All Good things come to an end so our Lets Win This Contest Together - Season 2 also. Initial response was huge, slow down in the middle and few takers at the end. Overall it’s been satisfactory to me; don’t know how you will take it.

My aim was to make a prize pool and try to provide maximum gain to my contest sponsors so there was a condition that if you want to win prizes from first category which contains all big prizes then you must blog about the contest. The result is here, there are more entries in term of condition one in comparison to condition two which was to subscribe by e-mail to this blog.

How results have been drawn

Prepared a list of all participants and randomized the list at random.org You can see the pictures of randomized list at the bottom of this post.

Congratulations to all the winners.

How to Claim the Prize - The million dollar Question

In a day or two I will send e-mails to prize winners as well as to the prize sponsors informing them about your winning. You can then directly contact the sponsor to get your prizes. It’s as simple as that.

How to claim prizes - Winners of Entrecard Ad Spot Sponsors

You will receive the wining EC Credits in your Entrecard account directly from Entrecard. Please provide me your Entrecard Account e-mail address at: shanker@shankerbakshi.com

Please make the Subject line of above mail as: Winner of Entrecard Ad Spot Sponsors

In the end thanks very much for all my sponsors once again and all those who supported Lets Win this contest Together -Season 2

See you in Season 3 (very soon in a blog near and dear to you)

HERE ARE THE WINNERS

Themes Logo/Banner/Design (Total 8 Prizes worth $533)

1. Two Custom Banner Design from Buy Templates worth $99 winner Chie
2. One Custom Logo Design from Logo Angel worth $99 winner Phoenix2life
3. Premium WordPress Theme plus Bonus Make Money Online Theme from Neil Duckett dot Com worth $75 Winner Yen
4. Two WordPress Template Design from Buy Templates worth $60 Winner Eljon
5. One logo Design from Mr Javo worth $50 Winner Topen
6. One Professional Header Design from worth Graphics Design by Nilo $50 Winner David
7. One professional Header Design from Mohit Aneja worth $50 Winner Pinnaymama
8. One professional Logo Design from Photoshop World worth $50 Winner wiehanne

Some More Prizes (Total 8 Prizes worth $189.99)

1. One copy of WP Auctions Gold V.2.0 from Sponsorview worth $24.99 Winner Sherry
2. One Free Review from WebTrafficROI worth $25 Winner gengen
3. One Free Review from NSpeaks worth $25 Winner Chie
4. One Free Review from Inspiritblog worth $50 Winner Paco
5. Cash $20 via PayPal. From JoeTech Winner Yen
   
6. One 468×60 banner for one month from Submityourcontest worth $10 Winner blogywalkie.com
7. One 468×60 banner for one month from NSpeaks worth $20 Winner Marlene
8. One Free featured listing of winner’s contest on Submityourcontest worth $15 Winner David

125 x 125 Square Ads (Total 13 prizes worth $ 173)

1. 125×125 Square Ad for One month from Abhinav Sonkar’s Blog worth $30 Winner Lankapo
2. 125×125 Square Ad for One month from Mr. Javo Worth $25 Winner Kris
3. 125×125 Square Ad for One month from WebTrafficROI worth $20 Winner Eljon
4. 125×125 Square Ad for One month from NSpeak Worth $15 Winner Luis Torres
5. 125×125 Square Ad for One month from Eyespi20 Worth $15 Winner gengen
6. 125×125 Square Ad for One month from JoeTech Worth $10 Winner Rosh
7. 125×125 Square Ad for One month from Name Sherry Worth $10 Winner Sherry
8. 125×125 Square Ad for One month from Shopping ad space Worth $10 Winner Indocontest
9. 125×125 Square Ad for One month from Submit Your Contest Worth $10 Winner Phoenix2life
10. 125×125 Square ad for Two months from My Life’s Adventure Worth $10 Winner Suwari
11. 125×125 Square Ad for two months from Wonderful Things In Life Worth10 Winner Paco
12. 125×125 Square Ad for One month from Tech By PC Worth $8 Winner Bintage
13. 125×125 Square Ad for One month from Slightly Mordant Worth $5 Winner Yen

Link Ads (Total 5 prizes worth $91)

