The Pros and Cons of Lockerz.Com

I have been a member of Lockerz.com for several months now. I believe I joined in November of '09. I was drawn in by the concept that, for a few clicks a day, one could eventually earn enough 'Pointz' to cash in on some very cool prizes. I'll be honest, I'm still hooked on earning those pointz, but I haven't yet decided whether it was all worth it. Let me give you a rundown on what I've discovered so far.

Lockerz was founded by an ex-Amazon exec. and will eventually become an Amazon-style webstore. It is geared toward young people with an edgy layout. The premise is simple. You visit the site each day to collect pointz. You can earn these pointz in various ways, simply by stopping by each day, answering the daily question, or by watching any of a number of videos. Eventually, the site plans on adding games, and will even offer pointz as a reward for buying items with cash, once the store opens down the road.

There are a lot of pros to this system. It functions a lot like Gaia Online, except that the pointz you earn are used for real-world prizes ranging from headphones and t-shirts to iPods and computers. Pointz are pretty easy to come by, and getting easier every day. And there is a prize-redemption time each month where you can spend your hard-earned pointz.

Another big pro is that they make earning pointz enjoyable. The videos posted on Lockerz are fun and current, and there is a decent variety to choose from. Everything from music videos to new movie trailers to original web-series are represented. And they update with even more nifty things on a weekly basis.

Lastly, they have a pretty awesome referral program. If you can manage to convince 20 of your closest friends to join up and start earning pointz, you become a member of the Z-list. This nets you double pointz for an entire year, as well as some nifty Lockerz swag. I've been working on my admission to the Z-list for awhile now, but I'm only about halfway there.

But, just as there are positives, there are negatives too. Most prizes cost a lot of pointz. Remember when you were a kid at Chuck E. Cheese, and you REALLY wanted to get that SNES? It cost about a million tickets, right? Well, the idea here is the same. Initially, pointz values were really low, drawing in a lot of dedicated users. But since it's been getting easier to earn pointz, the value of the prizes has jumped up as well. It's not impossible to get the things you want, but you do have to make a daily habit of visiting the site and checking out the new features.

Redemptions only happen once a month. That's fine by me, more time to earn my pointz. The trick is that they don't typically give a lot of notice as to when the redemptions will occur. In the early days of the site, redemptions were pre-announced and it would literally crash the site, which meant no one could get their goodies. As a reaction, the Lockerz team decided that they would only announce the redemptions as they were happening. Fortunately, things have stabilized, and we've started to get some advance notice again.

In the several months that I have been using Lockerz, I have seen a lot of improvement in site layout and functionality. The site is easy to use and pretty reliable. Even with a few less-than-positives, I would wholeheartedly suggest that anyone who really wants to get their hands on an iPod, some new video games, or a MacBook Pro should come over to Lockerz, and give it a whirl.