FreeCashSpace

Another Way to Earn Money From Google

2007-08-15T10:04:00.001+10:00

Google is encouraging people to become Google Business Referral Representatives, and get paid to send Google information about local businesses in their area. You visit local businesses, collect some info about them (type of business, hours of operation, types of payments accepted, etc.), take a couple of digital photos and submit it all to Google. They pay $2 for each referral they accept, plus another $8 when the info is verified by the business. So you can make a total of $10 for each business you sign up. That could easily amount to $50 to $100 a day.

You have to be in the US, be over 18, and legally eligible to work in the US.

Use your Google account to log in here to get started.

Technorati Tags: Google, local.google.com, earn, make money, get paid

SearchChips Purchased, on Hold Until 2008

2007-06-22T20:48:00.001+10:00

I first blogged about SearchChips last year. It's a "search and win" site a bit like Blingo and Winzy, where you can win prizes by using their search engine. This is just a quick update for people who might've signed up and not used SearchChips in a while (like me!), to let them know that SearchChips has been sold, the website has been pulled, and they're saying that there will be a new website launched next year, that all our chips will still be in our accounts, blah, blah, blah. You can read their FAQ if you want more info.

The SearchChips search engine (rebranded /powered by Ask.com) was OK, and they did give away over $100,000 in prizes, so if they come back, I'll continue to use them occasionally. But even though they're offered me the chance to get a free iPod, they're still facing a lot of competition, particularly from Winzy, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Prizes are cool, but for me the best reward from a search is a link to whatever it is I'm looking for.

Earn Gather Points for Uploading Your Pics

2007-06-14T08:16:00.001+10:00

Gather.com is offering members the chance to earn 10 Gather points for every photo they upload to the site between now and June 30th. Gather members can rate and comment on each others' photos, and the member who uploads the pic that receives the most '10' ratings will win a $20 Borders gift card. And the member who writes the best comment about the winning pic will get one too!

If you're not a member of Gather.com, or you don't know what it's all about, basically it's an online community where you can publish stories, essays, poems, recipes, articles, photos, drawings or whatever. You can join groups, participate in discussions, rate other members' stuff, or read the comments they leave about your stuff. And you get Gather Points for doing all of that. Then you can redeem your Gather Points for things like a $10 Borders gift card (625 points), an Omaha Steaks gift certificate (1,565 points) or a $50 Home Depot gift card (3,125).

I have to admit I've been a member at Gather.com for quite a while now, and I haven't contributed anything to the site. I don't have a single Gather Point. I've occasionally read some of the short stories and articles posted by other members, and thoroughly enjoyed them. I really should start participating. Maybe I'll start by uploading some photos!

Technorati Tags: writing, money, paid writing, Gather.com

Buying and Selling Websites

2007-06-12T22:36:00.001+10:00

After following a link from NewspaperGrl's The Truth About Making Money Online post, I spent a bit of time poking around BuySellWebsite.com. Yes, it's a website where you can buy and sell websites. I visited a few of the sites for sale -- mostly affiliate-type sites -- and checked out the prices, as well as some of the stats for the sites. And I wondered if anybody was buying. Content consists of a website directory in various health and nutrition-related categories, each with a thumbnail image of the site and a one or two-line description.

Then I saw TotalNutrition.info, which has apparently sold for $10,000. According to the info provided about the site, it gets around 3800 unique visitors a month, and has a net income of $3000 a month (which appears to be from Adsense and Amazon affiliate sales), a PageRank of 2, and an Alexa ranking of around 1,000,000.

Another site that I checked out was MyScrapbookingSecrets.com, a site that sells digital scrapbooking kits through ClickShare, with $3500-4800 in monthly income from 3600 unique visitors, a PR3 and Alexa Rank of around 50,000. Asking price? $19,000 reduced from $27,000. I think I'll keep an eye on it and see if it sells, and at what price.

And finally, I was intrigued by OrganizedFamilies.com, which was for sale for $14,295. It has 7337 unique visitors, PR3, and an Alexa score of around 1,100,000. But the part that got my attention was the claim that the site has a 25% CTR and a $20+ eCPM. The site includes Amazon and other affiliate ads, Adsense, and direct sales of a few of their own products.

