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kimmedeiros
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« on: September 17, 2006, 05:07:16 PM »

Hi, I've been sweeping with SA for a long time, but I just joined as a member this year. (I think I signed up before at my old address and different e-mail), but I've never posted or looked at the forums until this year.

I'm curious to know about who started this site (Ken and Diane?), when they started, etc. What motivated them, how many members there are, and how do they keep the site going for free.

I also want to know if I can " donate" prizes that I don't need instead of selling them on eBay, to SA to hold their own sweeps etc. I feel like I owe them so much for my good fortune these past few months!

Any info is appreciated, I'm trying to get my friends and family involved in sweeping also. It's such a great and fun way to win things you never thought you could afford to have or do!
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admin
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« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2006, 12:13:37 AM »

Diane started the site back in 1997. It started out as a hobby but grew as we noticed how many other people were interested in our site.  We are motivated every day when our members win ( someone posted a 10K win today )  Smile .

There are 80,458 member accounts on SA. While not all of these accounts are being used everyday there are some 70K+ individuals visiting SA every month.

Keeping the site free is an everyday challenge. We rely on sponsorship
and ad revenue. Members can help keep us free by entering our Member Sweepstakes, Visiting the Sweepstakes in the banners or Shopping in our Amazon.com store or shopping from our coupons/savings section.

This really helps as we are a small home business and not a major corporation.  Smile

If you would like to donate prizes maybe you can hold you own member sweepstakes here in this forum.
http://www.sweepsadvantage.com/post/viewforum.php?f=21

Referring friends and family to the site is really great and much appreciated. You can even refer for a chance to win here:
http://www.sweepsadvantage.com/refer_monthly.php

Thank You for being a great member!

Ken & Diane
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gosweepwin
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« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2006, 12:14:11 AM »

Glad to have you on board, Kim!  There's a buried thread somewhere (I'll go look for it later - see below, Amy found it!) where people introduced themselves.  In it, Ken posted some information about his background - both family and SA stuff.  The short answer for how the site stays free - paid sponsors.  We can all help by participating in the Member Only sweepstakes.  They link directly to sponsors.  The more people visit these sites, the better for SA!  There is also a referral contest running.  Invite friends, and the person who attracts the most new members wins a cash prize!  Two quick suggestions for prizes that you want to release back into the wild:  The Members Contest thread in the Forum, or the Trade thread.  Thanks!
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ll1
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« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2006, 12:19:52 AM »

thank you for your post! hopefully your family will see the benefits of being a member here and join in the fun of sweeping, the people here are great and all are willing to help each other as we all have different talents. good luck with your sweeping  :D
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« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2006, 02:20:46 AM »

Hi Kim! Goodluck to you. I have been here a few months but, I am "in and out" on the forums.
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Amy Shulkusky
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« Reply #5 on: September 18, 2006, 08:01:51 AM »

This thread GSW?

Tell Us Something About Yourself!
http://www.sweepsadvantage.com/post/viewtopic.php?t=7417

Quote from: "admin"
OK, Here It Is..

I am 35 Years Old & was Born in Mass. My Father was a Construction worker ( Drove BullDozers ) for over 25 Years. My mother was a Home Maker. I am 1 of (6) Boys in my Family.

I was an OK student and managed to complete High School and then went to night school for Business Management.

I met my soul mate and wife Diane in a Factory that we both worked at.
I was very attracted to her & she is the most caring and honest person I have ever met.  

Before you knew it we were getting married and had a baby on the way.
At this time I became a step father to Diane's son son Jeffrey who is today 23.

Our Daughter Kristine was Born and is today 11 Years Old.

When you have your first kid you tend to get real scared and need to make a decent living for yourself fast.  I hopped around from job to job trying to make ends meet. I was a Janitor, Lab Tech, Delivered Papers, etc...

