Blip your way to a win!

Technology is moving frighteningly fast these days, and every time something new turns up, it isn't long before promoters start to use it to run competitions. One of the latest  innovations sees competitions being run through apps for smart phones and iPads.

The last few weeks have seen prizes being offered through apps from Black & Decker, Richer Sounds and  Wetherspoons  - all of which are still running as I write this.  I'm afraid I only have links to the Apple versions and don't know whether they produce versions for other phones.

Latest on the scene is a fun app called BlippAR which comes in Apple and Android versions and can be used on a phone or an iPad, although the larger screen of the iPad gives more dramatic results. You simply open the app and hold the camera of your device over the item to be "Blipped"  and information about the product, links to online content, recipes and even  competitions appear on the screen as if by magic!

Here I am blipping a jar of Marmite - can you see how the link to the recipes has  appeared over the image of the jar on the screen? All I needed to do after that was touch the screen and I was taken to a selection of tasty recipes.

But I know that you are probably not here to read about Marmite Omelettes, you are thinking, "But where are the comps?"

Well right now, if you blip a bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup, you could instantly win  one of two packs of Heinz branded kitchen goodies every day until January 19th. You can enter once a day and I entered early in the morning and won a pack while I was testing it for this article.

And  if you blip the cover of the new album Now 80 you could win one of 80 prizes, from a signed  iPad to a Spotify subscription. Unfortunately the terms of this competition aren't working at the moment so I can't tell you when it closes.

The really good news is, you don't always need to have the product to hand - the BlippAR Facebook page often puts blippable photos of the products up for you to try, or, as you can see from the photo above, you can simply search the web for a decent photo of the product and try blipping that. It worked from me, when I wanted to enter the Now 80 competition.

Your Blippar app has a catalogue of things that are currently blippable, and updates with any new ones each time you open it, and new ones are announced  on the Facebook page too. Another current blipping competition is the Mercedes Benz "Escape the Map" game - there are no photos of it here because I can't make head nor tail of it!  And I believe there has also been a competition in Metro.

It's incredibly easy to use, great fun and trying out new blips can  be quite addictive! One more tool to add to your comping kit.