The 1,000 Dollar Comment Game

Published on July 28, 2007 (↻ April 29, 2023), filed under Everything Else (RSS feed for all categories).

After the amazing success of the 100 dollar comment game, I proudly present the next game in which you might win 1,000 US dollars! That could mean your new iPhone, MacBook, or whatever you wish to spend the money on.

Since I don’t give away 1,000 dollars myself, here are the five sponsors who made this game possible:

Rules of the Game

Comment #100 wins.

The game starts on Sunday, August 5, at midnight (00:00 CEST).

If comment #100 is reached before that moment, there is no winner.
Comments must include a link to your own website (this is to prevent cheating, and there’s a small bonus if the site validates…), and they must make sense. Tell something, albeit it may be short. Comments that ignore this rule will be removed.
Everybody is allowed to post two comments, until comment number 100, that is. This includes me, though I cannot win and must post two comments. (There will be things to comment.)
The prize is paid via PayPal, and only via PayPal. Everything else is too complicated or too insecure. If you’re no PayPal user yet, you then have 1,000 reasons to become one, at least for a few hours.
There’s no legal process. However, the winner is asked to give a public sign that he or she received the money, just to avoid any kind of confusion.

For the lucky number 100: Wait for my winner announcement in either this post or a comment. Though I’ll be quite tolerant in accepting responses, I cannot exclude that there’s spam and stuff, and surely a cleanup is needed to determine the “real” winner.

❧ What’s this all about? It’s still a kind of “experiment” I’ll probably talk about later. What matters is that it’s serious and that nobody will be hurt—quite the contrary I guess 😁 So for now, let’s just note that I’m as excited as you are. Good luck!

Update (March 1, 2008)

This game has been closed due to lack of participation and in order to do good.

About Me

Jens Oliver Meiert, on September 30, 2021.

I’m Jens, and I’m an engineering lead and author. I’ve worked as a technical lead for companies like Google and as an engineering manager for companies like Miro, I’m close to W3C and WHATWG, and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

With my current move to Spain, I’m open to a new remote frontend leadership position. Feel free to review and refer my CV or LinkedIn profile.

I love trying things, not only in web development, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my views and experiences.

Comments (Closed)

On July 30, 2007, 14:01 CEST, Michael Grosch said:
Interesting experiment. I’m curiously waiting for an explanation of what’s behind your 100 Dollar comment game.
And I wish there was also a prize for the first post. 😉
On July 30, 2007, 14:41 CEST, Garr said:
In the United States, we use a comma ‘,’ to separate the thousands, not a period. Interesting concept. Yay.

$1,000 will not be mine.
On July 30, 2007, 16:08 CEST, Franky said:
Nice game.. good luck to all players from Germany!
On July 30, 2007, 21:16 CEST, Marco said:
Looks like the last comment game had no winner. Maybe this time 100 people write a comment.
On July 31, 2007, 2:14 CEST, Erik Pöhler said:
This sounds great! Well, let me calculate…

… that must be around 14 Euros 45 Cents, right?
Anyway: i start writing my “Yay, i won 1000 bugs post” now, and set the publishing date according to rule #1.
I hope you count trackbacks as comments 😉 Am i allowed to let my blog send one?
On July 31, 2007, 12:58 CEST, Philipp Maan said:
Some playsers from Austria here, too. 750€ would be neat..
On July 31, 2007, 22:06 CEST, Basti said:
I don’t mind some SEO experiments, but why did you (as a somewhat hardcore standardista) choose these ugly tagsoup examples for it?

However, at least this comment qualifies for a thousand bucks, right? 😉
On August 1, 2007, 12:44 CEST, Jens Oliver Meiert said:
Michael, you still have one comment to win 😉

Garr, thanks for hint, I just corrected it. And of course, you’re also still allowed to post one winning comment 😊

Marco, yet, the old comment game’s basically still open, I set no “expiry date” yet.

Erik, unfortunately, trackbacks or pingbacks are not allowed.

