A Follow Up To the Blackcats Games Referral Giveaway

As most of you know, we conducted our first Blackcats games referral giveaway about 10 days ago. Just like we promised, we have now sent out 500 free referrals to the first 500 qualifying requests that were sent to us. Since the number of requests we received easily surpassed 1500, many were left stranded without an invite. Here’s the good news – we’ll be giving away 500 more BCG referrals and the second giveaway would start sometime tomorrow (and you will be notified via a separate article when it does). But before we move on to the next giveaway, we’d like to address some common issues that were reported with the first. We would also like to hear your suggestions on how to improve the whole process – there will be many more invite giveaways on FILEnetworks in the future (other than BCG) and we’d like to make them as convenient as possible for our readers.

One of the most common issues that was reported to us (with BCG) was the expiration of referral codes. BCG referral codes expire after 6 hours since generation - this unfortunately is a matter beyond our control. The code expiry mechanism is a core function of BCG’s referral system (which I'm sure was never designed with public giveaways through a blog in mind) and it would be unfair to ask them to change the system as it would then affect all of the site’s 30000 users and not just the set of referrals given to us. However, we did take some steps to improve your chance with code expiry:

Referrals were given in batches of 125. Real time Notices were given via our Facebook and Twitter feeds about one hour before we started sending out the E-mails. Notifications were again sent after each batch of referrals was done sending. Those who subscribed to our FB and Twitter feeds got an ~8 hour window instead of the usual 6 hour period. We will be improving this process and for the second giveaway and our FB and Twitter followers will have the option to get notified via an SMS sent directly to your mobile (read this post for more information).

• Follow us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/filenetworks
• Folow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/filenetworks

We know that this still does not solve all of the issues (such as those associated with time zone differences which again are beyond our control) but if you have any suggestions on how this process can be further improved, please feel free to comment. We cannot guarantee all of your suggestions will be implemented as we have limitations of our own but we’ll definitely do our best.

Note that none of the requests you sent for the first giveaway will be valid for the second. If you want to re-apply for a referral you’ll have to send a fresh request based on the guidelines given in the second giveaway article (which is yet to go live). Further instructions on how and what to send in the request will also be given in the post tomorrow. Until then, use this thread to post your suggestions. Please do not litter this with invitation requests as this clearly is not the time or place to do that.

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