1. One Featured link for One Year in PR3 Directory Dawsoneng from Abhishek Deshpande worth $36 Winner Hussein
2. Two featured links for One month from WebTrafficROI worth $20 Winner Khristen Jane
3. One featured link for One month from Medan Daily worth $20 Winner wiehanne
4. One featured link for One month from NSpeaks.com - worth $10 Winner Karun
5. One featured link for One month from Ragnarok Guide worth $5 Winner Marlene

Entrecard Ad Spot Sponsors (Total 33 Prizes of 65000 Credits worth $390)

1. 5000 EC Credits from Techbypc winner John doro
2. 5000 EC Credits from slamblogger winner BBx
3. 5000 EC Credits from nukeit Winner wiehanne
4. 5000 EC Credits from snapshotcap Winner Guru
5. 3000 EC Credits from semuaorank Winner ThemeLib.com
   
6. 3000 EC Credits from abhinavsonkar Winner Topen
7. 3000 EC Credits from gewgawwritings Winner wiehanne
8. 3000 EC Credits from JoeTech Winner Dhadha
   
9. 2000 EC Credits from babyerika Winner gengen
10. 2000 EC Credits from sofhaljamil Winner  Indocontest
11. 2000 EC Credits from wpbeginners Winner Chie
12. 2000 EC Credits from realmofprosperity Winner Sweetytots
13. 2000 EC Credits from jdoqocy Winner  Pinnaymama
14. 2000 EC Credits from suki-desu Winner Sherry
15. 2000 EC Credits from days of my Life winner The Fitness Diva
16. 2000 EC Credits from impnerd winner Navjot Singh
17. 1000 EC Credits from Kisahberuang Winner Aiza
18. 1000 EC Credits from Random Detox winner  John doro
19. 1000 EC Credits from Google Stalking Winner  Sherry
20. 1000 EC Credits from Moneyne.ws Winner gengen
21. 1000 EC Credits from communicatebetter Winner MOJ
22. 1000 EC Credits from work-at-home-wealth Winner Hobo.he
    
23. 1000 EC Credits from Getting Personal Winner Yen
24. 1000 EC Credits from theonlydevice Winner Icon
    
25. 1000 EC Credits from tenforty Winner Lankapo
    
26. 1000 EC Credits from skidzopedia Winner wiehanne
27. 1000 EC Credits from eleanormordenoaguilar Winner Pinnaymama
28. 1000 EC Credits from sofhaljamil Winner Karun
29. 1000 EC Credits from seo-tuneup Winner Sherry
30. 1000 EC Credits from medandaily Winner David
31. 1000 EC Credits from lolcelebs Winner Sherry
32. 1000 EC Credits from bestjoanne Winner wiehanne
33. 1000 EC Credits from ajabgajab Winner  Kris

Other Entrecard Credits Sponsored (Total 10 Prizes of 11000 Credits worth $66)

1. 2,000 EC Credits from Wonderful Things In Life Winner Khristen Jane
2. 1,000 EC Credits from Make Money Online Winner ThemeLib.com
3. 1,000 EC Credits from My Life’s Adventure Winner  gengen
4. 1,000 EC Credits from SimplyWP Winner  MOJ
5. 1,000 EC Credits from Wiehanne Lounge Winner The Fitness Diva
   
6. 1000 EC Credit from Michael Aulia Winner  wiehanne
7. 1000 EC Credit from Contest Whiz Winner Kris
8. 1000EC Credits from Heart Random Winner Hussein
   
9. 1000 EC Credits from Fantasy Baseball Advice Winner Dhyarga
   
10. 1000 EC Credits from Amorfrancis Winner Luis Torres

I glued myself to television set watching on various news channels what’s going on at Mumbai which came under unprecedented night terror attack. Prominent Hotel Taj, Oberoi were under siege, the whole nation was stunned to see this brutal act.

I know all of you have got some idea through internet and international media that how much damage has been done. Many thanks to Indian armed forces, police, Para Military forces, navy and above all Indian Security Guard who on Saturday wrapped up and eliminated three terrorists in Taj hotel after 60 hours. Taj freed from terrorists, but this battle have taken a tragic toll nation’s top police officials -chief of the anti-terror squad Hemant Karkare, Mumbai’s additional commissioner of police Ashok Kamte and celebrated encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar was also killed.

Pray with me for peace for the family members of all those who lost their lives in this heartbreaking cruel attack.

Picture Courtesy; Getty Images, AFP, REUTERS, AP Photo/Mumbai Mirror/The Times of India. Many thanks to these brave cameramen who took these pictures showing us live action of terror attack.

