Swagbucks Nation

I'm not exactly sure how Swagbucks made it onto my radar because like most of you I think about 99% of the "search on the internet and earn (and I use that term loosely) stuff" sites are bogus. In fact, they are probably a few levels below bogus.

But Swagbucks is different. Quite often when I do a search (about every second or third one), a pop up appears to congratulate me on a Swagbucks win. This happens two or three times a day, so while I consider this winning rather than earning, in just a few days time I've honestly scored enough SB's to redeem them for a few things I actually would like to have.

On top of winning by searching, members of SB are encouraged to hunt around the site and search for secret codes that reward people with even more SB's. The codes are generally found on Facebook, Twitter, the SB blog, and the ever popular Swagbucks toolbar. You even get SB's for downloading the toolbar onto your computer.

I have to admit that searching for codes is somewhat addictive, which has made me think a lot about the success of this site and why it is so incredibly successful. (I think about everything.) Here's my take on it:

I think TSG (The Swag Guy who writes the blog and posts on FB) is really not a guy at all. I think "he" is an entire team of cognitive psychologists hired by at least one marketing agency to figure out the best way to "encourage" (i.e., manipulate, but in a nice way) people to spend time looking at ads on the internet in order to further encourage them to part with the little green pieces of paper in their wallets.

Additionally, I think every cognitive psychologist on the Swagbucks Team probably got an A+ in their Learning and Conditioning class--because whether we like to admit this or not--the strategic timing of when we are rewarded for searching and how much we are rewarded for said searching is exactly what this site is all about. Remember Pavlov's dogs, folks? Not to make anyone feel bad, but I've seen some salivating over the anticipation of those beloved codes.

It's genius, really. The rewards are frequent enough to keep you coming back for more, and if you've won 50 SB's earlier in the day, you don't mind winning just 3 some other time because you know the next time you search, you might just win about 12.

Swagbucks has nearly 200,000 fans on Facebook according to its site, so if you don't think it pays to be a cognitive psychologist--think again. They know how to tap into the unconscious mind and get people's attention. They know when you walk into the grocery store you will automatically turn your head to the right and spend most of your time looking at products just below your eye level (and since you spent all that time looking at that product, they know you are more likely to buy it). They know quite a bit. So does Swagbucks.

But that's okay. It's not like SB's dupes people. They are upfront about what they do, the site really is free (and hassle free) and I've never had any spam in my inbox and no creepy sales people call me at all hours of the day. And they do actually take a few dollars back out of the multi-billion dollar advertising business and share them with those of us who probably should find better things to do than hang out with our computers all day. Not that I'm knocking people who do that, as I'm pretty much one of them...

So without any further ado I'm going to put up the Swagbucks badge on my sidebar. It's fun, and I've found that a lot of nice people participate. There's a surprising lack of hostility among the blog posters, and most of them like to drop clues to help others find and crack the codes (code sharing is grounds for account deletion). You don't see kindness like this on the internet all that much anymore.

Happy searching, y'all.