Boomertowne.com Review — Update, 9/22: BoomerTowne is down for good. Read more here.
Date Launched: April 2007
Minimum to Redeem: 5,354 for merchandise; GCs start at 12,500 (for $25 Target or BestBuy)
Prizes Offered: GCs, merchandise
Earn Points For: Many activities including logging in; submitting or rating jokes, recipes, or quotes; playing games; watching videos; chatting; posting to the forum; requesting or adding friends; signing up for and reading the newsletter; recommending a restaurant or other attraction in a specific city and more
Limit One Account Per: Person 18+ with a unique email address; maximum of 4 accounts per mailing address. If you are caught using more than one account regularly, the accounts will be frozen. US and Canadian members are welcome.
Dollar Value of a Point: Approximately 1/5 of a cent
Daily “Free” Points: About 1500
Value of those Free Points: About $3 per day
Notes: 100 points to join. Points per activity vary and some activities have daily or weekly maximums. Add boomernews@boomertowne.com to your address book to ensure delivery of newsletters.
My Take:
BoomerTowne was founded by a Wisconsin entrepreneur Herschel “Buzz” Peddicord (a baby boomer himself) who recently sold a healthcare company to Honeywell for an undisclosed amount (which means it was probably quite a bit). BT generates income from ad revenue including Google ads and an optional paid dating section. A dozen celebrities have partnered with the site to provide exclusive content as their “Towne Council” — including Dr. Bob Arnot (medical expert and foreign correspondent aka “Dr. Danger“), Dr. John Gray (relationship expert and author of “Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus,” Dr. Steven Covey (marketing management expert and author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,”), Denise Austin (fitness expert with over 20 million videos/dvds sold), and Gary Player (Golf Digest’s third Greatest Golfer of All Time in 2000). Talk show host Montel Williams has also donated content to the site.
I am very skeptical that a site can continue to pay out the equivalent of $3 a day in free points to members over an extended period of time. However, I do know that site reportedly only had 9,000 members last October, so they’re still in their growth phase and this is probably being written off as advertising expense (to aid in word of mouth marketing) and it’s also a necessary incentive for them to initially build up content on the site.
So: I suggest we all enjoy it while the ride lasts, but that we not expect it to last forever. At least with the ability to cash out for a $25 gift card about every 8.5 days, we won’t be TOO much in the hole should the site begin to dry up.
Please email me for an invitation if you’d like to join!
Update, 8/08: Because this program promises points redemptions in 6 to 8 weeks, and it is currently at 3 months, I can’t recommend this program as a points-earner. It’s still a nice social networking site, however.
Related Articles: [Update: Boomertowne.com Down!] Despite an Unsatisfactory BBB Rating, BoomerTowne Brags of Success, Plans for the Future, BoomerTowne Newsletter Omits Mention of Points, BoomerTowne GCs Backlogged, Boomertowne to Raise Redemption Costs for Members Joining After 6/1
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Boomertowne is a great site. Check out Boomertowne Guide for some great resources to earn more points.
What a neat site! Thanks so much for sharing the link!
Here it is again, in case someone didn’t know to click on your name to get to it:
http://boomertowneguide.blogspot.com/
I’ve been on boomertowne for just a few weeks and already submitted for my first $50 card. It took awhile figuring out how to get 1500 points per day, but I can do it in about 90 minutes. They say delivery of prizes in 6-8 weeks but really more like 3-4. i’ll be sure to post on how long it took to receive my first card.
My account was closed the other day why I have no idea well i do but the only thing I can think of is that i was able to reach the limit in about 20 minutes a day by adding friends I guess they thought I was cheating….-_- they need to do their research which sucks cuz im going to miss people on boomertowne
quoted from above article
So: I suggest we all enjoy it while the ride lasts, but that we not expect it to last forever. At least with the ability to cash out for a $25 gift card about every 8.5 days, we won’t be TOO much in the hole should the site begin to dry up.
Looks like you might have called it correctly. Nothing has been redeemed at the site since May 8th over 3 months ago. No communication BT has gone into a shell and I suspect is not coming out. Seems like the same behavious of Netwinner went through before they shafted their users.
I redeemed my points for a $100 Visa gift card in June. Here we are going into October and no card. Now the site isn’t even up, there is no way to contact them. Yep, another Netwinner fraud.