Duck related competitions always catch our eye! Well, actually anything duck related catches our eye – so when we saw a submission for Quacky Races, the online competition that features the O2 Ducks (you know the one’s who battle through the elements to deliver surprises) we just had to give it a bit of an extra plug.

The idea of Quacky Races is for players to choose a rubber duck. There are five characters to choose from such as “Jenny from The Flock” and “Ducky Rotten”. Each duck has different characteristics and needs to get the right balance of love, food and sleep in order to race! Your job is to get your duck ready for racing.

Your duck has 15,000 miles to travel and whoever completes the race in the fastest time will win. We sent our “Loquax” duck into battle and we think it’s going to be a few days for him to reach the finishing line. After initially getting a speed up of over 100 knots, by being over exuberant with the settings he’s now bobbing along at a much slower speed.

We think you need to login regularly to maintain your duck – think tamagotchi! If you leave the duck neglected it’ll eventually limp home, but you won’t have much chance of winning the prize. Talking of winning, the prize on offer isn’t too shabby. The fastest duck gets a round the world trip plus £1000 spending money. Disappointingly though there’s no prizes on offer for taking part – a prize draw for finishing ducks for some smaller prizes would have been nice!

Worth noting is that the current leader has taken just over 5 days to reach the finishing line with an average speed of 124 knots… that’s what you’re aiming for. With that in mind, don’t wait until the last day to enter the competition. It closes on the 31st March so make sure you’re ready to go duck racing before the 26th March. Hopefully “Loquax” will be across the finishing line by then.

Play Quacky Races to win a Round the World Trip

Twitter competitions are getting even more and more popular, so we thought we’d update and remind you of some of our guides and blogs from last year. If you’re new to Twitter then the Getting Started with Twitter isn’t a bad place to start. It gives you a brief overview about the micro blogging site and how to follow @loquax.

Loquax was the first competition site to publish a how to enter competition on twitter guide. It’s brief, as at the time there wasn’t much need for a comprehensive guide, but it should be fairly easy to understand. However we’d like to add a bit more information for twitter compers.

1. Useful Tools
Most people start out using Twitter via the well known website, but if you’re keen on comping then you might want to try an application such as Tweetdeck or Tweetie, which also has an excellent iPhone version so you can comp whilst on the move.

2. Watch For US Contests
Twitter has no boundaries and if you’re looking for prizes you might well stumble upon a contest from a non-UK site. You might be able to still enter, but be check any terms and conditions. You can check where a site is based by looking at their Twitter Page. For example @loquax will show you our website and location.

3. Check Closing Dates
One of the good thing about Twitter is you can follow other compers and spot competitions, but do be careful just retweeting what they post. Many Twitter comps have short closing dates so do check the promoters Twitter pages first to see if the competition is running before RTing! This is especially important if you’re entering outside usual office hours.

4. Watch The RT Button
On Twitter.com there’s a “Retweet” link. We’re not 100% certain, but have a gut feeling that some promoter’s don’t see the retweets from this. Our advice would be to copy/paste the tweet you’re being asked to RT into the “What’s Happening” box. Remember to put RT@ at the start too.

5. Finding Competitions
If you’re following Loquax or your comping friends then you’re probably seeing plenty of twitter competitions, but what if you want to search out some more? Try searching for terms such as “RT to win”, “retweet to win”, “sign up to win” and “follow to win” as well as the usual “prize draw” and competition type searches.

6. Big Brands
Keep an eye on the big brands too! They love to use Twitter and Facebook for competitions. Best Western recently ran a 24 hour competition whilst Body Shop, Walkers, Jordan Cereals and Fosters are also keen on giving stuff away.

7. Timing Is Important
As mentioned above many prize draws take place during office hours, so if you’re searching for extra comps out of hours you may find more US based promotions at the start of the search results. Just scroll on a bit!

