A Digression

I love giveaways...especially when I win them.

And I've been pretty lucky with winning this year. Here's the list of my loot since I started writing this blog nearly a year ago:

• A pair of Newton running socks (from a trail running blog that's no longer online)
• A box of LaraBars (from Another Mother Runner)
• A full Asics running outfit (shirt, capris, hat AND shoes--can you say LUCKY?) (also from Another Mother Runner--I think I'm banned from winning anything else from those nice ladies)
• A book, Stillpower: The Inner Source of Athletic Excellence (from Forward Foot Strides--I'll have a review of this at some point; I'm about halfway through it)
• Yurbuds and another book, Meb Keflezighi's Run to Overcome: The Inspiring Story of an American Champion's Long-Distance Quest to Achieve a Big Dream (from See Mom Run Far--she's taking my copy of the book to NYC, where she's going to run the marathon and have Meb sign it to me--too too cool!)
• Tommie Copper Calf Sleeves (from The Studly Runner)
• A CamelBak-style hydration backpack (in the raffle at the Top of Utah Marathon)

So I wanted to say THANK YOU to all of the nice people who hosted these giveaways. I've enjoyed everything I've won. The content of the rest of this post is NOT directed at any of you. I realize that when companies are providing items for giveaways, you may be obliged by them to require certain things as part of the giveaway. And I know I'm free to choose to enter or not enter any giveaway I want.

That said, I want to talk about something that bothers me: giveaways that require you to "like" a company or product on Facebook.

Here's what Facebook (to me) is for: keeping up with family and friends (and maybe a few news sources and some of you running bloggers out there with Facebook pages), and giving them a convenient way to keep up with me and my family. That's it.

Here's what Facebook is NOT about: a whole bunch of spammy posts trying to get me to buy a product. If I like the product, chances are I'll seek it out on my own. Having the virtual equivalent of junk mail arriving in between photos of my nephew and updates on how my friend is doing at her new job will NOT induce me to buy even a product I like. In fact, it might make me like it less. I've been "un-liking" a lot of company pages in Facebook, gradually cutting down on the crap scrolling by in my news feed, and I'm going to continue to do that. My nephew is pretty cute, and I would have hated to miss his latest photo because it was overwhelmed in posts from T-shirt companies.

Why am I saying this? Because I've noticed more and more giveaways seem to require a Facebook like if you want to enter (on some giveaways, the Facebook like is optional-- much better). I've not entered some giveaways lately because of this. You might say, my loss. Well, sure, in one sense. But jeez, don't we have enough "targeted marketing" in our lives?

Requiring a Twitter follow doesn't bug me at all. Twitter is much more ephemeral. My mom and my childhood friends don't share their photos there. I follow lots of total strangers on Twitter. Another company's tweets scrolling through my list there is fine (and besides, they are limited to 140 characters--ha!).

Keep in mind I'm not on the list of bloggers who get to do giveaways (unless I want to buy the stuff I'm giving away myself), so I really don't know how they work. And I'm not young and cool and edgy, so maybe I'm just sounding like an old fogey who's mad I can't just tear the damn junk mail in half like I could in the good ol' days of print.

Anyway, just wanted to get that off my chest. Back to your regularly scheduled blog about running.....