How Do the Free iPod Offers Work?

I did a bit of research on one of the main companies that claims to give away free iPods, and here’s what I found out. Basically, you can get an iPod (or whatever it is they are giving away) for free, but it takes some work on your part. Here’s how it works:

After signing up, participants are given a choice of about 30 different offers from big companies, like a 45-day trial of AOL or a two-week trial of Ancestry.com’s genealogy service. Usually, the offers are for a free one month trial. The free iPod sites are paid big bucks, anywhere from $50 to $90, for each offer they can get people to sign up for. It is enough money that the free iPod guys can actually pay people to to sign up for these offers. The big companies are ok with this, because in the end, a certain percentage of the people are going to end up keeping their services, so it’s worth it for them.

Usually to get a free prize, you have to sign up for anywhere from 6 to 10 or so of these offers (Blockbuster online, Direct TV, Netflix, etc). As I said before, these usually require no money upfront, but you want the iPod for free, you’ll have to cancel these offers within the trial period.

That’s it.

About the iPod
The iPod is a portable music and video media player created and marketed by Apple Computer and launched in 2001. iPod media mp3 players are primarily made to be music players, designed around a central scroll wheel. The full-sized iPods store music (MP3, AAC/M4A, Protected AAC, AIFF, WAV, Audible audiobook, and Apple Lossless audio file formats) and video (H.264/MPEG-4 AVC), .mp4 and QuickTime video formats) media on an internal hard drive, while the smaller iPod nano and iPod shuffle use flash memory to store data. Like many other digital audio players, iPods can also serve as external data storage devices or drives. Apple chose to focus its development on the iPod’s simple user interface, ease of use, and on technical capability.

As of October 2005, the lineup consists of the 5th generation iPod that plays videos; the smaller iPod nano; and the display-less iPod shuffle. These models were updated in September 2006.

The official software used for transferring music to the iPod is called iTunes, and works on a Mac or on a Windows PC. As a jukebox application, iTunes has the ability to store a comprehensive library of music on a user’s computer and can then play, burn, and extract music from a CD. The most recent version of the iPod has additional photo and video synchronization features.

The iPod is currently the world’s best-selling digital audio mp3 player and its worldwide mainstream adoption makes it one of the most wanted and sought after consumer brands today.