If all those numbers don't mean much to you, don't worry about it. The important thing to know is that a PageRank of 2 or 3 is fairly average for a small site (this blog has a PR3), and while Alexa rankings don't really mean much, a rank of 1,000,000 is nothing to brag about (this blog's ranking is around 500,000; also nothing to brag about).

My point is that these sites are nothing extraordinary. Clearly the people who've created them have put some work into them. Maybe a lot of work. They've found their niche, they've built their traffic, they've created content, and they've found ways to make money from their sites month after month after month. And now they're selling their sites for ten to twenty thousand bucks. Not a bad chunk of change.

You aren't going to build a website today and sell it for $10,000 next week. Building websites that make $3000 to $5000 a month in net income isn't easy. It takes time, it takes energy, it takes persistence, and you'll have to learn 5000 things you never thought you'd need to know. But it's do-able. And sometimes it's even fun.

Payments for May 2007

2007-06-05T23:22:00.001+10:00

eBay	$111.03
PecoMail	$0.05
Total:	$111.08
Year-to-Date:	$860.60

A lower total this month, but only because I didn't have any income other than eBay sales. But the eBay money was fairly reasonable this month -- $111 in profit from $435 in sales. I can live with that.

And of course I shouldn't overlook the nickel I received from PecoMail, which was an unexpected payment after the owner of the site blew a gasket and deleted my account because I made critical comments about some changes she'd made to the PecoMail Terms of Service. And also because I'd pointed out that she'd broken those Terms herself. Some PTR owners really don't like it when people do that sort of thing. Oops! LOL! To be fair, at least she paid me my nickel before she deleted my account. A lot of PTR owners like to keep those nickels for themselves.

I think payments for June will be higher than they were in May. eBay sales have started off well (as a comparison, we've had six sales so far this month compared with 1 at the same point last month), and I should get some payments from PayPerPost and a couple of survey companies as well.

Technorati Tags: get paid, PTR, paid to read, eBay, make money online, PecoMail

PayPerPost Direct

2007-05-29T21:35:00.001+10:00

If by any chance you're reading this by visiting my blog instead of through your favorite feedreader, you might have noticed the new "PPP Direct" badge I've got in the sidebar. Wassit all about? It's PayPerPost's answer to competitors like ReviewMe, Blogitive, etc. Now advertisers can offer opportunities for sponsored posts to individual bloggers, with PayPerPost acting as the middleman. Sound familiar? That's because it is. But the cool part is, PPP's commission is a helluva lot smaller than their competitors. They collect a 10% fee, which I think is reasonable. I mean, compared to their usual "marketplace" commission, which is 35%, that's sweet, and compared to some of the other services like ReviewMe, which charge anywhere from 50% to a 100% commission, that's awesome.

All a PPP blogger has to do is login to their PPP account, click on "ppp tools", set their price, then cut and paste the code into their blog template and they're ready to go. Then advertisers can click on your badge (and I think there's also going to be a directory of PPP Direct bloggers that advertisers can use to find the blogs and bloggers they're looking for) and negotiate a deal with you. The advertiser gets the blog post they wanted, you make money blogging, and PayPerPost gets a cut for providing a sort of escrow service that ensures that neither party screws the other one.

Sounds easy enough, and I can't wait to find out if it really is as easy as it sounds.

Technorati Tags: PayPerPost, ReviewMe, Blogitive, problogging, paid content, sponsored blogging

Banner Ads Work!

2007-05-22T08:07:00.001+10:00

ArsTechnica has an article about a psych study that shows that banner ads really work, even though most people pay almost no attention to them. As it turns out, that doesn't really matter. The experiment indicated that the more a person is exposed to an ad for a product or brand, the more positive feelings they have for it.

I guess that's good news for the advertisers and the sellers, and a good reason to install the AdBlock extension for Firefox so you can block ads for products and brands you don't want to like. Take that, CrazyFrog!

Technorati Tags: advertising, subliminal, subliminal advertising, ArsTechnica

Niche Blogging -- Notebookism

2007-05-12T11:29:00.001+10:00

I came across a link to this blog and checked it out to see if it was what I thought it was. And it was! Notebookism is a blog devoted to notebooks, diaries, sketchbooks, etc. And it's not only a blog, but there's a Flickr pool and a Google Group as well.