Philipp, welcome 😊

Basti, I had no say on the sponsor websites.
On August 5, 2007, 1:11 CEST, Michael said:
I assume it’s a little mind trick.

To see how many people don’t check up on the “amazing success”, and simultaneously think that even posting once is a “waste” of their chance to try twice when it’s actually approaching #100.

I wonder when people will start spamming via Tor to improve their chances 😉
On August 5, 2007, 12:31 CEST, Boris said:
I thought that the whole thing would be over by now, but hey that means I still have a chance 😉

It seems that not enought people know about this…
On August 5, 2007, 19:30 CEST, Jens Oliver Meiert said:
Michael, right, allowing two comments is supposed to bring things forward… but Boris is probably also right assuming that this game created too little “buzz.” Thanks for stopping by, and good luck 😊

(This is my second and thus last comment until #100 since the game’s running yet. I wonder about its outcome.)
On August 6, 2007, 15:18 CEST, David Runer said:
I think it’s amazing that there are only 11 (!) comments so far since July. Yet I’m afraid to create some buzz about the game as this would increase the competition…
What a wicked game. 😉
On August 6, 2007, 21:20 CEST, Koka said:
Yeah, i don’t have the heart to waste my comments either…
On August 8, 2007, 0:11 CEST, Robert Bienert said:
What for a funny game 😊 And what for a funny blogosphere: If somebody writes about something really amazing or the biggest waste on earth™, you may get hundreds of comments within several hours, but if there are 1,000 $ to win only by commenting a story nothing really happens. You don’t even have to sell your sould or sign a contract with the devil – but wait, you need a Paypal account 😉

And now I’ll use the time to validate my homepage and create a Paypal account for the second comment.
On August 8, 2007, 15:23 CEST, Leo said:
It’s that slow…maybe this will be a nice christmas present for someone 😉

My domain is currently unavailable due to server-issues…
On August 8, 2007, 16:16 CEST, Marion Krampitz said:
This is a really interesting experiment, i wonder why there are not more comments. Curious blogosphere… maybe nobody believes that this game is serious.
On August 8, 2007, 20:42 CEST, kab said:
So maybe it`s all tactics—my friedns stand behind me and wait untill me, myself and I have produced comment no. 98.
On August 11, 2007, 1:40 CEST, Marie said:
Christmas? I want the money now! (although christmas sounds pretty optimistic - what year?)
On August 14, 2007, 21:38 CEST, Colurz said:
1,000 US Dollars… really nice this game. I hope I get them. Good Luck to all players!
On August 15, 2007, 17:10 CEST, kab said:
… ups … I loose 😔
On August 15, 2007, 17:13 CEST, kab said:
… ups … I loose 😔 Now that I am out of the game:
„Am I allowed to post an infinitive number of comments?“
On August 19, 2007, 2:16 CEST, ME said:
Thats a lot of money to win, im confused a little though.
On August 19, 2007, 2:28 CEST, ME said:
i lose i guess :\ so post 100 gets 1k$???

OH, OK!!!

ill give u another site to go to, kinda cool 1s im posting, clik my name lol
On August 19, 2007, 17:18 CEST, David said:
Cool crazy Jens Idea! I`ll immediatly start writing a bot to get that 1000 bucks 😉!
On August 26, 2007, 10:05 CEST, Jens Oliver Meiert said:
Thanks to all for your contributions, at least you feel challenged! 😊

David, great to hear from you—guess I’ll contact you by mail, too.

kab, I’m sorry… but right, you’re allowed to post more comments once the game’s ever over.

Your last as well as this comment will be removed or merged once there are about 100 comments.
On October 25, 2007, 5:59 CEST, Piter said:
game still running?
On November 29, 2007, 22:10 CET, Walter said:
I think the experiment is that people won’t help each other win money because we’re all too GREEDY!
On January 10, 2008, 14:56 CET, Manuel Maisch said:
Is the contest still running?
On January 13, 2008, 19:08 CET, Jens Oliver Meiert said:
Yes and no.