8. Be Careful
Some people use Twitter to promote marketing type sign up competitions that many of you love to hate. Just be wary of that and remember the old adage if it’s too good to be true. Also some sites may want you to login via your Twitter account (e.g. wildfireapp). These are usually ok, but if you’re unsure ask someone via Twitter – the great thing is you’re quite likely to get an answer straight away.

9. Make Sure Promoter’s Play Fair!
As well as publishing a guide for compers we also were the first competition site to comment on issues relating to twitter competitions. We spotted that many twitter comps lacked structure and suggested that brands need to be better organised.

Those observations still apply and with more and more people comping via Twitter spam issues could arise if companies don’t manage their campaigns properly. The good news is that with more compers getting involved with “competwitions” it means the promoter’s are being kept on their toes.

For more hints and tips about Twitter competitions head over to the Twitter & Facebook Competitions section or check out the Your experiences with Twitter?, which contains more useful advice from compers.

Over the last five years Battery Force have been running a daily free battery giveaway. However, as of the 18th February 2010 the company have pulled the promotion due to a complaint made about them on a public forum. The company explain their decision on their site as follows:

Unfortunately, a complaint from one winning participant in February 2010 has forced us to end the promotion. We would have loved to continue the promotion indefinitely, but we simply don’t have the capacity to deal with completely unjustified complaints, especially when they are made in such a way as to question our high operating standards in a public forum: We’re giving away batteries for free, and in turn a winner tries to damage our outstanding reputation – a sad state of affairs.

Having read the forum in question the complaint arises due to an issue over delivery. The prize failed to turn up due to a delivery error and it seems after an email exchange that Battery Force wouldn’t resend the prize. Why they couldn’t resend the prize is a bit of a mystery? Looking in from the outside it probably would have been the right thing to do.

Still, it’s their decision, but it does seem odd for Battery Force to pull the competition that’s been successful for so long due to just one complaint. They’ve had over 1500 happy winners and perhaps after a bit of reflection they may reconsider their decision when they look at the positives.

Running competitions can sometimes result in problems – we ourselves know that all too well (as do McVities, Magnum, Orange etc) – and the key to overcoming them is being responsive, even if you disagree with the winner’s or comper’s point of view. In this case it might “only be a packet of batteries”, but if a company awards you a prize then you should expect to get it (provided you reply in a reasonable time frame) and regardless of any delivery problems.

Anyway if it is the end of the Battery Force prize draw then so be it. It’s been good fun for five years and they’ve made a lot of people happy with their service and prize draw. Although it was only some free batteries many compers actually saw it as a personal challenge to win the daily competition. It’s sad to see it go, but the disappointing ending could really have been avoided.

On Monday 15th February an unusual competition will launched called Man In Box. Tim Shaw, a TV and radio presenter, who has appeared on FIfth Gear and Balls of Steel, will for reasons best known to himself shut himself away in a steel box that according to The Sun is “3.5ft high, 4.5ft wide and 8ft”. He won’t know where he is, but he will be accompanied by a cash prize of £30,000 – and you could win it!

Tim’s incarceration will appear online and people will be invited to guess his location based on daily clues and updates. You can get involved by suggesting objects to join Tim so that he may reveal clues to his location .

You can guess the location co-ordinates from the start, but entries won’t be checked for a week just to keep Tim enclosed for a minimum period of 7 days. The first person who picks the right spot via a special link on Google maps will win the cash prize.

You can make as many guesses as you like and it’s free to enter. Proceeds from advertising on the site go to the Help for Heroes charity.

As well as the website you can keep up with Man in Box via Twitter, @maninboxuk, Facebook and Youtube (although the only video we found was the one above with the annoyingly annoying Charlie Boorman).

The “experiment that links solitary confinement with social networking” starts at noon on the 15th February and ends when someone guesses the location or 30 days/30 nights, depending which comes first.

Will you be tuning in? Is the lure of £30,000 enough to make you interested in following someone trying to survive isolated in a tiny space? Man In Box is where you need to go if the answer is “Yes”!

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!!!!