What's it got to do with making money online? Well, I don't know if Armand, the founder of Notebookism is making much money from it, but I think it's an excellent example of creating a niche blog based on a passion or a hobby. And anybody can do it. Start the blog, build the community, and monetize it with ads, affiliate links, etc. Of course there's no guarantee you'll make much money with it, but even if you don't, it can still be very rewarding to blog about something you care about, and to "meet" others who care about it, too.

Technorati Tags: blogging, notebookism, notebooks, diaries, moleskins, sketchbooks, niche blogging, niche marketing

Bloggers Protected by Anti-SLAPP Law

2007-05-08T20:48:00.000+10:00

Eric Goldman posted a nice little entry on his Technology & Marketing Law Blog about bloggers' anti-SLAPP protection. SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, and it happens when one party (usually a big company) files a lawsuit to try to shut up another party who's saying something the big company doesn't like.

The thing is, criticizing somebody, whether it's an individual, a business, or even a big company, isn't necessarily against the law. So lots of places have anti-SLAPP protections so people won't get sued just because they say something somebody doesn't like. The recent case Eric discusses, anti-SLAPP protection was extended to a blogger, which really isn't that earth-shattering, but I think it's something bloggers should be aware of.

Since I blog about making money online, I also blog about ways you might think you're going to make money online, when really you're just going to get scammed. Occasionally, when I point out a particular scam, I get some idiot emailing me or posting in a forum somewhere ranting about "slander" or "libel" and how I should expect to hear from their lawyers...blah, blah, blah....take the shirt off my back....blah, blah, blah...cellmate named Bruiser...blah, blah, blah...and on and on it goes, and you wouldn't believe some of the ridiculous threats some of them come up with.

Of course laws are different in different places, and it's never safe to assume that just because something makes sense, that's how the powers that be will do things, but in most cases, in most places, calling a spade a spade isn't illegal, and criticizing, or even insulting somebody, isn't necessarily a crime.

So in the event that you end up dealing with some moron who tries to take it further than just throwing around baseless and pathetic threats, and who actually tries to take you to court in hopes that you'll stop the criticism (especially if your criticisms are dead-on), it's worth checking to see if there are anti-SLAPP protections where you are. It might just turn out that the moron is the one who's breaking the law.

The Importance of Honesty, Integrity and Disclosure

2007-05-05T10:05:00.001+10:00

12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know has been a very interesting and informative read this morning. It covers things like copyright, deep linking, cybersqatting, SPAM, and lots of other things, but I think my favorite was the one about disclosure.

Disclosure has always been a big part of what this blog is all about. When I started back in 2005, the only people I saw posting how much they were making online were the ones posting scans of checks or screenshots of Paypal records that "proved" they were raking in five or six figures a month. Oh, and of course they'd be happy to show you how to do it for just $79.95. The first monthly total I posted was four figures, but two of those figures were on the right side of the decimal point -- $32.18. Not very impressive, but at least it was honest.

And when I started writing sponsored posts for PayPerPost, I was honest about that, too. Full disclosure, all the way. No other option ever entered my mind. Of course Google says that's not good enough, and wants me to jump through a few hoops to create a kind of disclosure that its spiders can understand.

I think disclosure is important for bloggers. I think it's important for radio personalities. And I think it's important for magazines, which is why I decided to write this post after reading about the sudden resignation of Harry McCracken, the Editor-in-Chief of PC World magazine. Although Colin Crawford, the CEO of PC World denies it, the reason McCracken quit is because Crawford and the marketing dept. were too willing to throw editorial integrity out the window, and to "tone down" criticisms that might have a negative impact on major advertisers.

When that sort of thing happens, whether it's online or offline, it means that every article or review can be considered an undisclosed paid "advertorial." I wonder if Matt Cutts is planning on coming up with a clever little HTML hack to help Googlebot deal with crap like that?

Technorati Tags: blogging, disclosure, PC World, McCracken, PayPerPost, Paypal, Google, Crawford, advertorials

Internet Radio Saved...

2007-05-04T22:45:00.001+10:00

...for two months, at least.

