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Massaging the Winners

About a month ago I mentioned that I had entered a contest eBay was running.  The purpose of the contest, at least as far as the entrants were concerned, was to win money by bombarding eBay with blog entries, reviews of things sold on the site, and "guides" on how to buy, sell, or commit other eBay activities.  I'm guessing eBay's motive was to get more interest in their "community," i.e., to get newbies to spend more time on the site, and to get those who already spend substantial life-fractions on the site to leave their real lives behind entirely. 

I entered their contest as an experiment.  Although I used to spend a lot of time on eBay, I cut down substantially about a year ago when I realized that I had everything and all I needed now were the manuals.  The contest experiment was successful.  I accomplished what I set out to do, and also won modest prizes in the two out of five entry periods during which I was active.  However, after the contest was over, I realized that eBay never provided much information about the distribution of winners, entrants, etc., and I was curious to see more than a simple list of winners for each period.  To satisfy my curiosity, I imported the five lists of winners into a database so I could answer my questions.

Regular readers of my blog:  Feel free to stop here.  The data below is for the benefit of my sporadic eBay blog, which previously benefited from this, my real blog, since that's where my contest entries came from.  It's only fair to return the favor—eBay even paid me!  Accordingly, below are some snippets of data reduction.  EBay readers:  enjoy!

$Won eBay UserID P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 PWon
$3,825.00 amysolovay 2 10 7 2 6 5
$3,450.00 brandi*sfindsoftheweek 7 16 25 1 10 5
$3,175.00 carriebaby 26 1 13 18   4
$3,000.00 ladykikiforever 1 17 39 43   4
$2,975.00 alberta_arts 8 23 1     3
$2,850.00 readertown     30 40 1 3
$2,600.00 celebritybiz   5 2 41 28 4
$2,525.00 nanalulu 14 2   4   3
$1,925.00 finacollectibles 40     6 2 3
$1,900.00 alexandra0116 25   3 5 21 4
$1,675.00 seriousbeader 12 4 6 13 92 5
$1,450.00 frogmom1010 3 20 59 20 26 5
$1,400.00 littlecelticgirl   15 77 11 3 4
$1,325.00 sstrbst5 4 31   49 11 4
$1,225.00 jandbcannon   21 4 10   3
$1,175.00 darthoz 11 6 15 26 32 5
$1,150.00 moonmonster1972     22 3 29 3
$1,125.00 onebighoax 6 29 10 14 99 5
$1,100.00 sundance82     29 46 4 3
$1,000.00 danna 36     62 5 3

Top Money Winners

This is a listing of the folks who won at least a kilobuck.  Note that many of the top scorers only placed in 4 out of the 5 periods, and several top scorers only placed in three.
Nbr $Won eBay UserID P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 PWon
11 $1,175.00 darthoz 11 6 15 26 32 5
28 $700.00 hugawayfromhome 28 71 26 78 80 5
57 $500.00 aswegrow2 57 99 85 87 54 5
12 $1,675.00 seriousbeader 12 4 6 13 92 5
7 $3,450.00 brandi*sfindsoftheweek 7 16 25 1 10 5
3 $1,450.00 frogmom1010 3 20 59 20 26 5
2 $3,825.00 amysolovay 2 10 7 2 6 5
6 $1,125.00 onebighoax 6 29 10 14 99 5
105 $675.00 cards_nstuff   11 42 88 38 4
37 $600.00 jcarolek 37 34 20 60   4
151 $500.00 bengaltiger66   75 36 44 52 4
1 $3,000.00 ladykikiforever 1 17 39 43   4
126 $500.00 tru_gritt02   44 97 91 37 4
117 $725.00 keystonepuzzles   32 14 17 74 4
121 $500.00 txnnette   38 51 69 35 4
165 $500.00 momnyou   91 57 48 48 4
107 $625.00 ddskitty   14 55 52 36 4
33 $550.00 buggal1989 33   28 75 55 4
116 $650.00 scoobygirl025   28 54 22 43 4
112 $650.00 wonderwomankim33   22 32 64 20 4
146 $450.00 elaboriquedesigns   69 96 83 41 4
108 $1,400.00 littlecelticgirl   15 77 11 3 4
122 $550.00 salesbygetridofit!   39 31 57 49 4
25 $1,900.00 alexandra0116 25   3 5 21 4
4 $1,325.00 sstrbst5 4 31   49 11 4
16 $775.00 jandeantx 16 12 19 96   4
21 $825.00 wentworthtradd 21 9 44 24   4
102 $2,600.00 celebritybiz   5 2 41 28 4
26 $3,175.00 carriebaby 26 1 13 18   4
27 $550.00 5170scottw 27 46 82   58 4

Top Number Of Wins

Quantity doesn't hurt, but it doesn't necessarily help, either.  At least one 5-time winner won only $500.  Not that that's antihistamine money!

Congrats to all, especially jcarolek whose blog and reviews I especially enjoyed.
Number of people who won in five contests: 8
Four contest periods: 22
Three contest periods: 31
Two contest periods: 49
One contest period: 181

Total Winners

The total number of winners was 291 out of a possible 500 due to the enthusiasm of the multi-dudes and dudesses.
© 2006
Richard Factor

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