice for a contest worth doing, although it may test the boundaries of Mike’s consideration #2.
Idea 1. -> Logo Design contest for your website, that best reflects you and your blog.
Idea 2. -> A Jingle for your site about you.
Idea 3. -> A priceless moment photo that makes everyones day and yours.
Idea 4. -> Wallpaper Design Contest (if mentioned above already sorry.) or a New CSS layout Contest.
Idea 5. -> I am a poor student in Canada with a large tuition debt that needs good tunes to listen to, so the pain fades away from my mind. ;)
Cheers Mike D.
Sorry for spamming another comment, just want to explain Idea 3. further so its not a scam if choosen or not understood correctly.
It has to be original and not from the web…it can either be taken by a cam phone or digital camera. But, it has to be original and not fake from the web that has already been seen by 1billion ppl. ;).
In keeping with the song theme many are suggesting, how about submissions of songs in list format (from this LiveJournal post.)
Here’s the original example from the above link, as posted by quantz. It’s the theme from Ghostbusters in list format:
Oh, man, this is hard. How about the first poster named Stu gets the iPod Shuffle? I would definitely participate in such a game!
I agree with Donna, nine saltines.
However, if I had to give my own unique idea.. best Mike Davidson beard… authentic or photoshopped.
Quite generous, man!
How about a photo contest where the entrants have to show where they would use the iPod at. Think of that basketball commercial on DirecTV where the basketball team is playing with no ball and the voice over says “Something missing?” I get a kick out of the way the team plays around as if there really is a ball, but we can’t see it. Same kind of thing, but in photo form for the iPod.
Sorry for commenting twice…. but I already have a great true story for Mike Roberto’s idea. A hint: it involves ferrets and TWO iPods. Read my true story over at my blog.
I have another idea, have people guess the famed domain that
you bid on recently, y’know build up the suspense for the reveal.
Seriously, this time. What about doing good with this contest? Going with the idea of the redesign, how about we are assigned a “crappy” existing site of a non-profit organization, and we have to redesign it for them?
Even if you don’t do my idea, consider doing some sort of work for a charitable organization. That would be great!
You have way too much disposable income. Try donating to charity instead.
(Editor’s Note: Why instead? I do that too. Glad you “approve” of that.)
I had another idea.
Post a video of yourself (Mike) saying some truthful things, and then also telling a lie. Whoever is the first person to identify the lying moment, wins.
Hmmm, has anyone tried doing a haiku with playlist titles?
I’m a new to some of these latest gadets but I’m learning and catching up. I would love to participate in a contest involving photos but I don’t have a digital comera – yet – so I couldn’t participate. I also don’t have Photoshop – yet – so I couldn’t participate in a design contest involving that. I would love to have these things but I”m not there -yet. I also don’t have an IPOD – yet. Yes, I sound like an old fogey who’s behind the times but I’m getting there.
I would recommend avoiding contests where “the first person to…” wins. With some people’s schedules, it wouldn’t give everyone a solid chance to compete. Someone who checks your blog at the wrong time of day shouldn’t be unable to participate.
(Editor’s Note: Yep, agreed.)
I’d like to see some sort of contest involving photos, too. (This comment didn’t really help, did it?)
find out where you’re read:
messiest home/dorm computer station/area contest!
show it in two 640 x 480 images max.
post to flickr, smugmug, fotki or ourmedia.
Online MadLibs:
– Fill in the blanks with words….or maybe flickr photos/thumbnails.
Painted Cat:
– The web could use more cat photos. For sure. Paint your cat and share the photo. More points for shaved and painted cats. Non-toxic paint only…or not.
How about all the foreign names for “Mike.”
Here’s mine: Michal – Poland
When people do enter the contest, you could each person make his/her entry, and then vote on the best of the above comments. Although the first commenter would have a slightly fair advantage of being around and in small pools for the first couple comments, it’d be tiiiiight (However, the last guy would have no chance).
Then you can take the viewers winner into consideration. Plus, even if you don’t pick the viewers choice, if it’s an imagination (story, haiku, picture, etc) kind of game, they get some credit for being awesome that day.
I like #14 — mostly because you don’t need much supertechnical skills or the need to be on a computer with whatever software.
Here are some ideas:
1.- CSS Art
Make a web page, containing only a bunch of empty divs (with an id each), let’s say 50 of them. And allow the page to load external Style sheets (like the garden). And let the people be creative with it. The more artistic/creative entry wins that round.
2.- Theme campaign
Choose a topic, let’s say “education” or “food” or “peace”. And ask the contestants to make a simple Ad about it, consisting only of one picture and one slogan. At the end you will have a winner, and a public campaign on that topic ;-)
3.- Save the web
Choose a web illness (spam, chain letters, bad browsers, or the like), and ask the people to write an idea to solve that problem. Make it word-limited to make it even simpler. Some great ideas might come from that.
4.- Photo Story
People will have to tell a story using only photos. Limited to, let’s say, a minimum of 3 and maximum of 10. Entries should be contained in a flickr folder.
5.- Accronymator
Post a different word every contest, like “Mike”, “Style”, “Internet”, or whatever you feel like. And ask the people to explode that word as if it was an accronym. (Example: MIKE = “Many Ideas Kicking Energy”)
6.- The lost Image
Bring a suble image from other site, let’s say one corner, or a bullet, or a separator, or the like, from another site (known bloggers/sites) and make people find out where it belongs.
Or, the best one:
Ask everyone to send their credit card number to my email account, and I’ll pick the winner XD
Give one away for the best new use of sIFR in that timeframe.
(I’m a bit of a masochist, and this is an idea I had for myself some time ago:)
(You can define “best” better than I can. If it were me, I would say)
(But, again, you can come up with criteria better suited to your own taste. :) )
Ooh. I used a style attribute in that blockquote; it showed up in the preview, but apparently was stripped.
Marko, actually I thought you meant sIFR ;-)
Another suggestion: best April Foolsday joke.
HEY, one more — instead of “100 words,” say “It must be easily understandable from a haiku or limerick describing it.” ;)
One more post to give an example of how cool that could be:
Okay, so that’s a lame 5-minute job, but you surely see the potential. :)
There’s nothing like the word “free” to get people motivated… :)
Well I haven’t had time to look through the enormous list of ideas so I don’t know if this has already been suggested but here goes.
Post a photo/drawing of an ipod shuffle on your site and everyone has to customise and the most original wins. By customise I mean you could take the photo provided and edit it in a photo app or print it off and draw over it / draw it from scratch then scan it in. Im sure there would be some really cool entries.
shortest comment here wins
Keeping with the iTunes theme, have us create a really sweet 10 song iMix and notify you, and you pick the one you like the best…
You could have a contest to see who could send you the best picture of what they would do, or where they would take their new IPod shuffle. You could have people take pictures of themselves, and then edit in an IPod shuffle to show what they would do with it.
how about who ever can make the best pro ipod shuffle collage out of screen shots from the top 20 search results for the word psychedelic.
Pick 2 Actors/Actresses and have people figure the links between them in so many steps. This is similar to ‘7 steps to Kevin Bacon’ but this time you make them more obscure connections.
JFC
I suggest a contest where a person writes the step-by-step effects of an action. For example, you post “You receive a pair of blue socks.” Proceeding, people would post something like this:
Alright. Bad example. But you hopefully get the point. : ) The advantages with this idea are that it doesn’t take much time, it requires no extra tools or knowledge, and people don’t even have to write very well as the idea is most important.
Post a message about free ipods and give it to the person who post comment number 25 or so.
This is something that doesnt requires any special skills.
Shaun: Bite me. :)
I can’t believe no one has brought up how this contest idea devalues design and we should all be mortally offended and lynch Mike D.
Oh well.
Here is my idea.
The contest can be called Bookmark Shuffle. It’s like the ipod shuffle but with websites. Whoever can come up with the 10 best website bookmarks combination wins.
Most of us have sites we go to on a daily basis. Why? Because they are interesting and fun. But maybe there are other sites out there that are just as fun but we don’t know about them yet. This contest will bound to give us all some fun websites that we can all enjoy. Surfs up.
Here is a website that would be on my top ten “Shuffle” list.
http://www.gametrailers.com/
Playing off the now-famous “Do not eat iPod shuffle” disclaimer– what about a contest inviting people to end in their best iPod shuffle recipes (fake, obviously.) Shuffle-ka-bobs, shuffle tiramisu, etc…
Push the creative limits of sIFR and show how utterly cool it can be. Hey, why not have the contest support sIFR, right?
It can be different every week/month. ‘This month, create a band page that shows off exceptional use of sIFR’. Just focus on a different theme each time.
Anyway…
Based on Phil’s idea (#10), I think we should have a “Six Degrees of Cederholm,” and whomever can land on the weirdest page six links away from SimpleBits wins. I only mention Dan because his last name is the catchiest for this, and he could post about the New England dew point and still get 60 comments. :)
And I know it’s not a democracy but I did like the sIFR Limerick idea, and the Flickr scavenger hunt, although not sure how how feasible an online hunt is these days between metadata and advanced searching.
How about an online scavenger hunt, you could force users to look for things .. and take screenshots of them .. heck you could do it offline with cell phone cameras and emailing the pictures in.
I’m also sorry I didn’t read through the 4.1 billion comments you had .. too busy at work. Somebody probably already mentioned this halfway decent idea.
make tiny crops of certain designs or logos and have us guess what logo or design it is. Or possibly a website as well.
Since March Madness is in full swing why don’t we just have a HUGE saltine eating bracket contest. You could air the “games” via streaming web cams. That way you would be able to authenticate the contest. It could be based on saltines eaten in a given timeframe.
I know I would be all over a Big Saltine Dance!
Contestant would have their logo design chosen that was presented for your site an win a shuffle.
I like the idea of a “redesign contest” for a non-profit site that has a subpar site, then the winner gets the shuffle and the site design is given to the organizationas a donation.
What if making it a puzzle type of contest, using the up & coming Grafedia as the medium. Or maybe you can have users come up with the most insane, the most absurd, the most weird, Grafedia art, the new generation of hyperlinking!
