"What began as an excellent promotional tool by Mountain Dew and Microsoft to sell sodas and generate press for Xbox 360 console has become an obsession for some. The contest gives individuals the chance to redeem promo codes which may be entered into a drawing for a Xbox 360 that occurs every 10 minutes. The primary means to obtaining these codes is by purchasing Mountain Dews 20 oz. bottles and viewing the code beneath the caps. Individuals can enter promotional codes from Mountain Dew bottles on Every10minutes. The more codes a user obtains the higher chance that he or she has of winning an Xbox 360. The user may enter codes for any 10 minute time slot within the next 48 hours. If the individual does not win an Xbox 360 for the block he or she enters, the codes will no longer be valid. Thus far for any given 10 minute time period there have between 350-1200 codes entered.

As the contest has continued the number of entrants has decreased. The reason for decrease was due to people exploiting the initial method of obtaining codes. When the contest began Mountain Dew offered users the chance to “Forward to a Friend” to notify about the contest. To encourage users to take advantage of “Forward to a Friend” Mountain Dew said it would send those users that sent out referrals five codes at the end of the contest, thus improving their odds to win a XBox 360. In addition to codes that the user would eventually receive, the referral or “Friend” would receive a promotional code. This gave the user an opportunity to exploit the system. As long as the user was willing to create alternate e-mail addresses, he or she could repeatedly send referral links including promotional codes (A few days after the contest began “Forward to a Friend” was canceled). This opened the flood gates for entrepreneurs everywhere." [more]