You won’t have download anything or call your webmaster to install anything on your server because it’s an online service.

I’ve checked out several other internet sweepstakes software management tools, and they were either too expensive, confusing to use, or had too many bells and whistles to make it easy to create and launch a prize contest on the fly.

Now, there are some features that I know the folks at RaffleCopter are working on integrating, such as facebook share and linkedin sharing integration.  Which can be added manually, but it’s a work around, and requires you to verify the entry.

So it’s not perfect yet, but their team is working like crazy to get it there.  In the meantime, I’m loving what they’ve got so far.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s FREE?  (At least for now)

As you probably know prize contests are a great way to build your audience fast… In fact, it’s probably one of the lowest investment, highest ROI ways to build your list or grow your tribe.

So what are you waiting for? Check out the prize contest they’re currently running to see how it works for participants: http://blog.rafflecopter.com/2012/01/rafflecopter-launch-party/

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And check out the video below to see how easy it is to create a prize contest in 5 minutes:

I looked everywhere for a Google sets clone or replacement. I was even willing to put on my ‘programming hat’ and get down and dirty with the Google sets API. (Turns out they may not be providing an API for it.)

I’m not the only one looking for a Google Sets alternative…

Influential voices in the SEO community have even proposed a petition to bring back google sets.

Now, there are reverse dictionaries out there like onelook.com, and many folks have recommended the good ole’ thesaurus.com. But until today, I had yet to find a good alternative to Google Sets.

I wish I could take credit for this answer, but credit has to go to Ben Inkster. He discovered that you can use a Google Docs spreadsheet to pull data from the Google Sets api.

Happily, there is no programming knowledge required. Simply begin a set by entering a few keywords into cells in a column, then select those cells, hold the CTRL key (or Command Option key on Mac), then click and drag the little square in the lower right corner of the selection and drag it down.

The subsequent cells will automatically be populated with the same kind of related terms that you would have gotten from Google Sets.

BAM! There’s your answer to “What alternatives are there to Google Sets?” Easy as pie & no assembly required.

Ben’s video demonstrates this quite nicely:

To those of you who’ve been following me for a while, you’ve probably been saying to yourself, “Why on Earth had Glen’s blog been down for so long?”

You know? I don’t really have a good excuse.

Yeah, yeah I’ve been super busy. But I think the deeper truth is that I just didn’t feel like I had anything new or insightful to add to the topics that I wanted to write about.

Well, I’ve finally pulled my head out my anus, and decided that I just want to do this.  If for no other reason but that it will help me communicate more clearly, and do a better job of spreading important ideas.

Get ready folks, I’m going to be releasing some really good stuff over the next 2 – 3 weeks to celebrate the re-launch of my blog.

See ya!

{Zen}Glen McNiel