Amazingly Loquax is 12 years old today, but we almost forgot! The start to 2010 has been a mix of being busy or being looked after by Mr Lemsip so any celebrations (or even remembering the date to be honest) has been completely slipped our minds. So it’s a big thanks to @mesafish for reminding us via Twitter about the date… and therefore giving us an excuse to post the picture of Jason’s birthday cake in way of celebration.

If you’ve been on the forums then you’d have seen the cake already. It was created by Lisa Leonard-Govier (Swansea) for Jason’s birthday and not Loquax’s but it seems appropriate to include it here (and saves us rooting round for a different picture).

Anyway back to Loquax’s 12 year birthday!

For this site to exist for 12 years and to remain strong and independent in an ever more competitive field, is a remarkable achievement. As ever The Loquax Team, still headed up by Jason and Kirsty, can’t do what we do without the people who visit daily, use the forums, send us updates, work with us, promote us, say nice things about us etc.

Whilst Facebook, Twitter, Moneysavers and everyone else mean bigger challenges for Loquax, it still amazes us that the site continues to grow and people still visit, many of whom who have been with us since we started.

And so it’s onwards and upwards. We can’t promise another 12 years as we have no idea what the future holds. What we do know is that we’ve kicked off 2010 with some great new features and options for you, and we have some more to come.

Hopefully we will run out of ideas one day (just so we can have a rest) but we can reveal that there’s a potential “big” change coming to the site in the near future. Watch this space for details … let’s call it a belated birthday present if it happens!

Anyway Happy Birthday Loquax – blimey… 12 years old!!!!

Love is in the air and it’s just one week before Valentine’s Day. They’ll be roses, champagne, chocolates, perhaps romantic breaks to Paris and perhaps something a tad more saucy. And that got us thinking (not the saucy bit, the general Valentine’s gift stuff) – is it possible to win these romantic gestures just by entering competitions? Or will you be stuck looking for gift ideas like the I Love You Forever Duck below?

Red Roses and Valentine’s Day go hand in hand and there are a few competitions to win bouquets. The Red Rose Society even have a lifetime of roses on offer! However do watch out for Passion’s competition. The Leather Red Roses Flogger comes under the old saucy category and might not look to good in a vase (it’ll be a surprise mind).

At time of writing there were over 90 Valentine Competitions. To be fair this is because there are a number of prizes on offer for new movie Valentine’s Day. You will find a number of chances to win chocolate prizes as well as champagne, although only a few are ending within the next week or so.

If you fancy something different then there’s always an edible bouquet. Prezzybox have teamed up with Edible Arrangements for their Valentine’s competition. Tell them about how you met your partner to enter. The prize is a flower arrangement made of fruit… so you can eat it! Unfortunately this closes on the 14th, so no fruitiness of this kind for Valentines!

We’ve found over 30 competitions with romantic prizes. These include dinner for 2, spa breaks and a year’s supply of Buster plughole unblocker from All in London! If you fancy Paris then be quick, as the best competition to win a Risque Weekend for 2 in Paris from Play.com ends on the 8th February.

A trip on The Orient Express might also be romantic, and there are two competitions running at the moment. Be quick to enter Buyagift’s prize draw as it closes on the 9th February. The good news there is that if you win you’ve got something lined up for the 14th.

Surprisingly there aren’t that many lingerie competitions. The best we think is from Osoyou, who together with Myla are offering a prize worth £375. This one ends on the 10th.

One company that will be doing big business over the next week are Interflora. You don’t have long to enter their Valentine’s competition (there’s a hamper on offer) but you have until the 13th for the chance to win a scooter. If all else fails you could save face and buy some flowers using our Interflora voucher code.

So can you win Valentine’s Day?

The answer is pretty much “yes you can”, however there’s a downside. Most of the competitions we’ve found close on or around Valentine’s Day. This means if you’re hoping to surprise your loved one with an extra special present you might have to pad things out a bit by nipping out for garage flowers or making breakfast in bed. That way if the WEMs don’t arrive you’re not going to be in the dog house.

