 |
|
|
|
|
|
About Opportunity LOL Hello! My name is Robert Haynes and I created this site on May 2nd, 2010 and did so for a few reasons. I've been blogging since I was a kid, to no avail, since people don't read children's blogs. I created a soda blog in college, got sodas sent to me, and really enjoyed blogging about free drinks. Out of college, I thought of starting up the same sort of website but applied my love for art and toys w/ a work ethic and fortunately this website has really taken off and has become a full time business. I also wanted to inspire a few people I knew to let them know that if you put some work into something, even if it starts as just a small personal website, you can have some pretty impressive things occur if you're willing to work hard. As I write this we currently have 50,000 twitter followers and 13,000 facebook fans. My philosophy towards this site has been to put the content first, and my opinions/thoughts second. This website takes up so much space on your screen for a good reason. Pictures and videos, when available, are shown 735 pixels wide. My goal is to show the artists, tv shows, musicians, companies I like as best as I can portray them. I always attempt to properly assign credit to the author of any work and try to promote that person/their company as best as possible. In addition to myself, a tremendous amount of work is done by our editor, Jami L. She originally joined to create product reviews and is now an equal partner. Often referred to as "the editor," Jami produces up to four full articles per day, 5-7 days per week, and takes over blogging duties when I (Robert) cannot. Most of our photography is Jami's camera and eye & the reason I don't come across as a rude robot when responding to e-mails is because of her tact and willingness to listen to me read an e-mail outloud again and again to get everything right. If you are looking for someone to punch up your bio, create content for your website, or write copy for a printed ad Jami has plenty of experience and talent. To make a good decision and check her availability for work, hit up the contact form and your message will reach her. About Reviews We review a wide variety of products on Opportunity LOL. Toys, gadgets, backpacks, clothing, accessories, outdoor products, food, beverages, pet products (I have a Lab/Whippet named Larry who loves to be photographed), grooming products, restaurants, digital products, home and kitchen products - anything if it's great! If you have an item that I don't know about, and it's possible that it's awesome, please read the review guidelines and then contact us! Our twitter is @OpportunityLOL and it is checked ALL the time. The e-mail is info@opplol.com. We check it more often. We're positive people and say positive things, so hopefully you trust that sending product will lead to increased hits, sales, and twitter followers. Check out the reviews to see what we've said in the past. When writing reviews, we intend to take pictures, write the article, and post it as soon as possible. I am constantly in contact with companies to review their items, so we often have a full schedule that can extend for up to three months. Upon receipt of product we will let you know the general period during which we intend to publish your review, but please be patient and feel free to contact us if you want an update. Note that product sent to us is kept and cannot be mailed back and if for some reason we cannot write a positive review we will contact you, explain, and not publish an article. This occurs extremely infrequently - we have nearly 200 product reviews and have only had to turn down three companies on reviewing their products. The instances: a product that came arrived completely damaged, a game I could not beat the first level of, and an item which we were concerned about our safety while testing. Rest assured, if you have a quality product and trust it yourself, you will almost definitely have a great review published that you should be very happy with. Privacy Policy We use Google Analytics to gather data on traffic and use of Opportunity LOL. We also use Google AdSense, which gathers additional information. You may wish to check out the Google Privacy Center for more information about the data Google collects and what they do with it. Google provides this Opt-out Browser Add-on (BETA) available for Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Opera. Learn more about what information Google AdSense gathers here and how to opt out of their targeted ads here. We are members of other affiliate programs, such as Shareasale (privacy policy here), Tenacious Toys (privacy policy here), Sideshow Collectibles (privacy policy here), Affiliate Future (privacy policy here), Amazon Associates (privacy policy here), Threadless StreetTeam (privacy policy here), and may join others in the future - in which case we will do our best to promptly update this section with their privacy policies. Credits/Thank You The header of the new redesign was created by JC Rivera. During the year+ in which this website has been running I have had the great opportunity to talk to JC, promote his work, and have found his generosity to be unmatched. If you need graphic design for your company/website, custom toys, a t-shirt design, and other creative work - I cannot recommend JC Rivera enough. I was surprised by the speed with which this artist has produced our character and header and as you can tell, the quality is top notch. For more information about JC Rivera, please check out our interview with the artist, his website, portfolio, store, twitter, and facebook page. If you like the custom toys I post on Opportunity LOL, make sure to check out his store and buy something! I personally own a few of his creations and while his pictures look good, they are absolutely beautiful to see in person. What does the art and toy world think of his work? JC Rivera won "Best Kracka" in the 2011 Munnyworld Megacontest run by Kidrobot. He is also a great human being and friend, someone that you would be very lucky to be able to talk to and work with. Contact him right now! We would also like to thank the artists who e-mail us their images + info and those who produce equally amazing work that they make accessible for us to write blog posts and articles about. In addition, we've been blown away by the willingness of notable people to donate their time for us to interview them. We also appreciate the generosity of companies who send us product to review - while we may be popular now there were a lot of large companies that took a chance with us and we hope that we have over delivered on their investment. In the toy world, two specific individuals have played a HUGE part in how we have made connections and received toys for us to build content on. Thank you so much to Dov Kelemer of DKE Toys and Benny Kline of Tenacious Toys! If you need an ally as an artist you should know that they are extremely nice and helpful people that may be able to help you reach your goals. DKE Toys is a wholesale distributor for the coolest art and toys and Tenacious Toys is my absolute favorite online toy retailer. We've spoken to many artists on the phone and there hasn't been a call yet where Benny or Dov have not come up - and it's clear that the toy world owes these individuals a lot. I personally would like to thank my parents who have given me an education, support, and helped me become the person I am. Finally, Opportunity LOL has received a tremendous amount of help from Michael and Nancy L. who have provided a lot of fantastic advice and resources for us to succeed on a high level.
©2010-2012 Opportunity LOL |
|