Well, the whole idea is to use Grafedia. I find the grafedia project pretty revolutionizing…
Whatcha think?
– Choose some websites (not neccesarily blogs) and have people choose theme songs for those websites based on design choices and content. Maybe one song for each in case they don’t match up. Prize goes to most creative choice that fits.
Remember ASCII art? Who can create the most emotional piece of art, using only characters on your keyboard, that fits into the comment box?
-Stirman
http://www.stirman.net
Who can write the best (short) story, using each letter in the alphabet only one time!
First person to document, via video, a half court basketball shot. Nothing but net.
As if you don’t have enough good ideas already…
You name an musician/band/etc, and we have to compose a written work featuring as many of their song titles as possible. The catch of course is that they have to be integrated seamlessly into the composition. Whoever gets the most wins!
Take a screenshot of your bookmarks bar from your browser.
The one with the most diversified links and organization, wins.
(extra credit with mikeindustries.com listed within the top 5 ;)
Here’s mine
Whomever donates the most amount to a charity wins one.
How about you “shuffle-the-person” to win this ? :)
This might have already been suggested (hard to tell by now) but how about a “timed site design” contest? Give a list of specs, open up the comments and first one to post a link to a design (image or HTML, your choice) you like wins.
Of course, the person could have had the design laying around, but if you make the specs unique enough, it’d be hard for them to fake it.
Oh yeah and, um, this contest devalues design.
There Jeff, are you happy? :)
Google-whack Haiku contest. Every line must be an individual Google-whack. If you don’t know what that is, do a Google search for Google-whacking.
This probably doesn’t pass the “quick to complete” requirement, but it sure would be a fun waste of time getting 5-syllable whacks. I’d do it. Then again, I already have an iPod shuffle. :)
How about a design contest? We submit only images and a CSS stylesheet and you put the winning content as a stylesheet option for your website every two weeks or so and award the iPod shuffle. This is a nice way to help see how creative people can get using only CSS and images. That’s one idea. Good luck to whoever participates in whatever contest you decide to make. :D
Share it with those who share. Give it for the best pro bono website submitted each month. Seek help from a previous month’s winner to shortlist submissions, say 20 sites. You choose the winner.
Take a hot / sexy / interesting photo of your girlfriend, boyfriend, or some friend you like with *some other inferior device* than iPod shuffle and host it on *your* site or flickr. Most interesting photo gets iPod shuffle.
Who ever guesses what your name is – gets it! Right? Mike? ….?
Have all contestants give YOU something, and send the iPod to the one who gives you the best gift…
I like the “six degrees” idea but with this tweak. You choose two sites that users have to navigate between in the fewest number of clicks. Intermediate links have to be pre existing, so you can’t put up a site that creates a link between the start and end sites just for the purpose of winning. And no typing – you can’t just navigate to google and type in the second site to get to it. Ties would be broken by the highest cumulative google pagerank of the intermediate links.
What about good old physical combat? We separate into our respective weight classes, and we keep the punches above the belt. Winner gets a shuffle, loser shuffles off.
Best collage made up of between 12 – 24 pictures.
Have an illustration contest for best Ipod Shuffle 2010 concept design.
writing songs about good people who like to give stuff away beacause they are good. or you could loop loopy loops looping loopely loop… you should give a theme – carefully picked (like “retro” or “techno” or “toster”) – and you could (not necessarily) choose tecnique (like photograph, song, sonet, drama, novel, etc.) and pick your favourite works. Or most imaginative and creative. Title is also important… Keep that in mind. Thanx. Good night!
Cool. Too bad the suggestion I was going to use was already mentioned…
Whoever can take logo elements from other sites (possibly music related, or apple related) and “shuffle” them together to create a new logo of some sort– perhaps a logo for a product of your choice for each contest.
It is easy and fast to judge because it is graphics based, creative alignment with your readers, and fast to do.
How about you choose a theme/random phrase (ex: “shuffles on trains”) and the contest is to create some piece of art (story, poetry, image, movie, music, flash, etc) that illustrates this with/without metaphors and whatever. It’d be total creativity. Kind of like a super Photoshop Phriday — only more points go toward artistic value than to the hilarity/ridiculousness effect.
Mike, here are my suggestions:
make up (e.g. Acme Toenail Clippers)
Neil, I’m no expert (despite my prize winning credentials :-) but I’ve read that haikus are much more interesting in Japanese, where the syllables within words tend to sound more similar and rhythmic. So it’s not so much a dying art in English as one which doesn’t quite fit the language.
“Scratch Your Head Website” Hunt – Whoever submits the best entry of an off-the-wall, wierd, totally bizarre & obscure website topic. A less-obscure example of this type of website would be http://www.googlewhack.com. Definition of obscure: you have not previously heard of the winning website. Adult sites excluded, of course. Let’s say the URL has to be related to the topic of the site, and must have been registered for at least one year prior to the contest date; thus preventing someone from trying to win by creating a website.
Why I think this would be a great contest: I am totally fascinated by the “who’d ever thought of that” ideas conceived and implemented on the web.
At the beginning of each week you post the first news summary listed at Google News. Participants must complete the news story but may only use many sentence as were provided in the summary AND the story must end with the words, iPod Shuffle. Example: A three sentence Google News summary about the Pope’s health must be completed with an additional three sentences and end with the words iPod Shuffle.
Entrants have to use a SQL injection attack on an unsecured PHP login form to leave a limerick in the mysql datbase. The limerick describes the selection criteria for the next winner. The author of the most interesting limerick wins.
There will be some sanity checks on the login form to prevent deletion of other entries / trashing the whole db.
Failing the technical ability to pull something like this off, users can enter via an alternate route: succinctly describing the criteria for the next round in the confines of a username & password (max 30 characters each) – but you’d want this combination to be pretty amusing, to win against so many a witty limerick.
D
I would justr want some iPod shuffle! I dont have suggestion!
Two ideas, both around the same concept:
First, people must mock up their own shuffle, out of cardboard or
whatever. White headphones are also a must (a little liquid paper and a
set of normal black headphones would do).
Then:
1 – Snap photos of your mocked up shuffle in interesting/weird places. A
closeup version would be nice to see that some effort went into making
your “homemade” shuffle. The photo that you like/makes you laugh the
hardest wins (or something like that).
or
2 – Building a bit off of Keith’s suggestion, you provide a list of
places that the pseudo-shuffle needs to be photographed, and the first
person to submit a set of photos to you wins. This could be ‘advanced’
by you choosing the best mocked-up shuffle from the first XX submitted
entries as the winner.
Either way, I think that quality of the mocked up shuffle should be
considered.
Take a screencap that is 25×25 pixels of a random site out of your bookmarks and ask for it to be identified. (I searched ‘screen’ and didn’t find anything similar so I hope I didn’t repeat someone’s idea)
Well, I’m partial to Sonia’s ideas, and the best is that when you are done, you can make a video out of the images: All your shuffles are belong to us :-)
I’m not real sure if I might just get lost in this great sea of ideas, but I had a couple contest ideas that might be fun:
1. Website Shuffle — Entries are created by using elements (either visual or coded) from a series of linked sites to create a wholly new site. The initial site can be chosen to give everyone a similar starting point but each entry will differ as entrants choose pieces and parts from each site by simply following links. Entries must document specifically what parts were used and from which site. Most original/Creative entry wins.
2. Photo Shuffle / Telephone — Participants e-mail addresses are collected and a unique ordered list is created. The contest starts by providing the first name on the list a unique image to be altered in one aspect (this part probably needs the most specfic rules). The first e-mail address mails to the second with each entrant altering the image slightly until a new image comes out at the end. A separate contest can be run for those not in the e-mail chain for guessing the original image content, while the most original/artistic iteration also wins a prize.
1. $emailaddressArray = Select unique email from comments
2. $contest = shuffle($emailaddressArray);
3. $Winner = $shuffle[47];
Too geeky?
I think there’s a bug in that suggestion…
Umm.. yeah, the prize goes to the person who can get it working ;-)
Monkeying up something that simple means it’s time to stop coding, and go and have a beer or something…
How about an online treasure hunt. You can give one or two clues (picture, quote, etc. ) and have people search your site for the answer. The first person to find the answer (probably best to make it a link so it can easily be monitored) is the winner!!!
For example:
Clue: Pause, Rewind, Slo-Mo Live while your out living life.
Answer: Tivo – https://mikeindustries.com/blog/tenthings
(DirecTivo)
Yours could be much more complex!
Just an idea to get people crawling your site, if not already!!!:)
select different bugs/idiosyncrasies on the web and ask for the easiest/simples/flexiblest/sexiest/powerfulest/most common sensiest solutions.
winner take ipod shuffle.
If I were in your boots, I’d probably do a themed photo contest every month (or two weeks). Either you pick the them each time or take new theme suggestions. Either way, you get to see lots of original photography.
The funny thing is that about 167 people before this entry have been the victim of the April Fool’s day joke.
(Editor’s Note: Actually no. It’s for real. Notice the date on the post. But yes, I’m with you in that there are entirely too many April Fools gags on the net this year. I think I’m going to turn my computer off on this day next year.)
Wow so many ideas in here, I didnt manage to read every one so hope this isnt a duplicate, anyway.
I like the idea of photos, one thing Ive done before with a friend is we each pick a strange challenge that we have to go out and make something interesting out by photos. So for example, I was given the task of taking photos of a microwave, I set them a task of screws. So basically you then make something really interesting out of this topic – its a great deal more fun and rewarding with the pictures than you might imagine!
Another picture idea. You post an amusing picture and we have to come up with a caption for it. This might be fun to relate to current events.
I really wish I could think of a way to involve GPS and Geocaching with this, but that would probably leave a lot of people out of the loop. My best idea though evolved from the concept of a webcam cache.
You should set a very specific time window on a certain day (say 30 minutes). All participants must find an outdoor public webcam that includes a timestamp – Like this one of the UCF Fountain. The person who submits the most original unedited webcam captured picture of themself within the time window wins a Shuffle.
The challenge of this is of course capturing the picture. Participants would either have to save the picture using a Sidekick or some other novel use of the (portable) internet, or have a friend near a computer save the picture.