The Copyright Royalty Board has announced that the first royalty payments from radio webcasters isn't due until 15 July instead of 15 May. That gives Congress more time to pass the Internet Radio Equality Act (58k pdf file) , which would set Internet radio royalty fees at the same rate currently required for satellite radio. Sounds reasonable to me.

I still support the "Save Internet Radio" efforts, even though it looks like it won't do me any good personally. I received another email from Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora, that said that due to licensing issues, since I'm accessing Pandora from outside the U.S., my access will be blocked. No more Pandora for me. :( I'm guessing other Internet radio sites will follow suit.

Technorati Tags: pandora, copyright royalty board, copyright, music, internet radio equality act, Westergren

Payments for April 2007

2007-05-02T09:49:00.000+10:00

eBay	$78.32

ReviewMe	$20.00
Blogitive	$5.00
PayPerPost	$20.00
ePoll	$30.00
Esearch surveys	$1.00
Lightspeed Panel surveys	$10.00
KRI Panel surveys	$15.00
Total:	$239.32
Year-to-Date:	$749.52

When I sat down to start this post, I was thinking it wasn't going to be a very good month. I knew the profits from eBay sales was going to be a lot lower than last month, and lower our average. But total income for the month turned out to be right about average, and came from a higher number of sources, which I'm happy about. After all, part of what I'm trying to do with this blog is show that there are lots of different ways to make money online. So I'm happy not to have all my eggs in one basket.

One reason for lower ebay profits this month is because we've just increased our prices, which was necessary due to increased import/shipping costs. Another is because we've launched some new advertising campaigns, which has resulted in quite a few new customers trying out our products. New customers usually make smaller purchases, especially the "trial pack" we offer, which only costs them a few dollars, and from which we make almost no profit. But we know that those low-cost trial packs are great for us in the longer term, so hopefully sales will pick up in the coming months. In any case, I'm definitely not complaining. Over $75 profit on around $275 in sales, and all I do is put up a few auction listings each week, answer a few inquiries, and a few trips a week to the Post Office or the nearest mailbox.

I'm also happy with the money I made from sponsored posts last month. $45 in total, with $20 from PayPerPost, $20 from ReviewMe, and $5 from Blogitive. I think that's probably about as much as I'll ever make in a month, unless I add sponsored posts to some other blogs. I really don't want to just start throwing up a bunch of sponsored posts that have nothing to do with the topics I normally blog about here at FCS, but I've been thinking that it might be a good idea to start a new blog, or re-purpose an old one, that's better suited to sponsored posts, affiliate sales, etc.

And the third way I made money in April was from online survey companies. $56 in total, with most of it paid in the form of Amazon gift certificates, which is just as good as cash in my particular case. I loooooove shopping at Amazon! That's more than I've earned from paid survey companies in a long time. What's changed? For one thing, I think many of the companies are sending out more surveys, so that helps. The only change I've made is that I've got all my survey invitations going to a single email address, and I'm trying to check that email account several times a day, and do the surveys ASAP. Some days I do the "screeners" and don't qualify for the full surveys, other days I do one or two surveys, so it probably averages out to be about 20 minutes of "work" a day.

So as it turns out, I'm quite happy with my earnings this month. Not only did I make over $200 that I wouldn't have otherwise made, but I did it doing stuff I enjoy anyway. Blogging, selling stuff on eBay, and sharing my opinions. Sweet!

Technorati Tags: make money online, PayPerPost, Blogitive, ReviewMe, eBay, paid surveys, ePoll, KRI Panel, LightSpeed Panel

Feds Want to Take Out E-Gold

2007-05-01T22:30:00.001+10:00

A grand jury in Washington, DC has indicted E-Gold Ltd., its owner/founder, Douglas Jackson, and several other people associated with the digital currency compnay on several charges, including conspiracy to launder money and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. This, according to the Justice Dept., comes after a 2 1/2 year investigation by the Secret Service, and over a year after the Dec. 19, 2005 FBI/SS raid on E-Gold's offices in Florida.

