How to use Win.ly with the free membership

At the free level of membership, you don't have access to the Rating Engine results, but you still can take advantage of the management tools to gain an advantage in your prize hunting.

First a quick summary of the tools available, then a strategy on how best to use them.  The tools:

• In the main listing:
• Ability to view by type (Instant Win, Sweepstakes, Contest or Other)
• Ability to view only your likes, all but your dislikes, or all.
• Ability to search on keyword.
• When you're visiting a game
  
• Ability to mark contests as "I won", "Like" or "Don't like".

So a good strategy would be this.

On your first day:

• If you're an experienced player, search for your favorite sites with the keyword search, visit them (and play) and mark them as "Like"
• For all players, from the main listing, set the type to "Instant win".  Instant wins generally provide the best chances at winning prizes so it's the best place to start.
• Peruse the listings and play games that interest you. Look for brands that you use and like, prizes that appeal, etc.  Also look for games that are receiving a lot of likes from the rest of the community (as shown in the orange bar graphs).  As you play these games, mark them as "Like" if it's a game you want to continue to play or "Don't Like" if you don't want to play again.  If you're not sure, don't mark either.
• Return to the listing and do the same for Sweepstakes if you have time (there's generally way more sweepstakes than instan wins) and contests if you're interested ("contests" here meaning games where you have to submit something like an essay or a photo and there is some judging element).

Each day afterword.

• Return to Win.ly daily, log in to the listings and set the type to "Instant Win" and the likes setting to "Only my likes"
• In the listings, for each game you'll see a count of how many times you've played plus a date and time when you last played.  This makes it easy to go through the list and play the daily games.  As soon as you visit the site, your listing will be updated to "Today" so you know you've already played today.
• Repeat for sweepstakes, contests and others if you choose.
• Then look for new sites.  Set the type to "Instant Win" and the likes setting to "none of my dislikes".
• Look through the listings.  New listings (added within the last 5 days) have green borders and are marked "Recently Added".  Also review games that you were undecided on before that you may want to add to your likes.

By using this process you can have a really solid routine for making sure you play the games you like (and just don't forget about them) and work new ones in.

Plus you can see some neat statistics. Like when you do win a prize, you can see exactly how many times you played before you won it.

Planned additional features:

We plan on adding a list of your wins to the "My Account" section.  That way you can track them and check them off when they arrive.  (Or follow up with them if you don't receive it).  It's also a handy automated way of keeping a list of your winnings, as many gamers do, instead of keeping a manual list.

Possible new feature:

Display for each game its entry frequency (Once per day, one time only, etc.).  We're interested in feedback on whether this would be useful.