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He wins his choice of a gift certificate to Amazon.com or the Mental Magma Store.

Contest #31 may be a turning point in MM history, not for anything related to its subject matter, but because of its timing. Next week MM is going to be featured in the school paper of the University of Georgia (where I currently work and attend classes).

A large influx of users is likely to shake things up a bit.  If we gain a significant number of persistant users, the number of entries, the average quality of the finalists, and number of people reading/rating entries will all head north.  These are probably all positive changes, but we may have to make some changes to MM structures (most likely upgrades to our contest entry/upload systems).  We’ll be looking to our long time users for help and guidance on issues of change in the coming weeks and months.

If only MM’s users could make the Superbowl’s ads this weekend, things would be a lot more interesting.

Let’s talk about the entries that despite not making the finals, were either fan or staff favorites.  These included Diggy K’s Think Pretentious, Barnaby Hayes’ Burly Fat Guys, fuzz on the concept’s bottled water, Iaoai’s Playboy, Soleil’s Fox “News”, Bunny Slipper’s Oscar Meyer, SesameStreetgang’s Food Network, Spumoni’s WOW, Ocean26′s King of Theme Parks, Greg’s Quaker Oats Challenge, jlbsauces’ Hoverround, Mike Fo’ Sho’s Oreo Cakesters, Naterator Fried’s food, and cjb14′s Snuggie.

The five finalists this week are Etmoose, Alex, Jayrad, Jakutz, and Zee.

Zee’s entry was a picture, here is a slightly smaller version of it for easy reference:

This week’s contest is to revamp the advertising for the company of your choice. You can rename the company, come up with new slogans, or draw a new logo. The goal is to have the new advertising be frank and honest.

Standard contest timeline and contest rules apply this week. By leaving an entry you are agreeing to those rules. The entry voted the favorite by MM users will earn its author their choice of a $30 Amazon.com gift certificate OR a $60 gift certificate to the MM Online Store.

Contest Summary
Assignment: Redesign some of the advertising for the business of your choice.
How to enter: Write your entry in the Contest Entries section.
Deadline: Friday, January 30th at 5pm EST
Prize: Your choice of a $30 Amazon.com gift certificate OR a $60 gift certificate to the MM Online Store.

photo by flickr user andyi

Rising to the top of this week’s creations was Drewbert’s winning entry:

Obama's inaugural boxers:
Red, White and Blue
On the front they read: "Stimulus Package"

Drewbert has been submitting quality entries for a while now and we’re glad to see him bag a contest. For his win he wins his choice of a $40 Amazon.com gift certificate or a $80 MM Store gift certificate.

Let’s take a minute to recognize the users that, despite not making the finals, were user or staff favorites:  Greg’s don’t ask don’t tell, Alex’s President Erect, Jakutz’s Freedom, nmrboy’s Nixon, Bunny Slipper’s Other Big “O”, Hazel’s Watergate, Vlad’s Change, Spumoni’s Nuts, Trent’s Lewinsky, and SesameStreetgang’s Washington Monument.

The five finalists are Iaoai, Jayrad, Mike Fo’ Sho’, drewbert, and kjw2009.  The poll will be open until Sunday 5pm EST.  Remember that, as always, we’ll make our merch selections from the entire pool of entries, not just the finalists.  So, even if you didn’t make the finals, you may have your entry chosen to be made into real underwear.

This won’t happen very often, because it takes a while to run 5 user contests, but the longer it takes, the more money we’ll add to the prize pool.  Any user can submit a contest.  If we decide to run yours, or a slightly modified version of it, you’ll have your chance to be in the poll.

I can give you a few tips on creating a contest that we’ll likely run.  The first is to see our past contests to get a sense of the kinds of challenges we run.  You can skip this one if you’re a long-time user.

The second is to make your contest something that most people could enter if they wanted to.  It’s okay if the contest requires a little explanation.  For example, having a haiku contest in which you describe how to write one is acceptable, but a contest that requires users to write a computer program that passes the Turing Test is probably too tough.  

Lastly, the contest must have enough creative space to allow many entries.  If your contest is to name the worst film from the Matrix trilogy, the users only have 3 choices (and clearly the answer is the 3rd).

If you have an idea you think we’d like, submit it via the contact us tab or by email at mentalmagma (at) gmail (dot) com.

If you buy and then wear one of our hoodies, I can guarantee you’ll feel warmer (provided you don’t have to take off something warmer to fit the hoodie on).

I’m discounting all hoodies by $5 for the rest of the week.  In addition to that, you can get another $5 off your order by entering the code: BECALMDREAMS when you’re checking out (code is valid only on orders of $50 or more).

So, for URL prospecting you just need to come up with a website name that seems improbable and try it out. Compound words, like Monkeypants.com are usually a good start (I do try websites that don’t have the word “Pants” in them…sometimes).  You can come up with the words yourself, or use some random process for the prospecting.  That latter method is how I happened upon Lemonface.com (and read the ridiculous amount the owner wants for the name).

Do be careful with the random word combinations though.  After using a random word generator, I ended up at FatTube.com, which is apparently a pornographic site for lovers obese people.

So, do some prospecting and post your interesting finds.  It can be tough, many websites are “parked” with boring ads and some sites don’t even have anything there, but every once and a while you’ll find a centeroftheweb.com and it will all be worth it.

Note: All of the above websites were found, by me, via URL Prospecting.