The US government's beef with E-Gold is that they say it is the digital currency of choice for terrorists, identity thieves, child pornographers and other scumbags. I don't doubt it. But it's also used by coffee growers, potters, software creators, web hosting companies, publishers, and lots of other non-scumbags. You can even use E-Gold to make donations to the Mozilla Foundation, the Loaves and Fishes Soup Kitchen, and other charities.
And according to this great Wired article from way back in 2002, you can even use E-gold at Action Gun Outfitters' pistol range.

Personally, one of the reasons why I like E-Gold is for its subversive factor. I also like it because it's the closest thing to a working, large-scale online micropayments system we've got. I like it because it's a global online trading system that's backed by real gold. I like it because it's a private online trading network that isn't controlled by any government. Although it looks like the US government would really like to change that.

The bottom line for me is this. If Jackson was knowingly involved in anything to do with kiddie porn, identity theft or any of the rest of it, then I hope they nail him. He says that not only is he not involved in anything like that, he's been working with the Feds to help them bust the criminals who've been using E-Gold to conduct their business. And according to this letter, E-Gold was one of the founding members of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Financial Coalition against Child Pornography.

So I'm going to go with "innocent until proven guilty", because my gut feeling is that what's really going on is that the US government doesn't like the idea of an global trading system that they have no control over. I accept that there are some seriously nasty people using E-Gold to conduct some seriously nasty business. I could say the same thing about US dollars, but I don't think that means that Henry Paulson (US Sec. of the Treasury), Anna Escobedo Cabral (US Treasurer) and Ben Bernanke (Chairman of the Federal Reserve System) should be held responsible for their "involvement" with those nasty criminal activities.

At InformationWeek, Larry Greenmeier says he finds it hard to believe that E-Gold could be "a misunderstood crusader for cyber safety" and also a "key enabler of identity theft." I don't see what's so hard to believe. Criminals, like the rest of us, use the tools that best help us accomplish their goals. E-Gold is a great tool for conducting business transactions online. And many of the features that make it great for all of us non-scumbag, law abiding (mostly), honest (more or less) people also make it a great tool for the scammers, scumbags, criminals, perverts, etc.

Technorati Tags: E-Gold, scams, cybercrime, libertarian, privacy

Blockbuster Better Deal Than Netflix

2007-04-25T15:00:00.001+10:00

I just got my first assignment as a member of the LinkyLoveArmy, and it's one I'm very happy to participate in.

We're promoting the Blockbuster Online Total Access Trial deal.

When you sign up for Blockbuster Online, you get the first month for $9.99, and then $17.99 each month after that. Your membership fee entitles you to have up to 3 DVDs at a time. That's similar to Netflix's most popular plan, with one added bonus -- with Blockbuster Online, instead of returning your DVDs through the mail, you can put the DVD in the postage-paid envelope and take it to your local Blockbuster store and exchange it for a free rental DVD.

How freaking cool is that?

Of course the trick to all these sorts of DVDs-through-the-mail things is to make sure you watch enough DVDs to get your money's worth. For me, that means watching and returning 7 or 8 movies a month. For families like Julie's, watching 10 to 20 movies a week, a Blockbuster DVD rental subscription is a no-brainer. We don't watch that many, but we watch enough that it makes sense for us to join a DVD service like that.

Another bonus with BlockBuster Online is that you get a printable coupon for 1 free in-store DVD rental every month. So if you work it right, you can get order 3 DVDs through the mail, watch them, then return them to your local Blockbuster store, where you get 3 free in-store DVDs. And as soon as the kid at the Blockbuster store punches your return into their computer, the next 3 DVDs in your queue go into the mail. If you do that once a week, that's 25 movies a month. For $17.99. If your turn-around time is faster, you can get even more DVDs for your dollar.

IF your family watches that many DVDs every month, then I think this Blockbuster thing is a hell of a good deal.

Saving Money and Eating Healthy

2007-04-25T11:14:00.001+10:00

A lot of the posts on this blog, especially lately, have been about making money, but I try not to forget that one of the reasons I started blogging was because I wanted to talk about saving money as well. Because when you think about it, saving money is the same as making money -- the end result is more money in your wallet.

When I was a kid, my family didn't have a lot of money, so the whole "frugal living" thing was pretty much just normal life for us. When I got older and started making money, it felt good to be able to spend freely, without having to worry about pinching every penny. Unfortunately, I started spending a little too freely, and ended up in debt. But that's another story.

