Decius wrote:
Apparently you can win some very, very big prizes playing this game. I have no idea how the economics of this work. Something doesn't feel quite right about a contest that is offering me a 50 million dollar prize and I don't have to pay to play it. You don't make that much money off of internet advertising. If someone can explain this please reply. (And be careful, nothing in the TOS prohibits these guys from selling the data they are collecting.)

Does advertiser supported TV and free search and email from Google give you creepy feelings? Probably not, but they raise tens of billions in advertising dollars. To raise $150 million for a $100 million flight around the Moon will take lots of ads. Our estimate is one million people playing daily for three hours a day for a year.

The Texas lottery runs by 1/3 of Texas adults paying $400-$500/year to play and raises $3.4 billion. Those same adults if they watch internet ads for three hours a day would conservatively generate $600-700 in ad revenue. That's 1100 hours at $0.60/hr. So a clever marketer can give away more dollars than the Texas lottery if he or she can crack the code for how to do it.

Still skeptical? If you don't want to give us your email address you don't have to and you can still play. At X Prize Cup, we met some kids on the other side of the digital divide and wanted to let them compete for a trip to space even if they have to go to the library to use a computer. No email verification required, unlike MemeStreams. And it's free. Nothing to lose but disbelief.

Bumping this reply out to the blog... Apparently the Free Space Shot people noticed my link and responded:

Dinkin wrote:
Does advertiser supported TV and free search and email from Google give you creepy feelings?

No, but the Internet is full of scams, and so one learns to be skeptical after a while, particularly when things seem too good to be true. If my skepticism is unwarranted than I apologize, but I do think your FAQ should address your business model a bit more.

To raise $150 million for a $100 million flight around the Moon will take lots of ads. Our estimate is one million people playing daily for three hours a day for a year.

Gmail is not a $100 million dollar operation, but Google's search engine is bigger than that, and certainly there are television stations that spend way more than that. The question this project faces is whether the prospect of winning a space flight opportunity is exciting enough to sustain that much attention from that many people on a single game involving weather prediction. Three hours a day every day for a year is a lot to ask in exchange for a one in a million chance at winning a space flight. If I spent that same amount of time studying Aerospace Engineering I'll bet I could beat those odds. Of course, I'm not 13.

If I might offer some advice, you should consider adding additional games. You really need an engrossing experience to capture the attention levels you are aiming for, or you need several orders of magnitude more people involved.

If you don't want to give us your email address you don't have to and you can still play.

Thats true. The email addres is optional and I didn't mention that. Its possible to sign up for this without any concern about spam.

Dinkin wrote:
Does advertiser supported TV and free search and email from Google give you creepy feelings?

Decius: No, but the Internet is full of scams, and so one learns to be skeptical after a while, particularly when things seem too good to be true. If my skepticism is unwarranted than I apologize, but I do think your FAQ should address your business model a bit more.

Dinkin: No apology necessary. For more on the business model, see http://www.thespacereview.com/article/783/1 and keep the questions coming. If people watch 15 ads per prediction, that's 1.5 cents per prediction at a $1 per thousand ad rate. 400,000 predictions and you have enough for a parabolic airplane flight. Millions for a space flight. Billions for an around the Moon flight. Then it's just a question of how many how frequently. Plus once we hit 10,000 users we can raise our ad rates by hiring a full time ad seller potentially 4-8 times as much.

Dinkin: To raise $150 million for a $100 million flight around the Moon will take lots of ads. Our estimate is one million people playing daily for three hours a day for a year.

Decius: ... Three hours a day every day for a year is a lot to ask in exchange for a one in a million chance at winning a space flight. If I spent that same amount of time studying Aerospace Engineering I'll bet I could beat those odds. Of course, I'm not 13.

Dinkin: There have been less than 1,000 people who have ever flown into space and there will be fewer NASA astronauts when shuttle is canceled, not more. Less than 20 per year. But you can go full steam for becoming a NASA astronaut and still play Free Space Shot!

Decius: If I might offer some advice, you should consider adding additional games. You really need an engrossing experience to capture the attention levels you are aiming for, or you need several orders of magnitude more people involved.

Dinkin: Yes, we will add games, languages and prizes. Spanish is scheduled for 1Q07, a new game and some new prizes in second half. But the new game will also be simple and cheap. It's expensive to license or build a hit game and not every game is a hit. So we will likely need VC funding before you see a game like you might find in a game store for $50 from us.