Please Note: Some of these pictures here are of graphic nature and not suitable for children and a person with soft heart.

Click picture to enlarge:

To start with I ask my follower that “WordPress is an open source blogging software, but if they ask to pay to use WordPress then how much they would like to pay?’

As am not a hot shot bloggers only few twitter users responded to my opinion call.  But i was more curious to present this on my blog rather then looking for plenty of responses, then the question was; how to integrate these twitter’s tweets into a WordPress blog post? One more time I am very thankful to truly god sent john Chow who comes to my rescue and guides me how I can integrate twitters tweets in a blog post in a more professional way.

@DaveCarruthers (Dave Carruthers) says:
@shankerbakshi I wouldnt pay to use Wordpress as someone will always offer an open source alternative, take note typepad.

@nachase (nachase) says:
@shankerbakshi If WordPress were a paid software, I would pay $75.00. It has incredible ease of use, excellent plugins and a huge user base

@sipperphoto (Sipper Photography) says:
@shankerbakshi I’d pay for WP, if it wasn’t outrageously expensive… It is pretty badass software!

@PrayForWindTodd (Todd Wetzelberger) says:
@shankerbakshi - I’d pay $10/month for single, prob $20/multiple, but need to have some monetization built in or value add, support, etc

@mymelange (Robin Locker) says:
@shankerbakshi Less than $8.95-cause I have typepad and that’s wat I pay now. And I *heart* typepad!!

@AmishPhoneBook (Jeffrey H.) says:
@shankerbakshi WP would be worthless like Microsoft. It is community based and that is one of the reasons it is great!

@sensuouswife (sensuouswife) says:
@shankerbakshi I would pay to not use it. I find wp extremely difficult to use. my theory is its like being right handed or left handed.

@isfan (isfan) says:
@shankerbakshi wordpress isn’t totally free. lots of paid extras like ability to edit css. basically a good freemium model.

@MrJavo (MrJavo) says:
@shankerbakshi $20 a month

It seems I am enjoying interviewing fellow bloggers and biggies of blogsphere these days. First of all it was with blogging buddy Gyutae Park then coder craftsman Andy and now comes short conversation with Mr. John Chow. There is one more coming your way in a very short time. If you go through various pages of this blog I had quoted it at many places that I started blogging only after reading some great stuff of Mr. Chow on his blog, before that I was not even aware any such thing like blogging exists on this earth. So I’m very humbly and respectfully owe this whole blogging thing of mine to Mr. Chow.

Way back somewhere in October 2007, I won this prestigious million Euro Wiki Page from John Chow dot com in a contest where Mr. Chow and Shoemoney were fighting with each other on who could get more RSS subscriber in the month of during contest period, so like many other things John is also pioneer and expert in this blogging contest things, so before starting this lets Win this contest together -Season 2 I had a short conversation with him in which he guide me how to go about it.

Shanker Bakshi: I am starting a big contest, it’s a contributory contest, Am trying to contact big shot of blogsphere to make it big but they are not responding positively.

John Chow: That’s too bad; did you answer the “What’s in it for me” question?

Shanker Bakshi: “HOW TO RUN A CONTEST AND MAKE IT BIG?”

John Chow: That might make a cool blog post

Shanker Bakshi: they can at least response.

John Chow: That answer is pretty easy, you need to answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” Well, you need to answer their questions, it’s not yours, when emailing others to help, tell them what’s in it for them

Shanker Bakshi: okay - that’s a great tip. What is best place/way to promote a blog contest?

John Chow: any place you can, facebook, other blogs, twitter, etc

Shanker Bakshi: These days commenting helps more then anything -what’s your take on this?

John Chow: Yes, if you’re among the first

Shanker Bakshi: If I put a condition to participate in the contest like “TO BLOG ABOUT THE CONTEST” would it be amount to duplicate contents for Google? Lots of bloggers will copy and paste the contest post.

John Chow: Not unless every blog writes the exact same thing, you can solve that by asking a question like “What do you like about it?” that forces them to write something unique.

Shanker Bakshi: That’s a great advise again, thanks for your time, you been always so kind towards me.