The real question though is WHY do you want to give away Shuffles. I can’t imagine how this is working into your long-term goal of retiring to the South of France…But what the hey, I could use and iPod Shuffle.
Have a sentence, or a paragraph — possibly in coded form — and when you take out the letters “i, p, o, d, s, h, u, f, f, l, e” (or anything similar) you get the magic word. Email mike the magic word to win!
Or maybe a partial sentence, people have to plug in the letters “i, p, o, d, s, h, u, f, f, l, e” to spell out the magic word. Or, the magic URL– so when people go to the URL it has a form to send you an email that you won.
Time for me?
1) A cool Mike Industries Logo made to the way the designer wants. (variety is the key here)
2) Build an entire site with CSS and sIFR (all typogrophy must be handled through sIFR)
3)What are the top reasons YOU need an iPod Shuffle?
4) Coolest desktop background
5) Funniest ebmarassing story. (kept clean of course)
6) Coolest business idea (creativity is the key here, would love to see how people think)
7) Just give me one so that I could rock the hizzy. :)
What the fcuk are you wanke@rs talking about? Tell me, tell me now.
I like fish
Also, if you happen to know if we can take a detour on the right hand side of the imaginary axis, when converting from the s to the GH plane, please let myself or greg know. I am late for a keg party and want to go home.
Thanks for your time
Frank, i think you have some problems. Give me a call. I like a man with problems
Why sure Inshalin, give me your didgits and we’ll see what can be arranged….. I am an eskimo
Ok, it’s +61439818262.
Message me first, then hot steamy latin/eskimo sex to follow
Well, ok. I feel the love juices swelling already
Please forgive me if this has already been suggested:
After all it is a shuffle that we’re playing for is it not?! ;-)
Looks like big bustelling Brian wants in on the action. Talking dirty about “scrambling letters”. Crazy kid.
Ok, sorry about being a dick. Just trying to amuse myself
that will do
So which is it?! Eskimo or Hot Dog? ;-)
What a great idea Mike!
– Photo contest, pets, lanscapes, etc. etc.
– Photo caption contest of an image you pick
– Video contest
– Flash contest
– Garageband song contest
– Online Halo Tourney
– You could hide a couple for a GPS geocache.
– Best 30 second Shuffle Commercial
– Blog Trivia contest, Im a newb here so that was for you regulars
– Best fake dream resume, unless you live your dreams
Hope I didnt repeat too many from above me, cheers all.
Im sure I could come up with a dozen more silly ideas.
Several of these could be used more then once if you
want to give away as many as you mentioned.
Very admirable of you I must say.
I also really enjoyed your site. Great design, very clean.
Many nice details and extras. Well done.
Also thanks for the Mitch clips, thats how I found you in the first place!!!
Comedy Central has a few videos of his work up now.
Stand-up, crank yankers, etc. etc.
I have some suggestions, I dont know if anyone already wrote them but I’ll post them anyways.
1. Make a contest with your homepage, “Edit the css” and see who does the greatest job with the “makeover” of your homepage. This is just editing your css, not doing a whole new layout and css file, this will be something you could just switch to with another css. That could be fun
2. Making your own iPod Shuffle design in a graphic program like photoshop, illustrator and that kind of stuff, just lay out some ground rules, may the best dude win :)
3. Do something that everyone can be apart of, I dont know what but something that doesnt need a special skill. Because some people dont know how to use photoshop or coding HTML/XHTML/CSS and so on.
Well, I dont like iPod, they are so popular. I rather go with my iRiver.
Anyway, just some of my ideas, Good luck with your contest
Yours, Niklas
Personally, I think there should be a contest to give us all a reminder of what’s good in this world. There’s a lot of death and destruction as of late. I think it’s important to be a little hippie-esque. A bit of rain in the Seattle are too.
Mike –
You’re awesome for doing this!
– sgb
I’ve read through most of the comments here and I don’t think this idea has been brought up yet.
To keep the contest entries low maintainance yet creative, why not ask for photographs of what people are using as portable music players currently to get an idea of why the person would like an iPod Shuffle.
For instance, an entry could be a photo of an old, original Sony Discman or something as large as a boombox from the 80’s. Don’t allow any post production in Photoshop or the like either, as that would give tech people an advantage. Be sure the person is in the picture along with the media device as well. I bet you’d get plenty of really crazy and creative pictures from this.
I would think this idea would give almost everyone (with access to some sort of camera) a fair shot at winning and entries could be posted in just a few days after the contest is posted.
Pray about it.
Great idea! Here’s my contest suggestion:
People make small, short videos of themselves singing a favourite song, or animated GIFs of them dancing to a favourite song. These are uploaded either to a custom-designed page or as comments to a post. The one voted funniest/most creative (or with most comments) wins, and the winner is encouraged to upload an ‘extended’ version.
How about a photograph contest to see who can come up with the most humorous entry winning each month. You could have themes too, like absurd things done with fruit (I’m sure someone from Thailand would win that one).
Have a joke contest, the best joke wins.
Why don’t you just say people, that whoever proves that he diserves to get ipod will get one. Prove can be in all kind of ways, photograph of someone doing something because of his love to ipod, or couple of words why someone deserve to get ipod, etc… So, someone will do anything to prove that he diserve ipod, and you choose does he really proportional to his effort, or creativity..
Pure simplicity, just like it!
I have four suggestions:
1) A contest to come up with the best design for W3C’s web site. The homepage only.
2) Post 5 entries of web sites that really suck with a brief explanation.
3) A contest to re-design mikeindustries.com in a 1995 style web design…
4) Best tagline for Web Standards Project.
Hello from Croatia!
I’m med student. I saved man’s life today providing cpr for 20 minutes. I think i deserve ipod shuffle!
I want something which is useful for other people as well, although it might seems to be boring:
Do a research (or a web collection) about whose comment styles look unique, rather than the usual pre-made template from your blog engines (well, you know!). Like Jon Hicks’s comment style, yours, Dunstan’s, they are all unique and well-designed. Which is sometimes overlooked.
I wonder if someone already doing this. :))
How about a “Random Acts of Kindness” contest. Where people think of inventive ways to help out people, their community, or a particular person, then send in your story with pictures.
OR…along the same vein, Mike, you could come up with a card that people could leave when they commit their “Act” which includes a URL to this site and a blank for the person to put an email address or name, the URL would point to a form with a chance for the recipient to describe in their own words what happened.
How about..
Whoever leaves the 199th comment?
The winner would be very fortunate.
I extremely liked the iPod Shuffle and it was very helpful for my life to study so many things and to listen to the music.
Good originality, Mike :-)
Maybe a nice idea: letting people create a flash-game based on an…iPod shuffle! (Like: you are the platform- and mushroom jumping iPod shuffle with a moustache). You (not I ;) ) can be very vreative with that! And “knowing you” offcourse the involvement of ActionScript would give you some extra points ;)
Thinking of the graphical talent living on thsi earth (and visiting your site), this could lead to some memorable games!
Desert Island Super Shuffle:
You’re stuck on an island with your shuffle as your only companion. You can load it with 20 songs, but you cannot have more than one song from a single year. Create a mix that’ll keep you sane until you’re rescued.
The best shuffle mix wins the prize (and as a bonus: the shuffle comes loaded with the 20 songs chosen.)
ipodshuffle…. shuffle.
How many times can you shuffle “ipodshuffle.” Shuffle the letters and make new words. The winner is the person who can come up with the most words in a given period of time.
Pet Ipod Photo Contest
make a costume for your pet dog, cat, ….
Send in the photo.
Best costume wins!
Just to clarify, the costume should be an Ipod costume, not just any costume.
The pet can be any type of pet.
What if you wrote an article (probably about the iPod Shuffle), took a screenshot of the article, cut it down the middle, and posted one half. Then everyone tries to write the best / most creative other half. You could also just omit every other line.
When a winner was announced you could post your full article as well as theirs for comparison.
“Convince me for a Shuffle” Contest. Or whatever. ^_^
Take a recent, controversially two-sided news topic from whichever news source (or a fictional one) and post it up, then have the contestants pick one of many opposing arguments before writing up a reasonably short, believable paragraph about why their side is correct. The winner will be the one whom best convinces you to side in their favor.
You know, like a court issue where the defendant or prosecutor tries to convince the jury to go their way, except there’d be multiple defendants/prosecutors and the jury will be manned by only one person… or you could try mixing it up. ^_^
Let people design new buildings using the Shuffle as a brick or Lego. Architecture built by cutting and pasting Shuffles.
i think it sould be desidesd by a internet game off say 10 games and the person that gets through it wins
Mike — have you picked 9 ideas yet from this list or should we keep posting new ones?
At any rate, here’s one:
Take photos of things that look like shuffles. Landmarks, spiderwebs, buildings with a large circle near the top ;) etc.
(Since photoshop is available to mostly all, maybe the original digital image with EXIF data will be rquired.)
Seeing how this is like the 900th entry here, I doubt you’ll see this, but how about having people create an iPod Shuffle completely out of XHTML and CSS?
No graphics are allowed to be used, and for extra kicks, see how well they can make iPod headphones as well, it’ll be interesting using only “border: 1px” (or something along the lines of that.), hehe.
iPod shuffle in Gmaps
contest idea: figure out where Apple got the visual design idea for the suffle. winner is the person that sends a photgraph of an ordinary item that most closely resembles an iPod shuffle.
How about the person who is able to get a video of the coolest (as judged by you) musician telling you they should get a free iPod.
Some of these suggestions sound really hard for the entrant. My suggestion is probably too much work for YOU, but here goes anyway. Since iPods hold songs, how about a musical trivia contest? I’m a trivia buff so I’ve run across lots of internet sites that contain lots of trivia questions on music, among other things. You could probably come up with a lot of semi-obscure questions from these websites on all kinds of music ranging from opera to hip hop and everything in-between. And there are tons of music-related websites that would yield all kinds of easy to difficult trivia questions. The title of the contest could be something like “What’s on my iPod?” and the entrants would have to correctly answer all of the trivia questions about song titles, artists, and so on.