A few years back we used to send out rubber ducks to Loquax users and try and get them to take their new friends on holiday and then send us in some photos. It worked reasonably well for a while with various ducks making their way to the likes of Brazil, Australia, New York and even into the hands of Bryan Adams (Duck Holiday on Flickr). Sadly logistics and time meant the end to this duck traveling fun.

However, there’s now a good cause and website you can support if you fancy doing a bit of rubber duck related photography along with helping raise much needed awareness.

FibroDuck aims to raise awareness for Fibromyalgia by sending out 1 million ducks. It’s hoped that people will purchase a duck (it costs £1.30 but that’s just for P&P) and take it with them on their travels. You can then upload your photos to the website. As well as the website you can follow them on Twitter as @FibroDuck and they also have a Facebook Group too.

As part of the campaign FibroDuck are also asking people to record a YouTube video of Ugly Duckling. They hope to take several versions and splice them together for a special version of the tune. Make sure you have a duck in your video though.

At the moment siteowner Jamie Goodwin, a freelance writer and former stand up comedienne, has sent out over 300 ducks. So there’s still a long way to go to reach that million. Now we know many of you who use Loquax are duck lovers, so why not help out this cause and pick up a lucky duck for your collection for just £1.30?

FibroDuck’s One Million Duck Campaign for Fibromyalgia

This week we’ve launched some new links for users on the competition listings. Where possible (and updated) we’re now including links to promoters twitter and facebook pages, making it easier for users to become fans or follow the sites that run competitions online. All you have to do is look for the little icons (shown below) and click on them to head to the relevant social networking site.

With so many competitions now appearing on Twitter and Facebook these links give users extra resources to locate prize draws. Whilst we try and do as much as we can via our own Loquax Twitter it’s impossible for us to find all giveaways that appear in that system, as much as we’d like too.

It’s important to note that not everyone runs Twitter or Facebook competitions, but many retailers run promotions or offers via their social networking pages. For those of you who enjoy these sites the links give you an opportunity to find and engage with those companies and sites you liked during your comping visits.

Loquax isn’t just about the “compers”, we see our role online as supporting promoters and site owners too.

We think that by adding Twitter and Facebook links we’re now offering them extra promotion and opportunities to pick up extra followers and fans. Not everyone likes signing up for newsletters and so by making it easier for our users to find you socially it’s an extra free benefit for promoters that are listed on Loquax.

We hope, as ever, that this feature is useful and of benefit to the Twitter and Facebook users amongst you.

One thing we hope to do on the blog in 2010 is give you more updates on what we’re doing on the site. We know we post updates on the forums and mention things in our newsletter, but even then many users are just unaware of how they can tailor Loquax to their own needs. Hopefully by posting on the blog we’ll get more people realising just how versatile the site can be!

1. Make The Bingo Go!

Bingo has become part of Loquax, but we appreciate that it’s not for everyone. Therefore we’ve created an option that not only allows you to omit bingo sites from the competition listings, but it also removes the banner adverts for these sites too.

Go to Edit Options and scroll down until you see ‘Hide Bingo’. If you wish to hide these sites select ‘Yes” and click the submit button. As long as you’re logged in bingo sites will be removed. Some references (e.g. the sidebars) will remain, but we think this offers a good compromise.

2. Order Your Prize Directory Listings

Thanks to Anthony for this suggestion! By default our Prize Directory listings are in date added order. We’ve now added an option that lets you change this to for example closing date order or site name order.

Again you need to go to Edit Options and scroll down until you ‘Prize Directory Listings’. Make a selection and the next time you select a prize category (quick comp listing format) your competitions will appear in the order you requested.

Remember these options are in addition to changing the colour of the site and the listing format (although the vast majority are now on the quick comp format with quacker tracker). You can also edit your profile and tell other users a little bit more about yourself. It’s not compulsory though!

If you have any questions about the options, or have some additional suggestions, then let us know.