Contests

Anniversary contest winners

June 4, 2010 by Julie

Well, our anniversary contest is all wrapped up now. I spent some time this morning toiling over the entries to pick the winners - there were quite a few repeat songs, and I wanted to make sure to pick the first commenter in each case!

So who won, you ask? Hit the jump to find out….

And the winners are:

1. Scott S.
2. Roy
3. Adam - who pointed out that our company name has 13 letters in it; not a song entry, but we all thought that was pretty cool as we hadn’t noticed it, so I decided it was worth a prize!
4. NetCaptive
5. Ravi Penumaka
6. Mark S.
7. d..ecay
8. Kaur
9. Allen S.
10. David
11. Singh
12. czarbucks - from Twitter
13. Mouseboots - from Twitter

I’ll be emailing everyone (or sending a DM to the Twitter winners to get their email addresses) with the info for their Amazon gift card this morning. If you don’t get your card, reply to this post and let me know.

And that concludes our 13th anniversary celebration week. We had lots of fun and I hope you did too. Thanks to everyone who joined in our contest! And once again - many, many thanks to everyone who helped us get where we are today. We wouldn’t have made it 13 years without you!

See you next year, as we unveil whatever is we’ll come up with for the number 14 - good thing we have a whole year to think about it!

Our 13th Anniversary!

June 2, 2010 by Julie

Today is our 13th anniversary! Isn’t that something? We’ve been working in the mobile (and desktop) app game since 1997. And in an industry that changes so often - especially in recent years - we’re very happy to still be here, doing what we love and making software that we’re proud of.

Of course, we know we would never have made it this far without you: our loyal customers, reviewers, friends, colleagues, supporters, partners, beta testers - everyone who has helped us out over the last 13 years, and kept us moving forward. We couldn’t have done this without you, and while we’ll never be able to thank you enough, I’ll put this in all caps so you can tell I’m really serious: THANK YOU!!

You know, some people say that 13 is an unlucky number - but that’s not always the case, especially not today! Hit the jump for some fun factoids about our new favorite number. And did someone say contest? Because we want to celebrate with you and give away some cool prizes.

13 doesn’t always have to mean bad luck - I know someone whose favorite number is 13. After a little bit of digging, I found out some interesting things (okay, granted this is from Wikipedia, but I’m going to assume it’s all roughly true):

• Some buildings don’t have a 13th floor thanks to superstition (this one I knew - I stayed in a hotel once where the elevator buttons went from 12 to 14!)
• No driver in Formula One racing has had a 13 on their car since 1976 - I wonder if the 13 car had a bad accident that year?
• There are 13 cards in a suit
• Friday the 13th is my favorite horror movie series. Well, right behind Nightmare on Elm Street. Okay, and Evil Dead. So never mind, it’s my third favorite (alright, that’s not on Wikipedia - just wanted to make sure you’re paying attention)
• Here’s the one I found most interesting: The Apollo 13 mission was launched on April 11, 1970 at 13:13 CST and the explosion happened on April 13th. Lots of 13’s in that instance
• And this one isn’t from the Wikipedia page either, but Ellen read it while looking up info about the number 13, and it’s another weird little fact so I wanted to share: Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names

So you see? 13 is a complex and interesting number, and not necessarily always bad luck. And now that the lesson is over, let’s move forward to our:

REALLY AWESOME ANNIVERSARY CONTEST

Do you think it’ll have something to do with the number 13? If you’ve picked up on that theme, then you’re absolutely right. It’s pretty simple to enter, all I need is an answer to this question:

Can you name a song with the word ‘13’ in the lyrics?

That’s it! But it might be harder than it sounds. I’ve been trying to think for days, and have only come up with one song so far. I won’t spoil it and say the song, just in case you’re thinking it too.

So, how do you enter? Well, you can leave a comment below, of course. Or you can send us a tweet with a reply. Enter as many times as you’d like. In the event of multiple people with the same guess(es), the first person to get their reply in will be put in the random drawing.

I’ll keep this contest open until Friday morning, then I’ll dust off my ol’ contest hat and choose 13 winners . Winners of what, you ask? How about a nice hearty handshake and a great big smile from all of us to you. No good? You want stuff? Okay - each winner will get a $20 Amazon.com gift card so you can buy whatever stuff you like.

So that’s it - dig through your CDs (or shuffle through your iPods, whatever it is people do these days) and start thinking about songs with the word ‘13’ in them. Good luck to everyone, and I’ll see you back here on Friday!

We now return to your regularly scheduled contest

July 2, 2009 by Julie

Some of you may have noticed that we didn’t run our monthly blog contest on June 1st. Of course, we had our big anniversary party that week, with three blog contests instead of just one, so I’m sure no one minded much.