Things changed when my wife and I found out we were going to be parents. Up until then, we'd been focusing a lot on creating the life we wanted as a couple. And since the life we wanted (or thought we wanted) cost a lot of money, we worked a lot to get the money to pay for it. And we were happy. But when we started thinking about what kinds of parents we wanted to be, we decided we wanted a more balanced lifestyle. We did NOT want to be workaholic parents who didn't know their own children. So we started making changes.

And we're still making changes. Over the past nine years, the way we think about money, success, and happiness have changed a lot. And so has the way we live. And one of the biggest changes we've made (and are still continuing to make) is the way we eat. Which is why I enjoyed reading Trent's post at The Simple Dollar called How The Farm Bill Affects Your Wallet And Your Health - And Ten Ways To Eat Healthy and Cheap Anyway.

Nine years ago, we weren't doing any of the things on Trent's list. We ate out a lot, and yet we were also spending a fortune on groceries -- mostly on junk food, instant this and microwave that. But not any more. Now we cook a lot of good, healthy, cheap meals from scratch.

We buy most of our fruits and vegetables from the farmer's market instead of the supermarket.

We're getting better about buying foods in season.

We've been cooking in bulk (including "instameals") and freezing for years, and now we're thinking about getting into canning and preserving as well.

We got a great deal on a crockpot in an after-Xmas sale last year, and we're discovering more great crockpot dishes all the time.

We "repurpose" a lot of our leftovers, and use them in soups, stews, wraps, pies and pastries so that very little food goes to waste.

I agree with Trent that one of the keys to making healthy foods taste good is to learn how to enhance the foods' flavours with the right herbs and spices. We've grown our own herbs in the past, but not for the last few years. That's something we'd like to start doing again. We'd also like to do a bit of microgardening (container gardening) and try producing some tomatoes, radishes, carrots, cucumbers, beans, bell peppers, etc.

I think the "food exchange" idea is a good one, and I'd be interested to find out if anybody is doing anything like that in our area.

It amazes me how many people devote so much time and energy to making money, but don't seem to think much about how they spend that money. I think that's a very dangerous way to live -- especially when it comes to things like health and nutrition.

50 Blog Directories

2007-04-25T09:17:00.001+10:00

Over at MikesMoneyMakingMission, Mike Perry has a big list of 50 blog directories, organised by PageRank. The weekly traffic and earnings reports he posts show that he doesn't get a lot of traffic from blog directories, and neither have I. Does adding your blog to a directory with a higher PR help increase your blog's PR? I have no idea. But since FreeCashSpace has been sitting on PR3 for a loooooong time now, I'm willing to try and see if these blog directories can help. Over the next week, I'll submit the FCS blog to all 50 directories, and see if it has an impact on traffic or PageRank.

Only 19 Days Left to Save Internet Radio

2007-04-25T07:30:00.001+10:00

If you enjoy listening to free music that is completely legal and supportive of the artists who created it, then please visit the SaveNetRadio.org website and find out what you can do to help

Technorati Tags: freestuff, music, SaveNetRadio

LinkyLoveArmy

2007-04-25T07:21:00.001+10:00

Brett Bumeter, aka "Colonel Love", has launched a new blog monetization site called LinkyLoveArmy. The idea behind LLA is that bloggers can work together rather than compete for advertisers, and they can reduce their dependence on "middle men" like Text Link Ads, Adsense, or PayPerPost.

The kind of collaborative blogging LLA has in mind works something like this. LLA launches a CPA campaign, with one or more of their members acting as "wedge bloggers." These wedge blogs are chosen because they're most likely to get the best results for the advertiser, but the collaborative part comes in when other LLA bloggers then link to the wedge bloggers' posts, hopefully increasing the effectiveness of the campaign.

Then all the bloggers involved in the campaign split the proceeds -- with 70% of each conversion going directly to the wedge blogger involved in the sale, and the other 30% being split by all the participants in the campaign.

Will it work? I have no idea! But I think it's cool that new models and methods for monetizing blogs are being tested.