John Chow: That’s good for you

We bloggers are living in a world where we need Plugins to show our love (or hate for that matter) towards our readers and commentators. Andy Bailey understood this need and crafted one of most downloaded Plugin for WordPress - CommentLuv. At the moment it is processing approximately 150000 Comments per day, that’s enough to establish the fact that how much bloggers love this idea. CommentLuv is a WordPress Plugin which enables bloggers to reward blog readers by leaving a titled link to their last post automatically whenever they comment. This also encourages readers to make more comments.

Andy is a busy man, he has been associated with some other popular projects elottery affiliate, Magnetic Sponsoring, Oceanside Wealth etc. In the following short interview I will ask him about his brain child CommentLuv and some other cool features that he wish to add up in CommentLuv.

Shanker Bakshi: When exactly you got this idea to create a WordPress plugin which rewards readers on a blog?

Andy Bailey: it was at the time that blogrush came out with a widget that showed links to other sites on your blog. I thought it would be better to show links to the sites of the people that contribute to the blog rather than some stranger who already gets traffic I spent a while on a test script and it worked, so I installed it on my own blog after a while, some people asked if they could have it too. The rest is history (in the making)

Shanker Bakshi: Yes it’s a History in the making, how were the initial reactions from its users?

Andy Bailey: Great, if it wasn’t for the reactions I wouldn’t have made it as a release. My only goal at that time was to reward my own readers and it seems to be a common want among bloggers (especially the nice ones!)

Shanker Bakshi: You are totally fallen in love with CommentLuv or there are some other projects you are handing at this moment.

Andy Bailey: I have quite a few projects on and a company to run, I have to do  CommentLuv stuff in my spare time or fit it around doing a project by slipping a couple of extra hours in here and there (mostly late at night)

Shanker Bakshi: what’s your take on Automattic acquiring IntenseDebate? What kind of changes in whole commenting system you were expecting with WP 2.7?

Andy Bailey: I’m not sure on the merits of ID being integrated into WP 2.7. One of the things I like most about CommentLuv is that it creates the community on your own blog, you don’t have to go to a 3rd party site with different details to see what your community is up to. I have tried it out on 2.7 Beta 3 and got CommentLuv to work on it in a rough form so when it comes out I will have an option for it.

Shanker Bakshi: would you like to share some of the new features that you are going to introduce in CommentLuv?

Andy Bailey: The JavaScript file will be remotely hosted this time so I can implement updates without the user needing to download/upload files and more secure and reliable feed handling with easier to understand error messages and the contest is going really well so I want to put in a way of notifying the user that they have won. A long distant future feature would be a way for blogs to allow an ad to be shown as the last blog post when the user doesn’t have a feed. Something that works as a revenue share using a generic term for the anchor text like “just bought a new LCD TV, my review” so it can point to a product page that’s a long way off though.

Shanker Bakshi: Okay - What else Andy Bailey has in store for us?

Andy Bailey: that’s it I’m afraid, CommentLuv takes every sliver of my spare time. the forums, the help desk, the site, the newsletter, the new versions, the updates, the help requests by email, the twitter requests, interview requests (lol!), promotion, prize sending, address getting… it goes on! it’s a great way for me to pass the time doing something I enjoy I have other Plugins I have written but not released but the maintenance time is what stops me , any other plugin would take away time from CommentLuv and I luvs my CommentLuv

Shanker Bakshi: which are other things that excite you besides coding for your projects and all?

Andy Bailey: I have been going to the gym and swim regularly for the past 5 months, that’s pretty good and makes me feel awesome (especially when I have to buy new trousers coz the old ones are too big!) I really like reading sci-fi books but I don’t have the time these days so I have been listening to the dragons of pern series by anne mccaffrey while I am driving on business mostly I like to spend time with my partner, she is the glue that stops me falling apart I like helping too, running a business and an affiliate network is fun (when it doesn’t go wrong or deliveries get lost)

Shanker Bakshi: tell us about your inspiration, the Idol you follow.

Andy Bailey: I’ve been really impressed by Barack Obama speeches, I guess you could say I look up to him in a way. My inspiration is a quote I heard once saying “you can have anything you want just by helping others to get what they want” and the instructions for life taped to the wall behind my monitors , my favorite is number 5 - “Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly”

I’ve always thought Richard Branson was a good role model.

Shanker Bakshi: Any other thing you want to convey to your Comment LUV user and to Shanker Bakshi dot Com Readers.

Andy Bailey: spread the luv!

Shanker Bakshi: that’s so cool, Thanks very much for your time, all the best for all your future assignments.

Andy Bailey: thanks, you too.