March 20th is one of the happiest days of the year for a multitude of reasons.

The Vernal Equinox ushers in the official end of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and one local summertime chain is celebrating. For almost two decades, Rita’s Italian Ices has been giving away free ices to customers to mark the occasion:

For the past 17 years, Rita’s has been giving away a free, regular size Italian Ice to each and every guest to mark the first day of spring! This is a sweet date for Italian Ice lovers, as each year, hundreds of thousands of our guests visit Rita’s in search of the first taste of spring.

A Philadelphia-born springtime tradition, the 17th annual Rita’s giveaway was held on Friday, March 20, 2009 from noon to 10 p.m. at participating Rita’s locations.  Rita’s guests showed their spring spirit and over 1.2 million cups of Italian Ice were given away in a ten hour period!

So Spring (or Autumn, if you live in the Southern Hemisphere) arrives midday today, go get an ice!

Happy Spring! Rita’s is giving away ices is a post from: The Inquisitr

‘Tis the season of jolly old men and the spirit of giving. While the jolly old men might end up in the drunk tank; or worse depending on whose sitting on their laps, the spirit of giving can bring you some pretty handy gifts. It also is a time when we can see some pretty interesting and fun promotions being run on the web. Smart companies are beginning to use things like Twitter as a way to get customer attention and while some definitely muck it up others look like they are actually having fun while giving you a chance to win some neat things.

One of those companies is a domain registrar called NameCheap and they have taken to Twitter in a big way in this Christmas season. They are playing a Christmas trivia game on Twitter where they are giving away over $17,000 of domain name registrations and hosting. Not bad especially if you get the trivia answer right. Not only that but they are also rewarding the top three people with the most correct answers with an iPod.

Now just a note of clarification here. I first became aware of NameCheap after they were recommended to me by a very good friend I have known for years and as result of that and the fact that they support PayPal payments I have started using them for my registrations. However – I am not getting anything in return for writing about this promotion of theirs. I just think that it combines to great things.

First off it shows some imaginative thinking about using some thing like Twitter in order to get your brand out there. As well you have a shot at winning some free stuff and have a chance to test your trivia knowledge about this holiday season.

So if you’re interested in playing along and you are on Twitter just follow @Namecheap or check out their rules page for the contest. The contest goes on day and night until December 25th and apparently there is no expiration date on the prizes.

Who knows you just might pick yourself up a few free domain registrations – a nice little present to give ourselves this Christmas.

Get that domain for free is a post from: The Inquisitr