Slap-Boxing The One-Eyed Champ

I am punching the monkey. I can see my glove smack it in the face, and yet it still persists to taunt me. I am now punching the monkey faster, as if the speed of my violent thrusts will somehow compensate for their lack of effectiveness. The monkey wins. I don’t get a free iPod. Now I must refresh my browser and try again, only this time I must pop three red balloons, and then I shall be rewarded with true love. I pop the balloons, but to no avail. My true love does not show herself to me, she does not kiss me and hold me and love me. The balloons win.

I have never attempted one of these “games” as they could be called, but having seen them at the top of my browser on virtually every webpage I visit, with the exception of redheads.com, I have always felt the desire to explore these marketing schemes. If you do not know what I am referring to, look at the top of your Myspace screen, chances are one is there. A banner with some animated object that promises more euphoria than God, and all you have to do is punch the monkey, pop the balloons, guess the rappers correct name, or lift more weights than the Governator.

What made me want to try this is not that I actually believe I get a free iPod or whatever prize they happen to be whoring out, I am fully aware that I will receive nothing but pop-up banners and possibly a virus or Trojan. What I wanted to know is how often, if ever, is someone actually awarded anything of value. Honestly, how many free iPod’s can these companies afford to give out? They even have banners now that show a picture of some douche bag with a line that says they really won an iPod or a car or a vibrating salt shaker. If you look at it logically, it would be impossible for any company, Microsoft included, to afford this kind of marketing scheme and still live up to its promise of free shit.

There are millions, probably a billion people on the internet. If every single person participated in these ads, even if only once a day, the cost would be more than enough to financially sink any company. I would imagine, nay, hope that the casual internet user would be smart enough to know that this is a scheme, a sham, a ploy to get information about you for advertising purposes, but I will probably be disappointed. People will continue to punch the monkey and then when they get nothing but spam mail in their inbox, they will bitch and moan and whine about how they punched the monkey, and got nothing. Well, what would you expect, you were asked to punch a monkey! Why would someone give you an iPod for that?

-B
If it’s ok, I’ll just pack my shit and leave