Blekko has been pushing hard with promotions, combining the power of everything from lighting things on fire to creating trading cards, and let’s face it: the heavy promotions are needed. While the fledgling company has breached past the million searches per day mark, enough that Rich Skrenton assures users the company will be able to sustain itself and grow organically, they’re still just a blip on the radar when compared to giants like Bingahoo and Google. Never fear. Blekko isn’t short on promotional ideas, and just released a lineup of new extras for Blekko fans through a self-promoting slashtag.
Users who go to Blekko and type in /blekkogear (or follow this link to a pre-populated search) will be able to access several freebies from the startup search engine. This includes browser toolbars, site widgets, code for a Blekko search box, an RSS feed generator, and more.
But wait! There’s more. Blekko is also giving some real-life items to users without charging them a penny. Most of note are the free trading cards and the free t-shirt, both available while supplies last. Users simply have to provide their name, email address, and mailing address to receive these nifty gifts. In other words, Blekko isn’t above simple bribery.
It’s good to see this startup investing so heavily in promotion. While it’s impossible to predict the fate of this energetic punk or a search site, its presence and momentum have gotten plenty of attention. That includes from sites like Google, who, experiencing the pressure of the newcomer, made an extensive update to get rid of farmers and fight down spam. Whether Blekko ends up placing well in the search engine race, or even lasting at all, its concepts of human curation and hard-line spam prevention have made it a standard bearer for the anti-trash movements of the modern web.
[via the Blekko Blog]
