Oh Farmville. What Have You Done To Me?

Let me start off by saying, that I've been playing Farmville for quite a while, but I go through phases. It's like I have an on again/off again relationship with it. I wasn't going to explain what Farmville is, but I guess I probably should considering the fact that my geekiness is often overpowering and I occasionally forget that normal human beings don't know what I'm talking about. Just last week I overheard one woman ask another, "So have you heard of this Foursquare thing?" and I wanted to smack my forehead, but Foursquare is another story for another day. Today we shall talk about Farmville.

Farmville (n): An online game created by developer Zynga with platforms on both farmville.com and facebook.com that allows users to create and maintain a virtual farm. Users plant & harvest crops, visit friends farms, fertilize their crops and collect rewards to gain experience and level up.

Farmville (n): The internet's Tickle Me Elmo.

Farmville (n): The biggest time waster to hit life since the internet itself.

According to statistics on Facebook, 53 million people log onto Farmville daily. It is, in essence a behemoth of a game that is taking over the world so much so that the desire to get exclusive items and Farmville goodies has moved into the offline world. Now 7-11 has gotten involved by selling exclusive Farmville items (read: promotional products ) that are branded with codes. Users then enter the codes into EarnPlayWin.com and receive exclusive items, with the ability to receive the uber prize of $200 Farmville cash. As someone who is a giant nerd, I can tell you, that's a pretty sweet deal.

In fact, its so much of a sweet deal that yours truly went to 7-11 yesterday to grab some stuff. In truth, it was right next to CVS & I was going there anyway. So, I bought a Farmville Big Gulp (which my mother attested as the reason I'm not married later in the day), Farmville Ice Cream, some Farmville Watermelon and an Iced Coffee which was also branded with a code. See, you need 5 out of 8 products to unlock the magic crop that can get you to those big bucks. So you see what happened? Farmville promotional products offered a call to action and I took it because I am a giant nerd, but nonetheless the action was taken. Update: I'm clearly never getting my hands on the Farmville Fun Slide for sheep as the last 7-11 I went was also out of Slurpee cups. Apparently this promotion is only going on for another week. I should get moving on buying that $1.99 bottle of Farmville water.

In conclusion, promotional products make people take action. Oh, and my mother was TOTALLY right. I should start stocking up on cats.