“SATURDAY’S SHOWDOWN (CARD) SHUFFLE IN SEPTEMBER”
The first Saturday in September you shuffle a deck of cards and pick a card out, meanwhile every one has submitted there guess of which card you will draw that Saturday (4 of diamonds, King of Spades etc…), the one who picks the correct (or closest) card wins.
If there is more than one correct guesser…each participant in the playoff will search that card (i.e. 7 of hearts) at Google’s image search bar and guess which image you chose.
Whoever comes up with the best iPod shuffle advertising campaign for this giveaway events, wins. The result can be used to promote this site for example.
Sculpting food!!??!?
Come on! This is your chance to reward all those hardworking people who dedicate themselves to adding to the greater good without reward. Do a comp that requires people to add to the greater good. Some ideas are very valid. Optimising coding or best CSS workaround. These things are gold.
How about a photo comp that requires that every photo is submitted to an open source library of images, available to everyone under the GPL. Or Best ‘Good Deed’ done.
hi im stephen i am just going on 12 years old! why dont you aim the chance of an free i pod to people my age. after all it is us who listen to tunes most of all. try something like an art competition or a story competition who ever writes the best story or draws the best picture each month wins. or you could have people email you or write to you on reasons why they shold recieve a free ipod. plz take my idea into account after all we are the adults of the future!
How about giving an ipod shuffle away to the person who can do the best job of modifying a photo of a famous Microsoft executive (i.e. Ballmer or Gates) to make it look as though they are truly wearing an ipod shuffle?
You should have people compose songs and write lyrics on garage band and have them send you both. You could pick the best one and that could be the winner. This would be a good way to use music in a contest for a music player.
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/04/diy_ipod_sock_p.html!
Wooh…read thru like about 200 entries here in random order
Boy I’m dizzy now!
I have a really fantastic idea, and I doubt its stated in any of the twenty odd entries I breezed thru.
This is sorta in the vein of a haiku or limerick and yes,
even the dear 12 year old boy can enter this contest!
Here goes,
WRITE A TONGUE TWISTER
This is easy cause I’m sure everyone had to in school at some point
(example: Sally sells seashells at the seashore)
Rules:
1. It has to be one sentence, that makes sense
2. All the words must begin with the same letter
Except for propositions and articles, etc.( at, the, for, to, a ,an)
3. You must use your own first name in the entry
(which will make each entry unique)
4. You must place the word ipod somewhere in it
( that also is an exception to rule number 2, unless you name is Ivan or something with an ‘i’)
5. There should be at least 5 words that begin with the same letter
as your name.
So Mike, there is my suggestion and below is my entry for my suggested contest:
Preppy Pearl poses prettily in a pink polo perched on a porch passionately pining for an ipod.
Yo, watsup I’m just 13 and would really like an ipod so I’ve got a pretty good suggestion here for u. Would u want to giv away the things u bot 2 sum scrawny jackass? I dont think so. Maybe u can do an eligibility form and make the [eople who wnat th prize to write about themselves. Whoever u would like when it comes to personality, the way they r, and just as a frien is up to u. Whoever u like the most wins.
keep me posted
im bad with games so im gonna give u as many reasons to give me/awardme/donate me an ipod shuffle
1.i cannt afford one and every1 should have 1
2. my minidisc player broke
3.im fluent in irish gaelic
4. im irish
5.im actually irish not a second generation thing
6.my feet are sore
7.my frend was wearing an i love dancing sticker that i gave her(there cool if u see them, the irrelevance of them creates a stupid yet humourous look) and she was in la at the time r somewhere and she met luke from the oc who said wit was cool
8.i have work2moro so i need something to listen to during my break
9.u cud have a person with the funniest story win the ipod shuffle
10.i like food, if u do…then we have somtin in common
and thers more but i shant fill ur website nemore
11. persistance
12.i worship phill lynott of thin lizzy
13.im a celtic fan
14.i like u
15.im a generous person, does the bible no say those who give will receive?
16.can peristance count twice cus i entered a lod of things for free ipod shuffles and didnt get a reply so cud u even email me even if i dont get one
17.iloveu
18.im 17, but look 20
19. im goin 2 america wen i finish skool next year.
20. wee irish like to get drunk, i was drunk last nite
I suggest a HUMAN BEATBOX competition. Let people go crazy with rhythmpatterns and iold-school sounds. Like the “Fat Boys” in the late eighties.
I personally like it very much and thought it would be fun to hear what other people would come up with. Stream it on your webpage.
Give one to the person who lives the furthest away from the other entrants. You may need to limit it to a continent, but that way the losers can’t easily track down the winner and beat him/her up for getting a Shuffle for, well, just being somewhere.
Idea 1:
How about let the Photoshoppers out there create a one scene “photo capture” with the topic: “I saw an ipod shuffle in/at ________.” Treat it like it is a living rare animal (like that “extinct” woodpecker they discovered in Arkansas last week) and put it in a photo that’s creative and unique.
Idea 2:
Splice a photo of a shuffle into 4 pieces and place them in your site somewhere and the first person (or tenth, fifteenth, whatever) to find and email you the URLs of each piece wins.
How about those things to decipher about? Like Piod fhlsufe or uOis agyddkw(one letter to the left of the keyboard of each letter) .. both the answers are iPod shuffle. So, if you are making a competition out of this, first person to decipher the gibberish you give to them wins the shuffle! How about that?
How about asking people to photograph (photoshop) the shuffle into the most bizarre and unexpected scenes of history, life, culture, etc…
Even without the genuine product in hand, images of the product could be integrated into digital images and a “SHUFFLE through LIFE” gallerty coudl be born. Hey maybe Apple and their agencies may take notice and adopt some submissions as part of their future campaigns.
In a matter of a weeks, you could be the collector of the world’s largest SHUFFLE DIGITAL ART GALLERY.
Yes this is geeky, nerdy and a bit techy, but could be fun for those who naturally emabrce these qualities proudly each day….?
My suggestion would be to have contestants show us the “inside” of the iPod shuffle. Not literally…
Although it can be anything, from an actual shuffle gutted (somewhat unoriginal though) to an inventive creative rendition of what you could imagine goes on in there (like little gnomes moving bits all over the place, etc…). In fact that would be the spirit of the contest; the “inside world of the shuffle”… the more imaginative, and compelling piece would win.
I wouldn’t constrict the medium, to allow for the most creative visual impact that each particular artist can find within their personal choices. This way people that draw well can submit a drawing, people that are good with photo compositing can jump right into Photoshop, sculptors have their medium, etc… maybe even people that are good with several mediums can mix as well. I would allow one image and caption per entry and obviously as many entries as people wanted to submit.
my idea is simple. have people send in a short explaination of a situtation that happened to them while they were listening to their shuffle. for instance say i was walking around my college campus and i’m lookin at all the good looking girls walkin around and the song that comes on while i’m lookin is “back that ass up.” follow?
if i were to enter my own contest i’d write it something like this:
yo i was walkin around campus starin at all the fine honeys and “back that ass up” came on!
as an after thought…i don’t really know if you’re even accepting addmissions for this anymore. if not then oh well heh
Music Video! Submitor makes a music video to the song (doesn’t have to be full song) they’ll listen to the most with their iPod Shuffle, maybe first without the music, and halfway through it, iPod headphones majically appear along with the music; visual/audio happiness united at long last. Could possibly be themed with a Macintosh advertisement look.
I’d do that for a shuffle.
How about a jingle for a new ipod commercial. And if it works well a later one could be to make the commercial using the winning jingle.
Apple’s motto for the shuffle is “Life is Random,” so taking that literally and literarily, I propose a “choose your own adventure” writing contest.
1) The editor would begin it, of course. This could take the form of just the beginning and the contestants completing it, or creating a plot ‘skeleton’ with multiple blanks that the contestants can fill in with the most creative entries that still make a cohesive, coherent story.
2) A word limit for each element(s) befitting the nature of the shuffle: the smaller the better. (I suggest 200 for the multiple entries. 500 for the single entry version. Whatever’s easier.)
So that’s my idea.
Thanks.
(1) How about a Rube Goldberg design/machine to do something (pause the shuffle or iPod)
or
(2) other objects (buildings, bus pass, whatever) that bear resemblance to the shuffle. What is the weirdest one?
How about…best use of an iPod as it wasn’t meant to be used? And if it doesn’t have to be related to iPods…a riddle contest! You know, Tolkienesque riddles.
My contest idea has 2 parts.
First, have a contest for the best ipod shuffle T-Shirt design?
Second, and the best part. After all the designs are in, sign up for a store at cafepress.com, (it’s pretty cheap). Submit all the ideas and see which shirt sells the most in one month. Use the money to buy an iPod shuffle for the person that sells the most.
1. Create a short story (novel-style) starring the ipod shuffle in a very uncommon way. Humorous, or creepy, just something you don’t expect.
2. Make the Shuffle-opera/musical or song.
3. Mother Shuffle comes late home, finds Dad Shuffle snoring in the living room, and baby Shuffling doing…? Best idea wins
4. The first one to find a word you can’t relate in 2 steps to sex wins, for example Bread. This is offcourse a wrong example, you can link Bread to Fertility, and the latter to sex, I have not found a right one yet), Pity it’s not quite related with the Ipod shuffle itself :-)
5. Do something with only the letters of Ipod Shuffle.(the I, p, o, d, S, h, u, f, l and e)
6. Personalise other things as were they Ipod Shuffles (as they do with animals at walt disney’s, sometimes they act like humans, birds with fingers, that sort of thing)
excuse me for my not-so-perfect english, it’s not my 1st language.
Seems I’m in a creative mood :-),
above i read about making an ad, well you could do so but not just for food. (or such) You can make an ad for the ipod shuffle because it has an positive effect on your health, makes you happy and so on.
variations on the theme ‘The Shuffle makes your day’…
I’m fond of brainstorming!
how about an acronym using the words: “ipod shuffle” describing what an ipod shuffle is or what its about or what its used for or what youll use it for. its fun and easy so there will be alot of different and interesting entries.
