Ok, here's my thoughts on the golf slots giveaway. Klun and I are going to meet and brainstorm this and some other ideas soon, but wanted to put my thought process out there for you guys to chew up and spit out..

I know it may seem a little hokey - considering the caliber and general demographic of people we have in here. But consider this. I'm trying to get people in the door to look around by offering something that's very popular in this economy - free stuff and a fun diversion marketed virally. Once they're in, we can impress them with the depth of conversation and other benefits of being a registered member, but I want something I can advertise that will get curious onlookers to click through.

First off I am talking to a firm about customizing the demo game I have posted here:

http://www.golfgearreview.com/golf-slot-machine.php

It would have different icons on the reels, such as par, birdie, and eagle bars, golf balls, flags, and a HOLE IN ONE winning reels for example - and a very nice golf course background or other golf related theme. When arriving on the page, I would say that to be able to collect, you have to be a registered member in the forums, then you'd be permitted to stop by the game once every day - which we would control programmatically. You'd get 72 credits to play with. If the reels ended up on a winning prize combination - maybe smaller gift cards would have more frequent odds, then larger ones with respectively higher odds, then maybe a grand prize of a $1000 gift card or a golf trip somewhere - then a window would pop up verifying their forum membership and notifying site management of the win so prize could be awarded. The odds would be set relative to our budget for the project so that it would never exceed what we could afford to "pay out."

On the game page, I would rotate advertisements, latest forum topics, latest reviews and articles through so perhaps with each spin or every couple spins they would see something new that we offer here in a window.

I would promote this through Google text ads, Facebook ads and other social network ads, and word of mouth. If done right, this would have the potential (I believe) to go viral - meaning people would start forwarding to their friends, linking to it from their blogs, websites, and social networking pages, etc. Very similar to how a funny video or joke often gets passed around the internet - very quickly.

Obviously it would have to be fun, engaging, and there would have to be some frequent little wins to help generate excitement and incent people to pass it on via word of mouth. Regardless of anyone's interest in gambling, this would just be something fun and hopefully the start of a new feature where - if successful - we would periodically offer different types of games of skill and chance as well - all designed to get folks in, playing, seeing different things on the site, and having a chance to win.

Once they are registered members, then we would introduce them to the other giveaways, pools, and fun things we have around here as well.

I'm pretty fired up and headstrong about the idea, so I would ask that your feedback be moreso related to how we could make it the best it could be. I'm still considering the Golf Rewards system as well. Obviously, I have limited time to work on projects, but am trying to queue up ideas for future development. The nice thing about the Flash game is, I can have an external flash development company work on it, so other that giving them functional requirements, I would just be paying for them to do. It's really only going to amount to a couple hundred bucks, so I think the return is potentially a lot greater.

Discuss...

Feedback #1 - turn off the music! You can keep slot machine-like sound effects if the volume is kept down. Hate obnoxious loud stuff.
Feedback #2 - if you implement this, you need to make someone post a minimum number of times before becoming eligible to take a spin. Maybe just 5 times. Otherwise, imagine someone signing up and winning something big who never spends any time or contributes anything. Also cuts out the SPAMMER types who will keep signing up with new names.

#1 - haha, so funny Aimee, my wife said the same thing - WHAT *IS* THAT, UGH... haha

#2 - Noted!

just a small point - the last reel kept jumping onto orange which is REALLY annoying (ie I could see it land on BAR but then change to orange....)