Blastoff Review and $20.00 Target Gift e-card giveaway

I am super excited to share this with you :) If you are over on facebook at all then you may have seen where I shared with you that I have had the opportunity for six weeks now to use and review a brand new site called Blastoff.

What is Blastoff?

According to the website information under the tab of "What is Blastoff"...

Blastoff Network is your launch pad to the internet which can be customized
with your favorite news, music, videos, blogs, social networks and shopping, all
in one place! Blastoff Network also pays you when you shop online. (You get
varying %'s back depending on where you shop - Starbucks 6%, Target Up to 2%
plus they have a special where you get free shipping on certain toys!!)

The concept of a rebating web portal is not new!!! We've already got ebates.com and mypoints.com and swagbucks.com all of which give you SOMETHING for shopping through their portal. Cashback is not a new concept - it's not even unique to the web.

So these folks at Blastoff had better have a good deal going right? Well they do!! Part of the exciting thing about blastoff is that they actually give you a commission when people you refer buy stuff. Let's say you are signed up as a Blastoff member and you refer your best friend. Any time your best friend buys something online through the blastoff portal you get paid. Sure it's a small amount of money but in this economy - if you hand me a penny - i'm seriously keeping that bad boy!!!

This can actually be a way for non-profits to earn money for upcoming events or for uniforms or whatever is needed. (I see enormous implications with Mission organizations, high school bands, etc.) The non profit would sign up first and then all members of the nonprofit would sign up as referrals of the non-profit. Then any time the people who were referred by the non profit purchase stuff online using the website - the non profit gets a little bit of money.

One thing that impresses me about this is that it's not just you and your friends that you get cash back from. You get cash back from as far away as 10 degrees of separation. So when your cousin's - neighbor's - mother's - second-cousin's - hair dresser's-sister's-college roommate's - high school BFF's sister gets married next fall and goes on her honeymoon and pays for it through Blastoff as a part of your network - you still get paid and so does everyone in between. Everyone makes a comission. It's about time corporations started giving back to the little guy - right?

Other really cool things about Blastoff.

It is fully customizable. What you see above is my "information" section. You can customize the photo that shows up behind each section but I like the standard wallpapers so until I get bored I'm not going to mess with it :). I chose my news that I wanted to receive and even chose which order to display it there on my screen.

It is rumored (and I have even seen screenshots!!) that you can put facebook and twitter side by side but I haven't found that yet. To be honest it may not even be active yet since the site doesn't even launch for another 2 weeks!!

If you are a Prepaid legal member you can print off all kinds of legal forms for free!! (that's in the top section) If you aren't a prepaid legal member you can pay $19.95 a year to have access to the legal forms.

You can watch Youtube or Hulu or listen to radio stations.

You can even play games right there on the webpage. It's like a one stop shop for time wasting!! And we all like to waste a little time - right?? :)

The only thing I do NOT like about the site is that it is VERY memory intensive and locks up every computer I have in the house. (That's not as hard to do as it sounds though - I've locked up every computer in the house with only blogger and gmail!!!) As long as I don't try to multi-task too much then it's fine.

My very favorite part about the site?

It's FREE!!!

Now that i've had a few weeks to check this website out and see how cool it is I want to share it with you.

The only problem with that is that the official launchdate is yet to be determined but I think it's 2 weeks away...It's still in "beta" if you will. But.....If you are invited by someone within the prepaid legal network you can get an advance peek starting on 9/27....Well...I am someone within the prepaid legal network, and i'm inviting you! It costs you absolutely nothing - I just love my readers and want to share :)

If you are just excited to look around the website then please feel free to head on over to http://ppl.blastoffnetwork.com/checkitout and see what it's all about.

Before you do that though....I have decided to do a giveaway for a Target gift card so you can have a chance to shop through the portal and see if you like it risk free. One Reader will win a gift card.

How does this work?

The contest will run until 11:59pm Central time Sunday 11/1/9. You may leave entries between now and that time. Any comments left outside of that time frame on this post will be deleted.

After the closing time I will consult random.org and post the winner. Each entry/comment must have a valid email address contained within the comment or your profile or it won't be counted. I will email the winner and the winner will have 48 hours to email me back to set up the sending of the gift card.

How do I enter?!

There are several ways to enter...please enter even if you never win anything. You won't know unless you try :) The mandatory entry must be completed before any other entry.

Mandatory entry: Visit Blastoff and sign up so you can look around. Be sure to look in the mall. Come back here and tell me in separate comments because it's worth 2 entries !!! (A) Which store in the blastoff mall you would choose to max out a $1000.00 giftcard (mine would be kidsurplus.com they give back 3% and have all sorts of clothes and toys and such!!!)

and (B) Tell me your favorite feature on the site.

You can also earn up to 14 additional entries

Additional Entries:

** Blog about my contest. Link both to this entry and to blastoff using the url that you select from your home page which is YOUR personal link!!! Please don't use mine!! I want you to use your own :) Leave the URL to your blog post in a comment then leave two additional comments. This is worth 3 entries.

** Follow My blog publically and leave a comment telling me you are following. Worth 1 entry.

** Subscribe to the RSS Feed of my blog and leave a comment letting me know you subscribe. Worth 1 entry.

** Become a fan on facebook and leave a comment letting me know you are a fan. (If you are already a fan then woo hoo! leave your comment :) ) Worth 1 entry.

** Share my giveaway with at least 3 other people via facebook or a chat room or just telling people about it. Come back and leave me a comment telling me what you did. Be sure to include the link to my post. which is this: This is worth 1 entry.

** Tweet about the giveaway:

Come #blastoff with @Caranya over at http://bit.ly/CCCBlastoff and enter to win a $20.00 Target Gift Card.

You can retweet this up to once a day - please leave a comment here with your username on twitter each time you retweet. worth 1 entry per day. (Up to 7 entries)

Good luck!!