How To Win a Brand New Car and a Trip to New York in a Matter of Seconds. (thesun.co.uk)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	thesun.co.uk
Date:	30/10/04 (179 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Colourful, Lots going on, Competitions

Disadvantages: The Sun's standards of journalism

My mate has just won a long weekend, all expenses paid trip to New York. A few months ago he won a brand new car worth approximately £9K. How is this possible I hear you cry. Well, it all came from doing the wee competitions that come with the online version of the Sun newspaper @http://www.thesun.co.uk/ . Now whatever you think of the paper itself, that has to be worth following up (doesn’t it?). For those who spend most of their time on Mars, The Sun is a hugely popular UK tabloid that sells upwards of 4 million copies every day.

Homepage: This took a few seconds to load although my connection isn’t great being on dial-up at the mo. There’s plenty going on with a predominance of red being the corporate livery of the nation’s favourite newspaper. The left hand side contains links to other areas of the site including:

News
Sport
Bizarre (entertainment section)
Life (lifestyle stories)
Gizmo (stuff about techie things like mobile phones)
Page 3 (hooray)
Competitions

The main body of the portal carries images with clickable links to Sun News/Sun Sport/Bizarre/Life/Sun Fun/Webchats

You’ll find similar links along the top of the page with further connections to regular features on the right hand side such as Jeremy Clarkson’s latest article and The Sun’s editorial “The Sun Says”. With drop down options to search for a bookmark within the online paper or the Internet powered by Google, the main page is suitable wired up as you would expect from a money-making machine like the Sun. You can contact the administrators via an obvious link too, should you have any questions. Basically, there are several ways to get where you are going making the main page close too idiot proof (even for me)

The idea behind the site is for it to accompany the paper version available in the shops rather than replace it. This means that many of the stories in the Web version are abridged with links contained in the newspaper stories to encourage readers to use the site. Today’s preponderance of Pulitzer prize stuff includes “Wife dumps England Star” and roll up, roll up to see golfer, Colin Montgomery’s latest birdie *groan*

Advertising and pop ups: I haven’t encountered many pop ups whilst using this site but there are plenty of banner adverts to get you clicking. Rolling marquees are used to make the stories more enticing and catch the eye. With this being a commercial venture, there is no shortage of advertising so don’t be too surprised if you do encounter pop ups and pop unders at some stage.

Popular pages: Hmmm…well…..I think Page3 will attract a few hits a day. The link will take you to Page3.com with all that entails and that’s another review, I’m sure (he he).

I have to say, I do enjoy The Sun’s coverage of footie with plenty of match reports available as well as the latest scores, scorers, league tables and links to the Fantasy Football competition that’s running this year. Other sports are covered to including the usual suspects e.g. cricket, rugby, boxing and so on.

If you want to genuinely read the news then, to be honest, you probably wouldn’t be reading The Sun. Major events of the day are suitable skimmed with the editor adding the customary degree of levity to many aspects like the delivery of Pizza to Old Trafford and Highbury this week. Of course, this was a great opportunity to promote Dominos products giving readers the chance to collect vouchers for free pizza.

Registration: There is no need to register to use the newspaper companion but you will need to record a user name and password to do the competitions. Minimal details are required and registration is quick and painless. It’s the usual format with an activation e-mail sent once you've logged the briefest of details. You will be asked if you want to be put on a mailing list for the paper and suitable third parties but if you value your inbox then you probably won't tick the box.

How to make money from the site: By calling 020 7782 4100 or e-mailing talkback@thesun.co.uk or even a fax to 020 7782 4108 you can notify the newspaper of a story you think might be worth printing. Needless to say, should you have a major scoop about who David Beckham is seeing these days (fetch my lawyer!) or anything even more exciting, you would need to negotiate your own deal as many others have in the past. I can’t say that I’ve done this myself but if anyone has any dirt then feel free to leave a message for me and I’ll split the difference with you ;o)

How to spend money on the site: There is an online shop that opens in a separate window. There’s all kinds of paraphernalia available including everything from hair removal products to footie kits. I haven’t used the shop so I can’t vouch for it’s credentials.

The competitions are now a must for me. I’ve done them before and never won but my friend’s latest prize has made me think again. We reckon it’s worth at least £1500. Today is probably typical with 4 competitions running. All of the answers are contained with the spiel that comes before the question so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out the answer. Usually one question is asked and you can even copy and paste the answer from the text to make life easy. I’ve entered competitions today with a holiday in Japan at stake, a £1000 spending spree, a shopping weekend in Maastrict and a complete set of Friends DVDs up for grabs. You are better off going straight to the competition main page via either the link along the top or the left-hand side of the main portal. Right clicking on each competition link will open each in a new window to allow you to enter all of them in a reasonably timely manner and give you more time for surfing.

My friend was notified of his wins by telephone and follow up e-mail so it's critical that these are disclosed when you register. Also, the competitions have different shelf lives so do take care to note the deadline if it's a prize you are particularly interested in.

Summary: Good things about the site include very easy to navigate; very colourful (if you like red especially); lots of images to support the stories and pretty interactive. Also, very definitely an opportunity to win some prizes. The down side is the stories are pretty brief, the site doesn’t replace the need to buy the paper (if you do) and you simply may not like The Sun’s very basic approach to journalism.

I've only really began to describe all of the pages on what is a large site compared to most. As ever with the Hinternet, do go exploring as that's where all the fun lies.

Anyway, go check it out and do try the competitions. I certainly intend too.

Have a great weekend.

Marandina.

Note: My mate’s prize was for 2 people but he’s already given it away to his daughter and her fiancée. So much for friendship………

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