Twelve Black Code Monkeys

I can always count on Meredith over at Amanita.net for interesting sites on the web that I’d previously never heard about. Today she mentions Blingo, so I decided to check them out. Apparently it is a search engine that uses Google on the back end, so it’s going to give you the same search results. The difference is that every time you perform a search, you have the potential to win a prize. You don’t have to register, but you do have to register if you want to take advantage of another way to win: basically, if you register and then get people to register “under” you as a friend, then if they win anything while they are searching, you, as their referral, win the same prize. At first it might seem a little like a pyramid scheme, but it’s really only one level. If someone wins who signed up under the person who signed up under you, you don’t win anything, only the person directly above the winner does. Meredith actually won her choice of a Play Station Portable or $250 because someone who had signed up under her won. Not bad for something you would be doing anyway - searching. Aside from going to their site, you can also put their search tool into your browser to make it even easier to search. Of course with my luck I probably won’t win anything, but maybe some of you have already signed up and won already? The prizes aren’t all as impressive as what Meredith won, so I’m assuming the smaller prizes (movie tickets and Amazon.com gift certificate) may be a lot easier to win. Still, it’s always nice to get even a small surprise like that.