Many compers were surprised and shocked by the announcement yesterday that Loquax will no longer be listing competitions - myself included. Loquax was the very first website I visited when I first got online in 1999, and I have stayed loyal to it ever since. That's a long time - I'm used to it and the way it works, and it's going to take an old diehard like me a long time to get used to using a different competition listing service. Many thanks to Jason and Kirsty for all their years of hard work and their unstinting support of the comping community and best wishes for whatever direction you are planning for Loquax in the future.
Why, you may be wondering, would the editor of a competitions magazine want to use a listing service? Well, Grape Vine is primarily about competitions that are actually FOUND off line, even if the entry method is online. I spend many hours every week combing shops, so that I can give full entry details of as many competitions as possible. That means that if no purchase is needed, readers can get all the entry details from Grape Vine, and if they DO need to make a purchase they know exactly what to look out for. In general, competition that are promoted exclusively online are not included in Grape Vine - and yet online is where I do the bulk of my own comping. So yes, for many years I have been in the habit of visiting Loquax for half an hour every morning.
Several people have asked me if I will now be providing comprehensive listings - oh dear, if only I had time! There is just one of me, and I already work long hours producing Grape Vine, so that wouldn't be possible. Also this blog doesn't generate any revenue. The competitions that I list here, at the request of the promoters, are done free of charge as a service to all of YOU, whether or not you are subscribers to Grape Vine. My only income comes from the Grape Vine magazine (at this point I'll insert a little advert - why not consider subscribing? The more subscribers I have, the better the service becomes, and that includes the blog! And as described above, you will find LOTS of competitions that aren't covered by online listing services)
With the plug over, lets get back to Loquax. And the good news is that the forums are going to continue. Many competitions are shared there among the Loquats, as well as lots of help, support and chat. But if you prefer less chat and more competitions, there are lots of other sites that list them. Some of them are currently quite small, but an influx of new compers may well help them to grow. Others are well established and already popular.
I'm not a regular visitor to any of these sites, with the exception of Prizefinder which is probably the biggest and longest established, so I'm not going to give any personal recommendations - have a look around them and try a few, before deciding what suits you best.
They take several forms; conventional websites, forums where members contribute the competitions themselves although in most cases non-members can read the listings, and a newsgroup which is similar to a forum but open to the public, not just to registered members. There are also a number of private, invitation-only email groups, but these are not publicised and if you want to join one, you'll need to be lucky enough to find a member who will invite you.
I hope these lists will help you to find a great comping tool that will help you even while you are suffering from "Loquax Withdrawal Syndrome"
WEBSITES
The Prizefinder
Big Purple Moose
Competitors Companion
UK Competitions
UK Wins
Competitions List
Competition Hunter
Competitions Today
Only Cheaper
Prize Bug
Comps'n'Codes
Free TV Competitions (specialises in the competitions shown on TV programmes such as Daybreak)
Comp Retweet - despite the name, isn't restricted to Twitter competitions
Competitions Time
FORUMS
Win Prizes
Money Saving Expert
Hot UK Deals
I'm Worse Off Than You
Female First
NEWSGROUP
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/uk.rec.competitions
Thank you for this. I've been with loquax since 2000 and apart from prizefinder I've never gone looking for any other sites.
ReplyDeleteI see uk.rec.competitions hasn't changed , long time since I went there.
Unfortunately, uk.rec.competitions HAS changed.It used to be a friendly little club, lots of chat and banter, offers of ef's and answers. Now its just an endless list of comps with no closing dates, copied and pasted from comping sites by one person. Heaven knows how she is going to fill it now Loquax lists aren't available!
DeleteYes, it has changed - but actually for anyone who wants a list of competitions without needing to interact it has its place. You and I and many of the "old faithfuls" used to devote more time to chatting than to comping - which was great fun but not to everyone's taste.
DeleteThanks Jane, that is most helpful. I use UK Wins and Competitors Companion. UK Wins is where I started 12 years ago and although it isn't as big as it used to be I find it easy to use. Competitors Companion is a good site, you have to pay £10 a year to join but there are loads of comps (with answers) and they add approx 50 a day. Again easy to use and navigate. There is no forum on this one, which is perhaps a good thing, I do spend a lot of comping time reading some of the comments on the forums. Some of the chat forums on Loquax could get very nasty, I didn't like that. A lot of people seemed to delight in being controversial, particularly about people on benefits etc, very unnecessary.
DeleteThat's very helpful. Such a shock yesterday :O(
ReplyDeleteThanks Jane. I knew nothing about it until I read your tweet.
ReplyDeleteAnybody reading this, "Grapevine", is such value for money, Jane works so hard, nothing is too much trouble for her, not giving her ideas, but if it was double the price, it would still be the best value for money, you could get, the best present to yourself, is to support Jane,i have told every one to subscribe,
ReplyDeleteps ( did you say you had posted the cheque?), joking aside, subscribe
Many thanks for the list of links Jane. I now need to work out which site(s) to frequent to make up for the loss of Loquax's really useful lists and links. I'm really going to miss them.
ReplyDeleteI do still drop in on uk.rec.competitions but as I blocked Debs some time ago, the lists of comps on there aren't visible to me.
Thanks Jane,
ReplyDeleteWhilst the Loquax news was disappointing, I wasn't all that surprised! Loquax love the Bingo - Must be the revenue it generates :-)
My personal favourites in terms of simplicity are....
www.myukcompetitions.co.uk, www.compretweet.co.uk and www.forum.imworseoffthanyou.com
http://www.prizebug.co.uk/
Regards Kev..
I meant uk.rec.competitions hasn't changed since I abandoned all hope when deb started flooding it .She's still there I see. Used to be chatty friendly and a lot of fun!
ReplyDeleteBelated thanks for the comments Jane. The good news for compers is that the forums continue and whilst it's different there are already some links/options in place that let users find stuff by date, closing, category etc. And that's the direction things will now go in terms of Loquax Competitions.
ReplyDeleteAway from competitions is where the Loquax Team will focus - we have done a lot in other sections and as 'anonymous Kev' above says there's revenue there.
However, more importantly myself, Kirsty and our partners have time and energy to focus and do other things. Some of those things are non-work related and because of that it's most certainly the right move. Thankfully most people have understood that.