A friend of mine told me about a place that was testing people for a tech support jobs with Microsoft. You had to pass the test in order to even interview with them. At this time I did not even own a computer so I borrowed a book on DOS and Windows 3.1 and as luck would have it was hired and was taught by Microsoft Engineers ( from Redmond ).

Chances are that if you called Microsoft in the early 90's for tech support you might have talked to me. I was on the phone doing tech support when MS launched Windows 95. ( What a fun day that was ) .

I really found my skill in life and thank God for the gift he has given me. Technology has really changed my life.

At about the same time my wife Diane was Baby Sitting kids for money and also discovered this thing called "online sweepstakes " . She started entering sweepstakes and she started winning all kinds of stuff.  We both could not believe it. At the time there were no sweepstakes sites out there and web pages were very basic. As a challenge I decided to build
a personal home page and list sweepstakes. We could not believe how many people this attracted.  We had nearly 10,000 people per day visiting this little home page and at one point our ISP wanted to shut us down.  Smile

As time went by the web page turned into a website and the technology got better & better.  In 2001 we were featured in PC Magazine as one of the web's Hidden Treasures.  Diane kept the site going during the day while I was at work and I helped out with the site at night.

About every 3-4 years I moved on to other technology jobs to better myself.

We eventually moved to New Hampshire and bought our first house.  I was working in Mass and commuting back and forth (1 1/2 hour each way).  Ever heard of Myway.com, Alta Vista or Lycos?  I was an Operations Manager at Myway.com and was tasked with keeping (100) webservers and (16) database servers running. This was a very big site.

I eventually took another job with a financial web company in Waltham
as Director for another 3 years.

It had been over 13 years of moving from company to company and I and my wife were both burnt out. The new Hampshire winters are about 6 months long and we were getting tired of living like Eskimos. We decided to sell our house and move to Florida which was one of our life long goals.

I left the corporate world behind and decided to make SA a full fledged
commitment. We now live in Kissimmee Florida and run SA from our little office that is in our home.  We took almost our entire savings and invested it into the site in the hopes that we can make something really great.

We were recently written about again in Woman's World Magazine.

To us this is the best job in the world because we get to give people a free chance to win something that they maybe could not afford otherwise.

Its also awesome because we both get to spend more time with our Daughter Kristine.  

-Ken

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Wolfie
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« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2006, 04:53:48 PM »

Is there a place where your amazon link is located?  I sure would like you to benefit from my shopping obsession!   :oops:  :lol:
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kimmedeiros
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« Reply #7 on: September 19, 2006, 04:05:03 PM »

Thanks all of you for that great info! Especially Ken and Diane's great story and background! I'm sure I'll see you featured in many more shows and or magazines in the near future.

This is my favorite site, and I have been sweeping with you since about 1998, but with dialup and WebTV. Just last year we hooked up with DSL and I've been back into it full swing! Just by luck I started actually reading the forums and not just entering contests. Now, I love reading the Winner's Circle, more than entering the Sweeps! I get so excited when someone wins big, I'll probably have a heart attack if it actually happened to me!!  :oops:

Good luck to all and I'll keep recommending this site to everyone I know!
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wfbears
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« Reply #8 on: September 27, 2006, 02:04:54 PM »

Quote from: "Wolfie"
Is there a place where your amazon link is located?  I sure would like you to benefit from my shopping obsession!   :oops:  :lol:


You're going to buy me something right???? :lol:
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Wolfie
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« Reply #9 on: September 27, 2006, 04:49:56 PM »

:shock: Where have you been?   :lol:

Of course I am going to buy you something.  I am going to buy you the book sewing for dummies!   :P  :lol:
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ll1
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« Reply #10 on: September 28, 2006, 01:00:21 AM »

:shock:  must be bear season again :roll:  :P
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Wolfie
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« Reply #11 on: September 28, 2006, 02:23:06 AM »

:mrgreen:  :lol:
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champagne
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« Reply #12 on: August 31, 2007, 07:28:32 AM »

what a great story on Ken & Diane
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