Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Sites with Benefits Open Beta

I'm happy to announce that one of my projects, Sites with Benefits, is ready for Open Beta.  I've been using it on this blog for a while now and run several contests.  It has worked out nicely.  To help you get started with SwB, I made a video describing how to get the widget installed.





Sites with Benefits is a widget that allows you to reward your readers for doing various activities on your site.   There are currently 15 missions which include several kinds of social media sharing all the way to creating and submitting youtube videos.

Missions.  SwB currently supports the following missions:  Follow Twitter Account, Send Tweet, Leave a Comment (Disqus), Visit a Link, Daily Visit, First Sign In, Create a Video, Submit a URL, Submit to Reddit, Facebook Like, Share Video, Share Link, Google Plus One, Do a Poll and Answer Trivia.

Customize.  You can pick the colors and icons (via url)  that the widget will use.

Points.  Completing the above Missions will give your users points which are for your site only.

Rewards.  SwB supports 3 types of rewards.  Codes, Free-Form and Loot.  Codes can be a list of one time use, or a single key which can be used a number of times. Free-form rewards allow you to cover any non-code kind of reward.  Loot, which is still a work in progress, allows you to grant users bonuses (like increased point gain).

Rewards can be given out in two ways: direct and lottery (raffle).  Direct means the user redeems points to get a code.  Lottery allows them to redeem points for a chance at the prize.  The winners will be automatically drawn and codes given out when the lottery expires.

Easy Sign-In.  Sites with benefits lets you login with the following accounts:  Facebook, Twitter, Google, AOL, Disqus, and Yahoo.

To get started, go to http://www.siteswithbenefits.com and sign-in.  Click on the Publisher tab and create a site!