I just recieved an email with good info on Freebies for newer freebie hunters and thought I would pass it along, Hope this is the right forum for this.
UNETHICAL USE OF THE WORD "FREE"
I subscribe to "Ezines For Sale" which you can too, at
http://www.ezinesforsale.com It's just a place where
publishers can post their newsletters on the market, hoping
another publisher will buy them.
Here's a huge Freebie Newsletter that just went on the
auction block -- they have 650,000 subscribers, which I can
tell you, is a whole lot of people to be on one ezine
mailing list.
Look at how they describe their "Freebie" newsletter...
---------------------------------------------------------
Ezine: (BLACKED OUT FOR LEGAL PURPOSES)
Publisher: (BLACKED OUT FOR LEGAL PURPOSES)
Contact: (BLACKED OUT FOR LEGAL PURPOSES)
URL: (BLACKED OUT FOR LEGAL PURPOSES)
Phone: (BLACKED OUT FOR LEGAL PURPOSES)
Fax: (BLACKED OUT FOR LEGAL PURPOSES)
Topic: Free offers and 'samples'
Circulation: 650,000
Frequency: Daily
Price: Best offer at or above $0.10 per subscriber
Description: Daily newsletter featuring 1-3 'free' offers/ads.
Each free offer is basically an ad for an advertiser, but carefully
disguised as valuable content for the visitor. All subscribers
are double opt-in. Newsletter is profitable; Approx. $15k in
revenue in March.
Comments: We are selling this newsletter as it does not fit our
core business focus. It is profitable, and very easy to manage.
Total time spent on it is estimated at 30-45 mins per day.
Resellers welcome; call for details.
---------------------------------------------------------
Did you catch the outrageous part?...
--> "Each free offer is basically an ad for an advertiser, but
--> carefully disguised as valuable content for the visitor."
What I just showed you is not secret information, but it's
a freebie industry trick that most people would never know
about. And it makes me mad!
Let me give you a pointer on Freebie links you might find
elsewhere on the internet
WHEN "FREE" DOES NOT MEAN "FREE":
If the Freebie's blue clickable URL is overly long and
includes a bunch of numbers and "=" and "?" and "refer" in
it, that means it's probably an advertisement disguised as a
freebie.
If it is from "cj.com" or "websponsors" or "qksrv.net" or
contains the word "click" or "ad" then it is likely just an
advertisement masquerading as a Freebie.
In many cases, the publishers earn anywhere from a nickel to
a quarter every time the reader clicks on one of those links,
so they write what they must to get as many readers as
possible to click. The more people who click, the more
money they make in commission, the "free" aspect be damned.
Of course, it's perfectly OK to run advertisements in
Freebie newsletters, but they should be set apart and
identifiable as ads -- not snuck into the meat to trick the
reader. I run ads in my newsletter (Uncle Url's influence,
say no more) but they are always at the very top and roped
off from the true Free Stuff found in the text.
(By the way, MY advertisers are offering you fantastic
deals on super merchandise at bargain prices, please
visit them! ;-)
I don't have much else to say about this, except remember
to be dubious about everything labelled "Free" until you
see there are no conditions (like shipping and handling,
minimum purchases, tell 20 friends about us, etc.)