I won, I won!
Written: May 14 '01 (Updated Jun 05 '01)

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The Bottom Line If you are going to use a search engine, might as well use one that's more than adequate and may win you money.
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Okay, I haven't won yet, but I intend to keep trying.
It seems like a great marketing idea. A search engine that gives you the chance of winning $10,000 every day just by using it. On top of that, Iwon became a full portal offering you many features that you can customize to your own wants.
The main attraction to using Iwon is that you earn points by doing various things from the portal, up to a maximum of 100 per day. You earn 7 by using their search engine, and then another 1 by going to a link. Each news topic is worth 4 points. Checking your movie times or local weather can be worth 3 or more points, etc.. They have a special online shopping section, free email and a sponsor run sweepstakes area. All of these will give you points, including making Iwon your startup page. There are also some games, an actual lottery, prize machines, and a trivia of the day section that earns you points.
All your points, and everyone else's points are put into a lottery type of system where someone's name is drawn daily to earn them $10,000. At the end of each month, someone will win $1,000,000, and once per year (at tax time), someone will win $10,000,000. All these prizes can seem quite worth it when you consider that you are going to be at least using a search engine every now and then.
As far as portals go, this is one is actually quite good. The news topics are sorted well, and usually contain just enough of the interesting ones that I would want to read each day. It is easy to get your local weather, movie times, stock picks and the like on your custom Iwon. The search engine isn't bad, although the Yahoo/Google combination is superior. Iwon is more than adequate for finding major pages, and features many of power search features like 'not' and '+'.
However, as a warning, the odds of winning seem pretty miniscule. I have been a member for about 1 year and a half, and have made my 100 point maximum probably 90% of the days I've been playing. I doubt I've even come close to winning. People do win though. You can even scroll through the names, or sort by location so you can see if anyone has won near you.
I just wish they let me know what my odds were of winning.
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Location: San Rafael, CA, Marin County
Reviews written: 183
Trusted by: 122 members
About Me: Film is my favorite art form. I live a life of constant amelioration.
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