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"The gradual decline of print media impacts more than just newspapers, magazines, and the people that work for them.  Companies like Publishers Clearing House, a direct marketing firm known for its multi-million dollar sweepstakes funded largely by selling magazine subscriptions, need new ways to make money.  What to do?  Why, launch a presence on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter of course.\nWhile those that feel brands have no place on Twitter and the like might facepalm over this news, the bottom line is that direct marketing on the Web (think \u201Cfree iPod\u201D ads) is just as huge as it is offline, and opt-in programs on top social networking sites will drive sign ups.  To make inroads, Publishers Clearing House is doing what they do best: launch contests that reward users for signing up, or in this case, friending the company on social networking sites.  \nOn those social networking sites, PCH is offering up links to various online games: things like quizzes, trivia, and lotto.  Along the way, there are various prompts to get you to sign-up for promotions and newsletters, which is where PCH makes the money that allows them to offer up prizes.  There are also straight-up landing pages for each service that PCH is participating in where users can enter to win gift cards.\nPersonally, I have no problem with what PCH is doing.  Friending or following the company is at the sole discretion of users.  And while the games themselves occasionally require you to \u201Cun-check\u201D various opt-in boxes or highlight the \u201Csign up\u201D link while minimizing the \u201Cskip\u201D link, so long as they aren\u2019t misleading you to believe you\u2019re improving your chances of winning by signing up for stuff (a scandal that once plagued PCH\u2019s magazine business), it\u2019s up to the user as to how much marketing they are subjected to.   On the other hand, maybe this mindset is why I have nearly 17,000 unread emails."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/12/23/direct-marketing-social-networks/>