Hookit.com review

Hookit.com (formerly loopd.com and sponsorhouse.com) is a social networking site for athletes of all types. In addition to another "friending" website, hookit.com also provides opportunities for athletes to become "sponsored" by various companies. It brings the Nascar-patches-on-your-jeans-jacket approach to the everyday athlete. While this sounds very sexy and flattering, I've learned that the "sponsorship" is a seemingly automated process where you "apply" for sponsorship and in 1-3 days you receive an offer. These offers are essentially discount codes to purchase the company's products at an mild to impressive discount with some hitches. In some cases you can get 50% of carbon fiber bike frames, albeit from companies I haven't hear of before. In return for the discount codes, they would like you to help promote and market for their company and keep your hookit.com profile up-to-date with photos which they may use for promotional material. Within the first 48 hours, I received "sponsorship" offers from Rudy Project (great sunglasses), Fluid recovery nutrition, and Synergy Triathlon/Grey Cycling gear. The discount codes were for 35-50% off of their products, and a few stated you must wear their decals on your bike helmet or bike. As for the social aspect, there are limited endurance athletes on the site (most athletes are snowboarders, skaters, BMX, motocross, etc). In the end, hookit.com is great in concept but I have yet to see how it's not another way to get you to spend your money on products you might not otherwise look at for purchase. I suppose if enough people use it, hookit.com might attract larger brands and bring in some significant offers. If you are looking for some new gear and want to get a decent size discount at the risk of not seeing the product live (internet orders only), give it a try.