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RANDOM.ORG Newsletter #2 "More Drawings and Double iPod Giveaway" 11 May 2009 https://www.random.org/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dear Newsletter Subscriber, Welcome to the second issue of the new RANDOM.ORG newsletter! In case you are no longer interested in randomness or RANDOM.ORG, you will find an unsubscribe link at the end of this email. If you would like to learn more (and get the chance to win an iPod), read on. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Giveaway #1 Complete! Last week's iPod giveaway was a great success. The giveaway was open to anyone who was a newsletter subscriber on 5 May 2009, and a total of 96 people entered. The prize drawing was held on 10 May 2009, and the lucky winner was Guy from Nijlen in Belgium. Nijlen is a small town, not far from Antwerpen (known as Anvers to the French-speaking Belgians), which is a rather pretty city in the northern part of Belgium. So, Congratulations, Guy! A shiny new black 4 GB iPod Shuffle is on its way to you. As I mentioned in last week's newsletter, the giveaway was held using RANDOM.ORG's Third-Party Draw Service. This service uses true randomness to pick winners in such a way that each entrant has exactly the same chance of winning and that nobody can predict or influence the outcome, even if they know the algorithms used to generate the randomness. The Third-Party Draw Service also creates a permanent record of each drawing, such that you and your entrants can review it later. Here is the record for last week's iPod Giveaway: https://www.random.org/draws/details/?draw=567 The record will tell you what the drawing was for, when it was completed, how many entrants and winners there were, etc. Because last week's iPod Giveaway was an entrant-accessible drawing, entrants can also type in their email address, and RANDOM.ORG will tell them whether or not they were entered and whether they won. (People can do this safely; RANDOM.ORG will not store these email addresses and never, ever spam any entrant.) As I discussed in last week's newsletter, random drawings are great for promotional giveaways, for example in connection with your blog or business. However, you need to make sure your drawings are held in a way that is fair and transparent to your entrants, and which at the same time protects their privacy. It is very easy to use RANDOM.ORG's Third-Party Draw Service to do this. If you missed it last week, here is the newsletter that describes how: https://www.random.org/newsletter/001/ There is also an 8m42s video guide that walks you through the process: https://www.random.org/guides/video1/ Each drawing costs a fee, which depends on the number of entrants. The price starts at $4.95 USD for a drawing with up to 500 entrants. For larger drawings, use the price calculator to see how much your drawing will cost: https://www.random.org/draws/pricing/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Double iPod Giveway This Week As I promised last week, there will be another iPod giveaway this week. Because the first giveaway was such a success, I have decided to give away two iPod Shuffles this week and two more next week, for a total of five Shuffles this time around. If you haven't seen it yet, the new iPod Shuffle is the smallest, most stylish MP3 player you can imagine. Like the previous Shuffle, it is made from aluminium, but the design is nicer, and as an interesting improvement, Apple has equipped the new Shuffle with voice synthesis, such that it can speak the name of your songs and playlists. This makes it easier to navigate your music library. Since, as far as I know, no MP3 players (including the new Shuffle) use true randomness to shuffle your songs, each of the Shuffles given away by RANDOM.ORG will have a unique true random bit pattern engraved on it. To the best of my knowledge, this makes them the first iPods in the world to contain any measure of true randomness! (I admit it won't affect the playback order of your songs, though :-) To enter this week's giveaway, simply click on this link: https://www.random.org/giveaways/enter/?giveaway=2&email=%%email%% The drawing for the two iPods will be held on Sunday, 17 May 2009. The winners will be contacted by email, and a link to the record of the drawing will appear here: https://www.random.org/giveaways/?giveaway=2 No purchase is necessary to enter into this drawing, and the iPods will be shipped free of cost to the winners anywhere in the world. (You may have to pay import duty, if any.) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Future Giveaways Only current subscribers to the RANDOM.ORG newsletter can enter this week's giveaway. If you have friends who are interested, tell them to sign up for the newsletter, and they will be invited to participate in future giveaways: https://www.random.org/newsletter/ Enjoy! Yours randomly, -- Dr. Mads Haahr <Mads.Haahr@cs.tcd.ie> | Lecturer in Computer Science Department of Computer Science | Phone: +353 1 896 1540 Trinity College Dublin | Web: http://www.cs.tcd.ie/ This newsletter is copyright 2009 by Mads Haahr Unsubscribe here: https://www.random.org/newsletter/