How about a song paradoy a la Weird Al Yankovic about the iPod Shuffle.
Create a fresco depicting our saviour the Ipod shuffle.
(May or may not be delivering us from evil)
How about creating a CSS/XHTML that looks like an iPod but not using any graphics and just one font? Sort of a hack me compo.
Contest for the most weird usage of an iPod (shuttle) for which it was not designed (e.g. what weird things can you do with your iPod instead of listening to music with it?).
How about… the best iPod Design ADVERTISING CONTEST!!! It’ll put creative minds and Photoshop skills to the test! All entries will be emailed to you, nominate your favorite design, and place them online for others to vote for the winner!!!
Two ideas:
– Best idea on a new way to communicate
– Best idea on how the iPod Shuffle can help you make friends and influence people
I’m sure someone’s already suggested this but what about putting iPod Shuffles into screenshots from famous movies?
-Places where you’d never expect to see an iPod shuffle.
-Designs for the next generation of iPod shuffles.
-Rejected designs for the original iPod shuffle.
-Create a picture using only a mosiac of iPod shuffles.
-What would archaelogists infer of/from the iPod shuffle when uncovered 1,000 years from now?
-Genealogy of an iPod shuffle – come up with the most interesting timeline/events leading to the creation of the iPod shuffle.
-“Most Shuffled Shuffle” playlist – submit the most hodge-podge collection of songs in your iPod shuffle.
-Poorest/Most foolish uses for iPod shuffle (ideally in words, not pictures :)
-“How the iPod shuffle Saved the Universe” short story
-Create the best iPod “Shuffle” Acrostic Poem
S uper sounding
H ums me to sleep
U nbelievably small
F ull of variety
F un to hold
L ov’n every iTune
E veryone needs one
-Create the perfect iPod Shuffle “skin” (i.e. Juicy Fruit skin)
-If iPod was to have its own logo what would it look like? (this may require some research on iPod products and Apple brand)
-Transform your iPod into your pet (i.e. iDog, iCat, iBird, etc.)
-Where’s Shuffle? (a “Where’s Waldo” spin-off), camouflage your iPod in an image that will leave the audience guessing
-Draw an iPod with your favorite cartoon/comic characters (could be drawn with a pre-existing drawing via the web)
-Create an drawing of the iPod Shuffle by using only using the s, h, u, f, f, l, e letters
-Create a drawing of the iPod Shuffle by using only using the s, h, u, f, f, l, e letters
i think everyone should take a photo of themselves looking how they much the want it!!!!
Ithink they should keep on making iPods because they are cool.
how about people listing their worst 10 or more songs that they definately WON’T be listening to on their iPod.
could make for some interesting reading I reckon.
Haha, well you know how Apple is always saying how the shuffle is smaller than a piece of gum? Ever see one of those new Altoids gum cases which are long and thin… i think they can fit a shuffle in it, and if you drill open a hole at the top, it would make a really great case… unfirtunately I don’t have a shuffle to do this with… I could use one though, so if you like this idea, e-mail me, I would love a new shuffle.
sorry, I just realized that my previous post had no challenge to it, so may the challenge be… to make the coolest shuffle case out of various things…like…gum cases..haha
Perhaps a real life version of Buckaroo could be the challenge one month.
Contestants have to stack as many objects on top of their pets as possible and provide photographic evidence. Points awarded for number of objects on said animal, size, etc etc etc.
I didn’t read through the last half of these, so I apologize if this is a little redundant:
My thought is, why so many music themes? True, music is the usual application of an iPod, but listening through fifty playlists would get a little burdensome and messy. So why not take the iPod out of its usual application? A photo (or comparably concise medium) of the most amusing, creative, or downright practical use of an iPod(Shuffle) would shake things up more than a list of songs or loads of supertechnical showoffery.
Just think of it: What (besides listening to music) do you use YOUR iPod for? A replacement piano key, a frisbee, a soap decoy to fool those dirty guests…
And that’s the way it is.
Architecture that (sort of) represent iPod, or its effect on the music and mp3 player industry.
I like what A.C said:
find out where you#re read – messiest home wins :-)
lol. I would be one of the winners :-)
all the best from germany,
oliver
how about Spot-The-Ipods?
Each entry should provide two pictures (the quiz itself and the one with answer) of some image that has *lets say* five Ipods inside it.
The winner could be the one that has highest difficulty level.
I think the next iPod contest should include some kind of nature theme – its finally spring going on to summer and as an excuse to all computer junkies to get out and smell the fresh air – why not have an iPod contest where you design an iPod using nature – mainly flowers, weeds, twigs, earth etc…
I think everyone would enjoy it for a change as well – even kids can participate… go to the beach, be creative… and the iPod can be yours.
The current contest, while it is a great idea, has become something of a photoshop madness… I think Mike had a bigger, more out-of-the-box vision when he came up with this contest.
Any comments ?
Thinking back to my kidhood days in Chicago, my favorite trips downtown on the “L” included visits to the Field Museum to see the mummies and the Chinese painting of all the many levels of hell. So in over-reaching for a way-out but winning suggestion, here are a couple:
* Images of ipod mummy cases, emphasizing as the Egyptian originals did, depictions of the personality of the deceased and protecting dieties. Who knows, maybe there is a product line here. Here’s an info link: http://www.mos.org/quest/mummycases.php
* Images of ipods in one of the many levels of the traditional Chinese hell, tortured by various “antipodal” malefactors. Link: http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/h/hc/hc.htm
Maybe it’s been suggested already, but…how about ipods as famous landmarks or architectural structures?
Here are some suggestions which sprung in my mind…
iPod Name Me Contest
Give a name to your iPod. The funkiest, funniest, unique name you can come up, wins.
iPod Singing Contest
Use iPod in a song… Example: Beattles’ Can’t Buy Me Love
“Can’t buy me i..i..i..i..i..i..iPod
Can’t buy me i..i..i..i..i..i..iPod
I’ll buy you a diamond ring my friend if it makes you feel alright
I’ll get you anything my friend if it makes you feel alright
‘Cause I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me iPod
I’ll give you all I got to give if you say you love me too
I may not have a lot to give but what I got I’ll give to you
I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me iPod
Can’t buy me iPod, everybody tells me so
Can’t buy me iPod, no no no, no
Say you don’t need no diamond ring and I’ll be satisfied
Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can’t buy
I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me iPod”
I know it’s kinda lame example but that’s just what’s humming through my mind now. ;)
iPod Make Me Riddle Contest
The person who can come up with the unique riddle, wins.
iPod Tongue Twister Challenge
Let’s start flexing our tongues. The person who can come up with the trickiest tongue twister, wins.
iPod’s squad could make God nod. Hot rod on an iPod’s bod..
God nods hard rod. iPod’s a hot rod. Good god nods iPod.
What do you think? :)
Alternative uses for an iPOD
There are plenty of things an ipod can do besides play music. It can balance a wobbly table for instance, the possibilities are endless. Contestants could submit photos, blue prints or just ideas written on cocktail napkins.
Apologies if these ideas has been discussed above [can’t read thru all the 270 comments, I’m human afterall, i think !!].
A. Modify/Change a Nursery Rhyme/Jingle [like: Jack and Jill Went up the hill or Humpty Dumpty Sat on a Wall, etc] to rhyme with iPod/Shuffle.
B. For another Photohop-Phreakout, use iPod in most unrelated and unthinkable print media advertisments [like Fosters or Jockey, etc].
C. Creating skins for iPod [another Photoshop-Phreakout] !!
I think you should make or choose from the comments the one which gives the very est opinion aout the ipod
how about …Who ever makes the coolest looking character out of a ipod shuffle….. wins an ipod shuffle?!
In ONE word describe how badly you want this ipod shuffle…BEST WORD WINS
pretend the ipod is jesus… what would you sayif the i pod shuffle appeard right infront of you !!
Have a contest for the most creative way to get a free iPod. Whoever comes up with the most creative way of getting a free iPod, actually wins a free iPod shuffle.
101 Uses for an iPod shuffle.
Submit ideas on OTHER uses for an ipod shuffle. 101 of the best get picked and the first one wins the ipod, then all the entries are compiled into a booklet or webpage or some sort of static organized list for viewers everywhere to enjoy.
You could doooooo…. a best trivia make up. Soo if some one makes a trivia quiz and it is really good they win the iPod shuffle. And if you put it on the web, and who ever gets the highest score gets a certain gift. It goes on from their. And u find the greatest trivia. And you must have a name
10 questions
5 answers to each question and 1 correct answer.
Thats it, it will be a good contest for the iPod shuffle. Email me even though if I don’t win the iPod Shuffle. I REALLY want a iPod Shuffle. Ive tried the http://www.freeipod.com but it didnt work for me. So i am just gonna try this. Maybe i can do it. Ive been wanting a iPod for a whole year. Ive begged friends to lend me money but they wont help me.
~Mikey
Just another note on the 101 Uses For a Shuffle, I would limit entries per person to 2 or even 1 because that leaves more people a chance to play and not one or two people spamming entries.
Shuffle interviews.
Find people who are clueless about the iPod Shuffle and interview them, sort of like “Jaywalking” from The Tonight Show. Entries could be video clips or audio clips (transcripts probably aren’t as much fun or creative). Of course it would be easy to “fake” the interviews but that’s part of the fun — let people be creative with how they think someone would respond when told about the iPod Shuffle if they can’t find someone to interview. Most amusing / quirky / entertaining wins a shuffle.
create/form a jigsaw puzzle of an ipod shuffle from smaller picture of ipods
or
create a crosswords puzzle based on ipod (shaped like an ipod or do something as creative as you can be)
How about having the entrants choose a famous person or fictional character and submit the top ten songs this person would have on their ipod shuffle. Like what songs would Bart Simpson, Albert Einstein, Darth Vader, or Mickey Mouse have on their ipods.
COLORING CONTEST!!!
I’ve just had an epiphany for a contest idea!
What if the iPod Shuffle hadn’t been designed by Apple? What would it look like if designed by Sony, or Samsonite, or RCA, or Atari?
So how about a contest to design Shuffles in the style of non-Apple companies of the past and present.
