John Chow's 10,000 Entrecard Credit Contest

In a previous post I noted that John Cow is giving away a Xbox 360 Elite and GTA 4 to one lucky raffle winner. Now I find out of yet another contest, with John Chow giving one lucky winner 10,000 of his saved up Entrecard credits.

With 10,000 EC's you could do a lot of advertising, or go shopping in the EC store for things like banners, EC card logos, gift certificates, e-Books and other cool stuff. Right now, Chow's blog is priced at 1,000 credits to advertise on, so you could get yourself onto his blog, or some of the other more expensive blogs to advertise at. According to Chow, Darren Rowse's Problogger is up to 4,096 credits to advertise (wow I got in early on that one!)

I know a lot of people who come through to the Monetizer's blog like using Entrecard, so be sure to check out John Chow's 10,000 EC credit contest here if you haven't already.

Win Xbox 360 Elite + GTA4 from John Cow!

The Monetizer just had to get in on this cool contest run by John Cow and sponsored by Top Hosting Center. Up for grabs in this one is the much-coveted video gaming system, the Xbox 360 Elite. And to make it even sweeter you'll also win one of the coolest new games dropping at the end of April, Grand Theft Auto IV. If you're familiar with the series, the game involves stealing cars, running pedestrians over, eluding the police and doing bad things to win strategic missions. You know, all the stuff you would only do in a video game! :)

In case you're wondering what's different about an Xbox 360 Elite, one major difference is the black color (as seen in the picture), just like the original Xbox. Technically speaking, it includes HDMI Port, HDMI cable, black wireless controller and a black Xbox life headset. In terms of technical features, it has 16:9 cinematic aspect ratio for DVD's and games, anti-aliasing for smooth textures, full surround sound. and 3 powerful core processors!

To win this contest you need to earn raffle tickets, which can be done several ways. The first way is write up a post about the contest (like this one) of at least 100 words. Make sure that post links back to both John Cow's Xbox 360 Elite contest post, and the contest sponsor Top Hosting Center. This gets you 250 tickets entered into the drawing.

Another way to earn 250 raffle tickets is to become an affiliate with Top Hosting Center. It's free to be part of their program, and they offer you a whopping 50% commission for any sales you refer. As Cow says referring several people to THC could easily pay for the prize in the contest, if you don't win.

There's several ways you can earn 25 raffle tickets as well such as subscribing to Cow and/or THC's feeds, or by telling all your Myspace/Facebook/Twitter friends about the coolest contest around!

Get more details on the contest to win a Xbox 360 Elite and GTA 4 at John Cow's blog today. Remember you have until the end of this month to enter, giving you just a few more days.

Going Beyond Bedding

This may seem off topic for the Monetizer, but I wanted to take some time out to review this website Beyond Bedding which offers comfortable prices for your Kids Bedding. After all, saving money is a big deal these days with the way our economy is in the US. This also may give others some food for thought for how they proceed with their own web projects.

First off, Beyond Bedding is an exclusive manufacturer of JoJo Designs Bedding products. For your children, Beyond Bedding offers a great variety of products. They have items such as Bed Skirts, Changing Pad Covers, Children's Lampshades, Children's Hampers, Musical Crib Mobiles, Wall Decor, Window Valances/Coverings and even Children's Clothing. Although I'm no interior decorator, the bedding styles appeared innovative and stylish enough to match most decors in homes. They offer popular colors like pinks, blues, stripes and various other patterns.

If you browse through the site you'll definitely get the feeling of sleep comfort with Beyond's color scheme and laid back layout. Light grays and purples on white backdrop convey a very cozy feeling. I have no contention with the site layout or color scheme and feel it has a professional edge to it, similar to the websites by Kohl's or Macys. The last thing you want for a site about bedding products is to be in your face and too flashy.

The Beyond website does appear to be hosted through Yahoo web hosting. This is fine, but The Monetizer would suggest that Beyond Bedding add a favicon of some sort. The favicon is the small little logo/picture you see up next to many web addresses in your browser (Monetizer's is a fat green dollar sign). For Beyond, it would need to be something related to sleep or bedding such as a pillow, bed, cloud, etc. While some debate whether favicons are even necessary, this would give their site that extra professional touch that most online companies have these days. Having the well known Y! for Yahoo up next to their URL could make people wonder about who's really running the company. Having a clever favicon would make the site memorable should people add it to their web bookmarks. As many marketing experts note, branding is very important. On the positive side, Beyond Bedding offers their own blog, RSS feeds, a newsletter which visitors can opt in for, and a gift registry. These features make smart additions for their site to get lists of potential customers.

If you have children, happen to be expecting now, or just want to buy a gift for family or friends, you may want to consider Beyond's Children's Bedding section. Beyond Bedding offers an 800 number, live online help, they accept major credit cards and PayPal, and they offer a 14 day return policy. On a final note, while the site is far from boring, make sure you are fully awake for the browsing. Otherwise the cozy look and products from the bedding site may lull you to sleep.