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. RE: Free Space Shot?! | 