This is almost as good as my song-chain idea, although it should get disqualified since I haven’t mentioned a certain 80s band…
How about writing in a certain amount of words ie, in under 30 words…tell me why you deserve to win?!
A poem about why the person should win?!
Do an online drawing of an iPod shuffle and the best one wins?!
Maybe you could have a contest in which people used online anagram finding programs to rearrange famous people’s names [politicians, actors, whomever] into appropriate anagrams [the best example being: Ronald Wilson Reagan; Insane Anglo Warlord].
The iPod shadow-dancers ads are obviously very memorable, but before settling on these simple, bold visuals, Apple considered many other ideas.
Submit your rejected advertising campaign. (logo, slogan, poster, jingle…)
or
Many consider the iPod Shuffle itself to be a piece of art, but art historians have known the value of the iPod as a muse for quite some time. Much like Salvador Dalà incorporated Gala into his masterworks, the iPod appears within countless famous works of art as evidence of the inspiration it provided.
This would be a Photoshop contest, I’d imagine, but ASCII art could be impressive, too. ^_^
mmk, one more. no, two.
The iPod itself has become a fashion statement. In many circles, white earphones are a status symbol. But as Apple becomes more mainstream, true iPod elites go to greater extremes to show off their obsession. presenting…
Extreme iPod fashion contest. Adorn yourself in Shuffles, etc.
Alternatively, you could have a iPod fashion contest for the iPod itself. As in “case mods”, creative holders/cases…
How about a contest for whoever comes up with the best iPod shuffle generation two concept. It is pretty unique
How about, “The iPod Shuffles.” Participants would have to come up with a shot of the iPod doing what it is meant to do…just…creatively. The first ten posts will be iPods dealing cards but after that I think we might get some good stuff.
Why not have a contest where people have to make the best iPod shuffle using suppies, such as paperclips, post it notes, stapes, etc.The most creative use of different suppies wins. It makes it easy to enter, as most people have access to office supplys. I know alot of us sit in an office all day, bored out of our mind, so rather than using our suppiles to make little guys, we should put em to use to make shuffles!
Sorry about the above post… by supplies. I meant, of course, OFFICE supplies.
1. Things made out of iPods. Like taking a bunch of ipods, ipod shuffles, minis, U2 special edition, and photoshopping them so that it’s like the Empire State Building or some sort of structure. Not like on gigantic iPods, but multiple iPods making up one large thing. Like the Sphynx, great wall of china, etc.
2. Create a playlist of some historical figure or fictional figure (if hisotircal, they must have been dead for at least 10 years). What would be the top 5 songs that (fill in the historical character here) would load onto his/her iPod. Then explain why he/she would have chosen that song (“this song is awesome!” doesn’t count)
Example:
I think the latter is a good choice because it requires you to actually think about why those songs would be chosen.
Each contestant could come up with alternative places (other than Apple stores or electronic stores) SELLING iPod Shuffles:
i.e. Lemonade stand, vending machine, meat market;
Wins by coming up with the most unlikely place/unlikely way of selling iPod Shuffles–(photo?)
you could see who could come up with the most creative idea on how to destroy a ipod shuffle
or
you could have people come up with creative ploys to get apple to fix/replace their ipods after their warrentee is gone…
destroy an ipod
drop it, smash it, throw it
ipod now all gone
How ’bout:
10 signs you’re addicted to your iPod
That’ll show who the real fans are!
What do you get when you cross an ipod and a …..?
How about people doing a short 1 minute video dancing to a song holding something (not sexual) that looks like an iPod shuffle. Like a candy bar or something. Basically pretending that they have it and are dancing to the music. This would be funny A. to see nerdy people dance and to see B. the most creative thing they can find that looks like an ipod shuffle but is not.
i think that you should make a film about all of your familys lives
you could make your family tree but turn it into a film about all of your family.
you can look up what they were, where they lived and there life stories and do it untill you have no more to do.
you must include your self.
Ask people to say who is the first thing that they would put on the shuffle and what songs and then use a random selection
ITS A TRICKY ONE BUT REQUIRES ALOT TO THINK ABOUT.
WELL,AN EASY WAY IS FIRSTLY MAKE U’R WEBSITE MORE ATTRACTING IT IS ATTRACTING BUT WELL,A LITTLE WILL DO MORE.
-MAKE THE COMPETITION A BIT CHALLENGING DON’T GIVE IT AWAY A EASY WAY.
how about giving the ipod away to the person who could make the best playlist for a given situation? For an example who can make the best list of 10 tracks for travelling with train, running or waiting in line at the local store. That require nothing else but the love for music.
you should have a contest for people to write songs and whoever writes the best 1 wins seeing as ipods play music
If iPod shuffle, doesnt shuffle. Make a new design of the iPod shuffle which doesnt shuffle.. Dont get it? never mind..
ask them why you should give them the ipod shuffle
i think you should post a picture of someone have the people in the comtest try to guess the age of that person.
The iPod of the Future
The current range of iPods are indeed excellent, but can you do better? We want you to design the iPod of tomorrow, which would bring the best in portable audio pleasure to consumers around the globe. Keep “iPod” in the name, make it look like an iPod, and let your imagination run wild!
How about it? Design a new iPod, and the best and most innovative design wins the iPod Shuffle. Who knows? Maybe we will see some of these on the store shelves…
How about everyone has to take an iPod shuffle and make some artistic representation of it.
No videos or webpages, just the 418×418 square. Everyone creates their own original painting/artistic shuffle art. The most artistic or eye appealing ipod shuffle art wins the contest!
An “iPod Shuffle Illusion in Nature Photo Contest”
Basically you would have to take or find a picture of anything in everyday nature that reminds you of an iPod Shuffle. This cannot be objects pre-aranged by you, but something designed by nature or man which unintendedly reminds of an iPod Shuffle. This could be a tree, a bridge, a lake or a formation of stars at night. Something, anything in everyday life. The only thing you could use to alter the photo would be the Apple earbuds, to put in evidence the illusion. That way pure and true creativity is the essence, not Photoshop savoir faire.
Hope you like
Tibs
What about an online drawing contest?
The person who capture iPod best using the flash- tool/movie at Artpad.art.com wins an iPod Shuffles.
After you are finished with the drawing, you post the URL to the submission, or a screenshot of it in right dimensions here. Isn’t that something worth a contest?
Maybe have some rules on how much time spent on every submission?
Hope so, since I’ve already started practising ;)
why not just simply have an ipod quiz that only true ipod lovers could pass? maybe instead you could have people come up with the best next concepts for th shuffle generation 2
How about a skinning contest?
Well, I’m a Photoshop gal so I come predisposed to Photoshop challenges…. here are a few possible themes for Photoshopping contests:
– Period iPod Shuffle ads (any period)
– iPod architecture
– When is an iPod not an iPod?
And I’m also a writer so, hey, a writing contest idea: Shuffled fairy tales – best fairy tale composed completely out of bits and pieces of existing fairy tales.
Doh, shoulda looked at the last contest before submitting that 3rd photoshop idea, and not just the one my friend linked to. :D
has anyone seen this? http://www.nytimes.com/video/html/2005/06/29/technology/highbandwidth/windowsmedia/20050629_GUEST_VIDEO.html
sorry, i tried to use and [url]…[/url] and other variations… none worked.
http://www.nytimes.com/video/html/2005/06/29/technology/highbandwidth/
windowsmedia/20050629_GUEST_VIDEO.html
Unfotunately, I’m not going to be able to read 318 previous posts so I really hope that this isn’t redundancy.
An idea that just passed through my head:
– Create a visual representing a song, a lyric or any piece of music. Incorporate the iPod into the visual in a way such that the iPod will (might/could) reveal what song it is (without spelling it in some other way).
Certainly, they would need to be rather popular songs. Maybe this is too ‘advertisery’ but it’s an idea nonetheless.
ok..stopped reading after a bit, so not sure if this was suggested, but..
when Apple came out with the Shuffle, they likened it to a pack of chewing gum. The contest could be to photoshop/describe other form-factors they were considering and the food/common household objects they resembled
I sincerely hope this isn’t a redundant post…
Another acronym: They have to spell out I P O D S H U F F L E with the first word of eleven books that have a TIGHT theme, and then relate that to iPods, or their need for an iPod.
Prepare for a flood of tragic tales. Tragedy, of course, would not be enough, but maybe… The protagonist dying of need for something (material)?
This could be fun.
I have a few suggestions for contests:
1) Create an adult-size halloween costume of an iPod Shuffle, using various materials like cardboard, face paint, rope, fabric, etc. and then photograph yourself wearing the iPod Shuffle costume.
2) Create a limerick definition of an iPod shuffle. For example, i once entered a contest at my school to give the definition of asbestos in limerick form and this was my entry:
Impure magnesium silicate,
Shields chimney flames, which is great.
Seems to guard family.
Though in reality,
Brings lung cancer – Do not underrate.
It’s quite horrible i know, but i did win a dictionary, probably because i was the only one who entered the contest.
3) Draw a comic strip (maximum 1 page), either scanned or on the computer, which incorporates the iPod Shuffle as the main character/theme/etc.
How about an internet treasure hunt? You browse the net for 10 answers from wherever, then we have to search the net to find the answers e.g. who is the Coach of the D grade side of “such and such softball club”. or How many songs have the word “key” in them.
Make us work for our ipod.
:)
What will become of your ipod shuffle 10-15 years from now? With tech moving so fast, the original shuffle will be obsolete, but it is still an apple product, so chances are you will not throw it away…so how will it be used and for what.
What if they sent in a picture of him or her having fun with a cardboard box where that cardboard box could be replaced with an ipod from you. And the most funnest cardboard box wins the ipod :)
instead of the haiku – how about a musical jingle like you find in most commercials – maybe on the topic of how much the ipod would mean to us, or what we would do with it, etc . . .
or you could have a ‘boobies for shuffles’ contest and have lots of hot chicks flash you nakkey pics. well, not really, but heck, i felt the need to lighten things up around here. cool site by the way. this is my first time…here, that is.