But, I’ve dusted off the ol’ contest hat and I’m ready to pick a new winner for our blog comment contest from the month of June. This month’s winning comment actually comes from one of the anniversary posts: Chantelle, who commented on “Contest Three: Finish this sentence”. Congrats! You may not have won the original contest, but your comment still earned you a prize! I’ve just sent you an email - if you don’t receive it, reply to this post and let me know.

And to everyone else - be sure to keep coming back and sharing your thoughts and opinions. Who knows, the next winner could be you!

Winners: the ideal device

June 9, 2009 by Julie

It looks like you guys had a lot of fun with our contest over the weekend - there were so many creative ideas for mobile devices, I can tell that this is something you’ve all thought about on your own for some time! Now, if only we could find someone to build these devices for you….

Well, in the meantime, while you wait for your dream devices to become reality, how about I announce the winners? Yeah, I thought you’d like that idea. The first place winner of a $50 Amazon or iTunes gift card is: spmwinkel, who cleverly posted a wish for every letter of the alphabet. Great thinking!

Our runners-up, who each receive a $25 Amazon or iTunes gift card, are: Doug, Philip Ferris, and HKK. Winners, I’ll be contacting you via email to find out which store you’d like your gift card from. If you don’t get that email later today, reply to this post to let me know.

And to the winners of the other contests last week - I’ll be sending out the gift cards this morning, so let me know if you don’t get your email!

This officially concludes our special anniversary celebration - we will now return to our regular blog broadcasting. Thanks to everyone for playing along - I hope you enjoyed our 12th anniversary as much as we did. See you next year for lucky 13!

Contest Three: Finish this sentence....

June 5, 2009 by Julie

This is it: the final contest in our week-long anniversary party. What will it be? Well, with the weekend coming up, we didn’t want to make you work too hard, because I hear it’s supposed to be sunny and I know you’ve got lots of gardening and stuff to do. So all you have to do is finish this sentence:

My ideal mobile device would….

That’s it - easy as pie! You can be honest, you can be imaginitive, or you can be both. For example, I sometimes honestly wish my computer would sprout arms and legs and start cleaning the house like Rosie on The Jetsons. (I get to cheat and say ‘computer’ because I don’t have any mobile devices of my own.)

So here’s your chance to tell us about the cool gadget ideas you’ve had. Maybe you’ve wished your phone could send music via Bluetooth to your hearing aid. Or you’ve always dreamt of being able to say “beam me up, HTC Advantage” and get teleported to work, avoiding the stress of rush hour.

You’ve got all weekend to get your thoughts together, so brainstorm as many as you like and send us a bunch of comments. I promise we won’t take any of your ideas and apply for patents. Well, unless they’re really, really good :)

This is the last contest in our week-long 12-year anniversary celebration. We will pick four winners during each contest: the winners can choose between an iTunes or Amazon gift card as their prize. First place winners receive a $50 gift card, and runners-up will get $25. Enter as many times as you like, by submitting your entries as replies to this post. Employees and friends of Ilium Software aren’t eligible to win, but are welcome (and encouraged) to participate anyway. Today’s contest closes at 12 noon Eastern Time Monday. Winners will be announced during the day Monday or Tuesday, after we sift through all the great mobile device ideas.

Winners: Kickin' it old school

June 4, 2009 by Julie

Yesterday’s contest took us all for a walk down memory lane - and does anyone else find it strange that two of the comments were from people living in Zimbabwe when they were 12? One of those weird little coincidences, for sure.

Anyway, on to what you really want to know: the winners! There were a lot of great stories that reminded some of us here of our own childhoods. But, unfortunately, not everyone can win, so we finally settled on our four favorites.

The first place winner of a $50 Amazon or iTunes gift card is Robbie - your brilliant plan to use “Pong” to (try to) win yourself a girl won us over during voting!

Our three runners-up, who each receive a $25 Amazon or iTunes gift card, are: Singh (your calculator watch was probably pretty cool back then - I remember those), Melvyn (I actually do believe about your teacher’s name; it’s one of those things that’s so awful, it has to be true), and Patrick(wow - I didn’t have to run the mile until high school, but it was still dreadful then).

Winners, I’ll be contacting you via email to find out which store you’d like your gift card from. If you don’t get that email later today, reply to this post to let me know.

So, let’s give a big round of congratulations to all the winners, and a big thank you to everyone for playing and sharing your stories from yesteryear. There is one more contest coming tomorrow, so don’t stray too far from our blog because you won’t want to miss another chance to win a big prize!

And just a reminder: we’ve got a big anniversary sale running on our site this week too. All the software in our online store, and eWallet on the iPhone App Store, are discounted BIG right now. Check it out here!