MySecretSound.com, an award-winning website, announced today that it will no longer charge for its services and it will go free, allowing everyone to access its services. In addition, if somebody guesses a Mystery Secret Sound, they can win up to $10,000.

This strategy obviously underlines the website's ambition to get into the top 500 websites in the world. A fee of $10 had to be paid by contestants prior to this strategy, allowing them five guesses at the secret sound.

Chris Dutton, the founder of MySecretSound, decided to explain their marketing move:

"We want everyone to be able to participate in one of the most addictive competitions online at the moment. The previous figure of $10 for five guesses wasn't exactly a lot of money, but when users were spending $40 or $50 trying to win the jackpot sound, we figured that by allowing it to be totally free, many more people could try and win the money - thereby increasing its popularity."

Two prizes offering $10,000 in cash were already given away by the MySecretSound website in the past few months. Due to the fact that it has become a free website, these prizes will probably be more and more frequent.

Chris Dutton also mentioned the addiction the site could give: "We get lots of people emailing us saying that they keep listening to the secret sound at home and it gets rather annoying as they can't quite put their finger on what it is. People really like the idea, but it does become rather addictive!"

The secret sound can be listened to by anyone. When it is guessed, the answer is judged by the panel at MySecretSound.com.

Dutton said: "We were using the idea of secret sounds on the radio, and we found that the annoying thing with the radio competitions was that you only get a short period of time to listen to the sound - it's basically when the DJ choses to play it. The idea with MySecretSound.com, is anyone can listen to the mystery sound as often as they like - a distinct benefit! They can guess whenever they want, but we liked the idea of being able to listen before you guess."

Launched in July 2006,  www.MySecretSound.com continues to grow in popularity.