Make it easy just pick us who have taken the time to reply to this post, or to any of us who are over forty and really like these new gadgets.
Design an iPod shuffle from another time period in history (e.g. Renaissance, Ancient greeks, Cave men, etc.)
I would first start out with making everyone answer questions about your company. You are giving away the ipods why not make everyone learn a little about you for the gifts.secondly I would go based on incomes. There really is no reason to give an ipod to someone who has the means to buy one. Nest you could have people tell diferent ways they could upgrade an ipod could lead to a profit for your company if you can pantent it. I’d aslo make everyone agree to not use ipod for ilegally downloaded music don’t want rich fat cats coming after you for giving away somehting that has been used to play music that has taken 5 dollars form their millions.
1 – Famous Shuffles
Show us the most famous place where an iPod Shuffle has been sighted. Whether it be someone listening to it at the top of Big Ben, or just Tom Cruise listening to it on a set for his latest film, the best one would win.
2 – Where’s Shuffle?
Remember Where’s Waldo? Make a picture and hide an iPod Shuffle in it somewhere, anywhere. The best one could win.
3 – Mike Industries Free Promotion
Have everyone promote your site in a famous place. Whether it be ‘Photoshopped’ or not, the have to have a piece of paper with the URL on it in the most famous place they know or just somewhere plain funny.
4 – The Biggest Shuffle Ever
Show us a picture of the biggest iPod Shuffle you have ever seen. The biggest or best could win.
5 – Improve Your Life With A Shuffle
Tell everyone just how much better your life would be if you owned an iPod Shuffle. Wouldn’t it just be so much easier to vacuum the hallway whilst listening to music?
6 – How I Met My First Ever Shuffle
Tell everyone or show them in a picture how and where you met your first iPod Shuffle.
Yeah I had some free time but there’s my suggestions :).
How about iPod Shuffle product warnings or instructions (e.g. CAUTION: The music might make you dance! or “Do not insert iPod Shuffle into any dodily orifice” or “No purchase necessary – Illegal music inside”)
pick someone maybe 7 people a month and who ever makes the best poem wins and gets the ipod
List the best suggested 5 song shuffle and have people vote on the best combo of music in the mix. The winner!
Hmmmmm,
I live in South Korea presently. I am a Canadian, and yeah I’m teaching English.
How about giving the ipods to people who can’t buy them?! In Korea you can buy them off the net and probably in the bigger cities, but for us stuck in Korean fishing villages….no ipods, and the Koreans out here don’t really have a clue as to what an ipod is.
So I suppose the contest would be ” who lives in the remotest area”. OK I also suppose that I was trying to figure out a way of getting an ipod myself!!! lol. You have to try!
Agno Aseo from Korea!
Two new ideas for contests:
* Your just found out your iPod Shuffle just bit the dust. How/when/where/why did it die?
* It turns out that Apple’s been keeping a secret: The top-secret iPod Shuffle farm has been found. Money might not grow on trees, but iPods really do grow…but is it on trees or bushes or out of the ground or what?
(I watch the contests every month and can’t seem to come up with entries that compare. I’m hoping to win this part of the contest instead. I want to win a Shuffle for my 10-year-old sister-in-law!)
How about this?
Why shouldn’t Mike give you an iPod Shuffle? Why are you the last person that should receive one?
People could probably get pretty creative with that one.
Well it s happens that I was walking to school on a cold Wednsday morning. I was listening to my favorite band Green Day on my Ipod. It was so cold my hands were shaking, os I decided I was going to put the Ipod in my pocket. As I was walking up the front steps of the school I put it in my sweater pocket or that’s what I thought. So when I got to my locker I fraked out when I couldn’t find it, I try to ran outside and get it but the securtity guards didn’t let me. I just hope someone finds it and doesn’t mind returning it…
maybey you can post a story or even write one if you please that consists of a secret message and who ever figures it out wins the shuffle
I call this the “what’s in your IPod?” contest.
Let me explain. I don’t mean what kind of music you like or your favorite musician, but express the music inside through other forms of creativity. Art, photos, words, whatever.
i don’t know who you are but i think i like you.
maybe – send in a favorite quote from a song and explain why its so inspiring/cool/funny whatever makes it special.
the most creative wins.
could be fun for you to have a list of good quotes from songs.
How about a web design throwback? It would work like this:
Everyone submits the absolute worst case of 199(5? 6? 7?) design that they can muster. Everything we’ve learned not to do when designing a website should be present. The catch: they have to make it themselves, and it has to be built with modern technology and standards-compliant. It should shocase the best in web development coupled with the WORST in web design.
You could even go in a Zen-Garden-like direction by having Mike provide an xhtml file, that loads one script like called something generic like retro_init.js, in case people want to simulate old school functionality or effects.
How about you give the ipod to the person that gives you the best story, idea, or plot for a movie!! You could also have people write down a poem about the ipod and why it’s so important.
I think that you should give the ipod shuffle in the easiest way.
THE MOST NEEDY
Say the person who is in the worst situation and cannot get one and has the best reason why they can not get one themselves. I think that would be very fair and i hope you agree.
As i am in a situation like what i have said above and would like to receive one
Hope this helps you
Jason
Mike i think this is the best one u must give the ipod shuffle to the person who writes the best song any style rock pop rnb 3 caterogories or more best goes to the best song of each catergory the person who enters must state which they are entering for
Hope this helps you and i hope i win cause i want it so badly i’ve never won anything before
A competition to design a competition based on the combination of as many ideas posted here as possible… ok here’s an example:
Design an acrostic limerick tongue-twister presented visually in the form of a fresco (not painted, but instead consisting entirely of an XHTML/CSS document using only one font and no graphics) about a warped image of a Microsoft executive. If the limerick can include a description of your pet writing a song while wearing a wacky costume you’ll get extra points. Also, when you take the letters I, P, O, D, S, H, U, F, F, L, E out of the document it still makes sense, and possibly say something witty about the quality of work in Mike’s portfolio.
You get the point… of course nobody would have to construct this terrible entity, but the competition is to see who can design the requirements of this entity combining as many of these comments as possible.
And if this doesn’t make sense? Write a haiku.
You know what. I dont know about everyone else, but i’ve never even held an ipod. I’ve seen one before but thats about it. So if you really wanna give these things away, give me one. They look cool!
I think you should have a competition to look for the cheapest iPod on the internet – that way, it’s a competition, but you also know where to get the cheapest iPod for the winner. :-)
i think ipods should go to the people who realy need 1. Or who has had a bad time or done something good for other people. Not for people that just wants 1 because they are jelous of other people
i said in my last message about giving them to people who rely need them or something but i forgot to mention that the people who enter has to write why they deserve it and the best story(true) will win the ipod
i think the best way to give away the ipod shuffles is by making ads on game sites, make flyers, send emails personally,or make your website more wellknown by people
HAVE FUN SELLING!!!!!!!!!
(Editor’s Note: Uhh, what?)
By requesting them to write atleast a 200 hundred word essay on the advantages and disadvantages of owning an ipod shuffle or requesting them to write an essay or a poem about your genorosity.
Or give them monthly random themes to write essays about and then get your colleagues and friends to judge the best written essay.
Give one to the person who can correctly guess the score of a football game next week, or whenever. The person who gets it right, or is the closest, wins, and receives an IPod.
I’ll start: Houstan Texans 10, Cincinatti Bengals 24
I’m so poor I can’t even afford an ipod. Any lucky person should be over excited that your giving away ipods. Even if I dont win, I’m happy for the person that does. What you should do is, have a contest where anybody who guesses the first three Major league football teams for the year could win for that month!
seeing as you seem like a strangely kind person in this mean world (givin away ipods is extremly nice). you should get people to write jokes or come up with short funny poems or send in funny animations etc. to make you laugh. that way in return for gavin out ipods to people, your day can be rewarded by reading all the funny things that people send in which in turn will put you in a happy mood and make your day a good day, if u know what i mean.
i hope my idea helps xxx
Simple idea: Suggest the best alternative name for RSS feeds that the majority of users can accept and understand.
a interactive pop quiz on line to win , proves that your into music!. sad buggers who are only going to abuse it by infecting its system with clif richard may go out in the first round.
cool
thanks mate
Choose one of the comment numbers at random.
why not try getting people to do a logic problems.
this way people really have to work for them. as these problems aren’t that easy.
here is a web sits you can use to find some
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/4484/logic.htm
or you could get people to write their own logic puzzle now that would be a really chanellage!!!!!!
I think giving away shuffles is a very sweet idea, ive been trying to win one of those walkers ipods for my daughter whose is dying for one for her birthday so ive been thinking what you can possibly do to make it short and fun. I was thinking you could get someone to send in the most ridiculous photo and the best 3 photos get an ipod shuffle ?? i hope you get time to read my idea and good luck on finding a winner. Polly tomlin x x x x x x x x x x x x x
An iPod design prediction contest.
See who can design the next iPod before Apple does. This contest will give twice. First prize will go to the design that mike picks, second prize will be awarded to the design that actually ends up matching the next gen hardware.
A Movie Poster For Movie Starring the one and Only Steve Jobs…….
Most creative movie and poster with ipod and Steve Jobs WINS!!
A Movie Poster For Movie Starring the one and Only Steve Jobs…….
Most creative movie idea and poster with ipod and Steve Jobs WINS!!
P.S. –bonus points for trailer with creepy deep voice guy in the background….
Theme: not-so-subtle iPod product placement in your favorite TV show / movie.
Product placement has invaded the entertainment world. When it’s done well you may not even realize it’s there. When it’s done poorly, you end up with a commercial embedded into your program. Use your medium of choice to illustrate a blatant attempt by Apple to use product placement.
Why don’t you just make people write the reason why they think they deserve an ipod and give it to the person with the best reason.
Create a new masthead or theme for mikeindustries.com?
Im hoping Mike D gets to reading this entry. #370…..
A contest about what *actually* is inside an iPod shuffle. Design a pic showing the inner-workings of an iPod shuffle.
E.G. tiny gnome-like people shuffling CD’s around, etc etc. You get the picture….
