Send E-Mail, Collect $1 Million

New electronic-greeting site GreetNwin.com offers sweepstakes kicker.

Frank Thorsberg, special to PCWorld.com

Think your mom would love her Mother's Day card all the more if that sentimental online greeting turns out to be worth $1 million?

It's a long shot for sure, but it could happen if she gets an electronic card from GreetNwin.com, a site that launched this week.

The Web site is giving away $1000 daily, $10,000 each week, $100,000 per month, and $1 million once a year to registered users. You don't need to register to send electronic cards via GreetNwin, but you do have to sign up to qualify for the sweepstakes drawings and instant cash prizes. That applies whether you send or get the e-mail greeting; if you're the unregistered recipient, you don't get to split the big bucks.

Merchandise giveaways are also planned, and hourly drawings will begin in June, according to Greg Carson, the company's chief executive officer.

Every electronic greeting card you send or receive also earns credits that will be redeemable for free merchandise from GreetNwin.

Hundreds of cards, including many animated versions, are offered in six categories: holiday, birthday, everyday, invitations, love, and announcements.

"What we're doing is basically a combination of e-greetings, free e-mail, and cash prizes," Carson says. "No one's really combined these three."

Crowded Space Online

The new site competes for customers with some pretty well-established firms in the e-card and online lottery arenas.

IWon.com, which combines the lure of a multimillion-dollar sweepstakes with a Web portal, is the number three entertainment site on the Net. Number one on that list is Napster, and in second place is the Windows Media site, according to the March Web traffic figures from NetScore Traffic, a joint effort by ComScore Networks and Diameter, a division of DoubleClick.

Another online giveaway site, GroupLotto.com, was fifth on the list, finishing just behind TwistedHumor.com. Both offer a pretty good hint of what plays well with Web surfers.

Two of the most popular electronic-greeting card sites, BlueMountain.com and American Greetings, are ranked 33 and 41 in the Services and Resources category, according to ComScore Networks and Diameter.

Why are these sites so popular?

"The things that are really the killer apps for users are things that enhance communication--instant messaging, greeting cards, voice over IP," Carson says.

Ensuring the Money

With the demise of so many dot-com companies in the last few months, why should something like GreetNwin survive?

For one thing, it's a viral business model that uses e-mail among friends as its major marketing tool. Customer acquisition costs are much lower than they are for other sites, which can wind up spending $100 or more to capture each new customer.

"We are in a time where communication is getting enhanced by technology rather than being blocked by it," Carson says. "We are trying to do what we can to help people take advantage of the communication age. The vision of what we are doing really sits right on top of that quite nicely."

Lisa Strand, chief analyst for NetRatings, says the greetings and contest combination is unique, marrying two concepts that have worked pretty well to draw online traffic. The challenge will be in converting visitors to purchases.

She also wonders if there might be any stigma attached to sending e-mail greetings with a possible sweepstakes payout.

"The interesting thing we'll want to look at is, if people are very comfortable with having that greeting be a sweepstakes opportunity," Strand says. "With IWon, none of your friends know you are entering a sweepstakes and none of your friends know there are additional incentives to your online behavior. Will there be some psychological backlash just because a sweepstakes is involved?"

User loyalty, which can be an awfully elusive prize, is another unknown.

Take a look at Grab.com, another giveaway site that grabbed some headlines last year by offering a $1 billion lottery prize. When the contest ended without a winner last December, traffic to the site fell off dramatically.

Carson is confident of the success to come. He promises that GreetNwin, as a lottery rather than a sweepstakes, will always award the cash prizes.