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It's tax time again, and that means the usual round of dreary 1040-related campaigns about e-filing deadlines and audits, right?
In fact, the promotions this year are far from dreary. Tax prep firms such as H&R Block and tax software makers like Intuit are extending themselves to reach young filers and capture their brand loyalty with lively promotions.
For two years, Intuit's TurboTax has run Web "tax rap" and stand-up "tax laugh" contests. This year it's making an effort to lower the entry barriers further and to bridge the online/offline gap. The new "SuperStatus" contest (at www.SuperStatus.com) offers a weekly challenge in which players have to answer a question - for example, "Where's the weirdest place you've ever found money?"
Trick is, they must answer using the status update feature inside Facebook, MySpace or Twitter, which means they can use a maximum of only 140 characters. They also have to get the answer in before a countdown clock on the site hits zero, and they must use the...