– redesign mikeindustries.com/ with ipod theme
– submit design and pictures/photos/flash/video of ipodLand
– bake an ipod cake
– design the most creative and functional ipod cover
How about a contest where you have to come up with a lyric about “mike Davidson ” giving away Ipods. This would be cute and intertaining ….
an ipod is like a dream come true for me bcuz here in india it is a very expensive gadget n i have alwayz begged my dad for one,but we simply cannot afford one……
People telling you how;
What they have done for others,
or
How how they helped somebody they didn’t know before.
(gone out of their way to help other)
You could get some fun stories.
cheers
Hi, I hope what I suggest will be (at least) good.
What my suggestion for a contest is, is that people can make a single webpage about a star.
The concept here is a little wide, and can be played around with. For example, you can get a strict validating page, no limit, flash only, no flash, whatever you wish. A single page, no links. That’s it.
Now, moving onto the stars, we get more options. The star can be someone you choose, like Elvis Presley, or a more hazy approach, like “From the ’60s”, or just go all out, like “Any musician”, or “Any actor”.
Well, I do hope I’ve made myself clear. If you want more details, my email is with you.
Regards.
I do not have any suggestions , cause I am not really sure what all this site is about but sounds like a cool one.I just surfed on your site, and saw you have give aways, you must be a really neat person. Think I am going to look around now at this site , and hope to understand it so maybe I too can try for free things… SMILE Have a great day
Get people to take a picture of themselves doing crazy things within the law, such as putting their hand in their own mouth, or eating butter. etc the person with the most creative thing will win the ipod
have people send digital video files of themselves eating a food product which is visably expired. for example a diplyed expiry date on a container of cottage cheese or mold on, well anything. the most extreme entry wins an ipod.
What would you eat for a Free Ipod?
Have a guitar contest and see who can play the best most expreme guitar solo ever. The person should tape themselves (eg. with an mp3 player or comp mic) the best guitarist will win the free ipod.
All these posts are numbered, so you could think of a numbre, say 380, and then whoever posted that numbered entry wins the ipod. Its GENIUS!!!
(remember, 380)
You should make people guess what new way your going to give iPods away.. Huh Huh?? Thats the best idea ever!!
How about a laughter contest? It would be pure fun..
Consider this…
IPOD “undiscovered” slogan and print campaigns.
Submissions must be FRESH and ORIGINAL concpets that embrace the IPOD attributes that the world continues to enjoy!
REQUIRED: FRESH IDEAS and RAW CREATIVITY
OPTIONAL: PHOTOSHOP, and other tools to help express and communicate the messages.
OPEN to all types of people, passionate to professional, all that is needed are FRESH IDEAS and creative communication.
As a proud former winner from thsi site, I am not seeking a new prize, but would love to see how people “communicate” their feeling about the product creatively.
FAMOUS IPODS in HISTORY was a collection of some of the best and clever visual expressions ever collected. Not that APPLE is suffering in any way in terms of marketing, but that caliber of submissions is the type of advertising that many companies strive to match.
What makes these efforts rellay distinict is that the customers of the desired “product” are generating these materials. Word of mouth is a powerful method to help drive product awareness but the hundreds of ideas that have been shared with Mike is eveidence of the impact the IPOD has made in the market…what other products could soliict this type of reaction?
Mike you rock! Creative minds unite!
i think you should make your own website and give people your website address and make them sign up for your website and if they did they get a free ipod shuffle
mike your da best
make someone lick a quarter and stick it on their head. The person’s who’s quarter stays on the longest wins.
i have an idea ^_^
>> the best concrete poem (aka. SHAPE poem) on ipods/shuffles
how about it?
hey i don’t even know what it is, but if it will make my life easier or more enjoyable in some minor way, i woul certainly appreciate having one.
if you’re looking for words of thought;
we sing songs but do not know their meanings
we seem to laugh while others often cry
and though we live our lives to all its meaning
there are those of us who simply want to die
picturesque but sometimes very blurry
life goes on very much the same
taking part in all its foolish pleasures
but knowing that its’s more then just a game
I dont know, every person’s creativity is something creative and unique. Take care, and congrats to all who win this Ipod
mabye you could hmmmmmmmmmmm. give them a question of why you should have a ipod shuffle and the top 20 answers gets ipods for free.pleassssssssssssssse pick meeeeeeeeeeeeee
Have each person suggest ways that they/others can make donations for the holidays. So it would be getting for giving…
My idea: create unique accessories for shuffles illustrated in your favorite online medium. Most creative accessory wins (with bonus points for design execution).
I ended up on this site when I googled “give away used wheel chair. ” My daughter recieved her new chair today, and believe it or not it’s hard to find someone who would use the old one even though it is in good shape. She would love an ipod!
maybe the first person to talk to a celeb over the internent could get a free one
What about getting your potential winners to do a selfless act for a stranger that benifits thier lives in the here and now. Each story of a selfless act that has legitamately enhanced that stranger’s day or life should get a free ipod to keep rockn’ in the free world. A selfless act for a shuffle…
A “selfless act for a shuffle” isn’t a Selfless act! :)
So did you ever do the contest? What did you decide to use to determine winners?
A haiku as to why that person should get an Ipod or perhaps how many people they can get to sign up to your website.
Hmm… How about ask some jokes and the first person to answer it right gets the free gift!
i think you should do the funniest picture or video?well im not sure
just a poem i wrote for a friend that i really like:
she sits all alone
no one there beside her
she knows she’s dying
and there is no cure
she smiles outside
but is crying in the middle
her life is over
the remainder is so little
there is nothing she can do
so she sits to wait
she never should have smoked
now it is too late
perhaps you should give them to people that need to be distracted from the world like my friend ..
I think that an awsome contest would be to design a magazine worthy personal ad using text, photos, graphics, etc. The use of Photoshop, illustrator, indesign, quark or any other publication program could be used and the arcticle would be a personal written confession explaining and confessing their love to the ipod shuffle and why they feel they deserve to have it in their hands right now!
Why not make a contest for your sites logo or banner, the best one winning in a poll wins… Or A contest for color scheming or CSS or validation…
Hey also why not let everyone write a short story instead… The best one wins…
how about junking the Ipod,and send me a talking parrot,same thing just much better,think out of the box and get a wild hair and do something nice.make an old man on fixed income happy.teach the dam bird to sing,name him ipod if you want just be cool and send me one for free thanks man.looking forward to my bird, your #1fan
wayne
How about a:
1. slogan contest
3. changing the words to a TV theme song
ex Just sit right back and you”ll hear a tale
a tale of a faithful chip
Inserted in my nice ipod
they call it the Road trip…
2. a poem written in movie lines
you should have every body who wants a free ipod give you there adress and phone number also their email adress at like your own website or email it to you and than just pic a random one going down the list and clicking on one.
how about you give it away for a health charity like for brest cancer or skin cancer. or maybe for a childrens hospital. thats always a good idea
how about u make a scavenger hunt online. Everything they have to find is on different URLs and the things they have to find have to deal with either u or ipods.
Mine was stolen too!
The World These Days!
How About People make a video on why they want one so bad
and you choose!
If your still giving these away I’ll move to Seattle to get one. Anyways I think this is cool. And I’ll give my normal MP3 player to someone else.
Oh and I live in Arkansas.
have people think of the funniest name. like bart simpson does on the simpsons when he calls moe’s tavern. haha. like a funny name would be Hugh Jass. (hugh ass) haha.
Is this contest still open?
Free iPod Shuffles Anyone?
Mike @ MikeIndustries.com apparently loves the iPod Shuffle so much that he’s giving one away at least every month for the rest of 2005! He’s currently asking for contest ideas, so if you think you know of a unique…
4 free iTunes songs
Unfortunately for everyone, I’m giving up drinking coke (soda, pop, etc. for everybody not from the South). So this will be the last batch of free songs from the Pespi giveaway. Don’t lose hope though, I’ve decided to start giving…
Down With FreeiPods.com!
Mike Davidson, one of the better bloggers that I read on a regular basis, loves the iPod Shuffle. He loves it so much he wants everyone to have one. In fact, he’s willing to give one away each month for…
Lots of Free ipod Shuffles
Blogger Mike Davidson likes the iPod Shuffle, a lot. He likes it so much that he wants to give one away every month. The only problem is that he can’t think of a clever way to get rid of them. He’s asking for input. In fact, coming up with a contest ha…
GiveItAway-GiveItAway-GiveItAway-Now
Mike Davidson is looking to bring some music into people’s lives, or at least a few iPod shuffles…
“I want to give away some iPod Shuffles. I’d like to give away at least one a month and possibly one every two weeks for the rest of 2005 if tha…
iCunt Shuffle?
I apologize for being a lazy americunt and not cuntributing to the americunts dot com. So here is a little tidbit… and yes, hopefully today I shall be receiving my iPod shuffle from the Yeasty Lady of Luna Madge Weinstein….
Rovell and Davidson: Doing Cool Things
One great thing about working at a place like ESPN are the achievements of the folks who I work with. Two guys who are doing interesting things of late are Mike Davidson and Darren Rovell. Mike’s iPod Shuffle Giveaway has…
Rovell and Davidson: Doing Cool Things
One great thing about working at a place like ESPN are the achievements of the folks who I work with. Two guys who are doing interesting things of late are Mike Davidson and Darren Rovell. Mike’s iPod Shuffle Giveaway has…
iPod Shuffle gratuit
Via le blog de Dew, j’apprends que Mike Davidson, art director chez Walt Disney et grand fan de l’iPod Shuffle, a décidé d’en donner gratuitement “at least one a month and possibly one every two weeks for the rest of 2005”. Il organise donc des petits…
[…] Creativity Competition slated to begin around the middle of this month. And as always, the submission pool remains […]
[…] middle of this month (and every month until the end of the year). And remember, of course, that the submission pool for iPod Giveaway ideas is also open until the end of the year. If your idea is chosen, you win an […]
I have a great idea we have a project wich help students in need of clothes for personal reason we do not accept money at all but we can organize a raffle and the price of the tickets for the ipods can be a piece of a brand new clothes i hope we can get a list one thanks