My wife went to work today to pick up her first paycheck, and I drove her. While she headed to the HR department, I looked in electronics. The guy working there opened up a box and there were some Wii consoles.

I asked him if they regularly have Wii systems in stock around here, since they certainly don't seem to anywhere else. He laughed and said that they don't, that the only time they have them in is when a shipment comes in like this (and they don't even have access to information about when those shipments will come, as the vendor handles that side of things).

Long story short: I bought an extra Wii. Now I'm going to be giving it away on the site. There will be a prize drawing on December 10.

There should be no secrets here: this is an effort to increase site activity, and to generate site content. There will be only one winner--not a staff member--and that is that. I expect a lot of content to come in and I will promote this contest wherever I can because that $250 came out of my pocket. I want to see it succeed.

Submit content. Tell friends. Tell enemies. Make sure that everyone knows. The Wii is the most valuable prize I am likely to give away on the site for a long time to come, possibly forever. This is what you've been saving HG Points for. Even if you don't want the system, you can probably sell it online this holiday season for big bucks (imagine all the moms that will be shopping online when they can't find them in stores). If this contest works and generates a lot of good content and new users, I will consider it a success and try to do more things like it. If it doesn't work, that's it. I tried.

The results of this contest will have a huge impact on the nature of contests in the future, so have fun and get to work!