Over the last few months I’ve done some articles about (and run some ads for) the new contest site, Prizes.org.  It feels like the site just had its official launch but the folks in charge have already decided to “wind down” operations.  You can still use the site for a while but by January 31st Prizes.org will be defunct.  Here’s part of the official announcement:

We’re so grateful to all of you for your participation and engagement since we launched last year, but the product isn’t experiencing the kind of adoption we had hoped for. We wanted to provide you with advance notice and some additional information about timing, exporting your text-based entries and cashing out your remaining credits:

• 7/13/12: Account creation and prize creation will no longer be available
• 7/31/12: Entry Exporter will be available for contestants to export entries
• 1/31/13: last day to cash out any remaining credits via PayPal

I can’t tell you how many times my friends have asked me “Why don’t you just start your own video contest site?!?“  Well, this is why.  The web-contest marketplace is just way too crowded already.  Prizes.org is owned by freaking google and even they couldn’t succeed.  And they clearly put a ton of cash into the project.  Of course, prizes.org was kind of a confusing site.  Basically you could sign up and run your own contests.  But the prize amounts on the contests were just way too small.  A website where people can set up quick and cheap micro-contests is a decent idea but I guess there’s just not a lot of demand for that type of service.