Technorati Tags: problogging, LinkyLoveArmy, LLA, blogging, blog monetization, advertising

Making Money With Paid Surveys is NOT a Job

2007-04-22T09:40:00.001+10:00

Deborah Ng at WorkFromHomeMomma posted about paid surveys today, and I suspect her experience with them sounds very familiar. I totally agree that doing paid surveys isn't a job, or even an employment opportunity, and it's a shame that they're often marketed as such.

Deborah makes money online as a freelance writer. She says she has more work than she knows what to do with, and she's being paid to do something she loves -- writing. So it makes sense that she wouldn't want to use up any of her writing time to spend it doing paid surveys. But that doesn't mean paid surveys are a waste of time for everybody.

We've all got to decide for ourselves how we can best use our time, and I know that there are people out there who've managed to turn their participation in paid surveys (and especially the promotion of paid survey programs) into very lucrative businesses. But for most of us, paid surveys are at best going to bring in a bit of extra money. Maybe a few hundred bucks a year. That's not a job, and depending on your other options, it might not be the smartest, or most profitable, way to use your time online.

But if you enjoy spending a bit of your time doing these sorts of surveys (personally, I like the ones where I get to find out about new products before they're launched), and you feel like the money you're being offered is a reasonably fair exchange for that time, then paid surveys can be a nice way to make a few extra bucks.

Some of the paid survey programs that I recommend these days include:

MySurvey
LightSpeed Panel
ePoll
American Consumer Opinion Panel
SurveySavvy
SurveySpot

Technorati Tags: paid surveys, wahm, work from home

Mike Perry Questions Wealth Toolbox Scam

2007-04-21T16:35:00.001+10:00

Six Questions to Ask About Wealth Toolbox is a follow-up to Mike's post called Money Making Test: A Warning About Wealth Toolbox. Both are worth a read if you're thinking about handing over your hard-earned money to Wealth Toolbox or any kind of similar online investment scam.

Of the 6 questions, I think my favorite is Question Number 4:

If they are so clever at making money, and getting 237% returns on investments, why do they need to start up a dodgy looking website and tout courses on investing? Wouldn't it be a lot simpler just to make money for themselves, especially as it is supposedly so easy?

To me, that pretty much sums it up. If they've got such a fool-proof method for making money with all their fantastic forex trading skillz, then why aren't they spending all their time becoming gozillionnaires instead of running a shady online ponzi scam? Not to mention trying to con people into buying into Day Job Killer?

The sad part is that despite the fact that Wealth Toolbox is such an obvious scam, I'm sure there are plenty of people who are more than happy to cough up $500 for the chance to get rich quick.

Technorati Tags: wealth toolbox, scam, ponzi, fraud

Why Not Start a Side Business?

2007-04-21T16:18:00.001+10:00

Personal Finance Advice has started a great series of posts called "Starting a Business With Pocket Change" that is well worth reading. Tina Parcell talks about starting up a side business, and so far she's included a lot of excellent information and advice.

And speaking of side businesses, Trent has a great post at The Simple Dollar talking about his experiences starting and running two side businesses -- a computer consulting business and blogging. It's awesome when people share their honest experiences, warts and all, and Trent offers some good advice, particularly about the importance of networking and providing great customer service.

Technorati Tags: money, sidebusiness, business, home business, side business

Save Pandora.com! Save internet radio!

2007-04-21T16:08:00.001+10:00

I got an email from the owner of Pandora.com the other day, and I thought I'd share. I've been a member at Pandora for a looong time and I really enjoy their site and their service, and I hope we can do something to keep it all going. If you're not familiar with Pandora.com, they "help you discover new music you'll love." You type in the name of a song or an artist that you like, and Pandora starts playing songs it thinks you'll like. You give each song a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, and it uses that info to refine its recommendations. It's great! And according to the email, it's in trouble:

Hi, it's Tim from Pandora,

I'm writing today to ask for your help. The survival of Pandora and all of Internet radio is in jeopardy because of a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC to almost triple the licensing fees for Internet radio sites like Pandora. The new royalty rates are irrationally high, more than four times what satellite radio pays, and broadcast radio doesn't pay these at all. Left unchanged, these new royalties will kill every Internet radio site, including Pandora.

In response to these new and unfair fees, we have formed the SaveNetRadio Coalition, a group that includes listeners, artists, labels and webcasters. I hope that you will consider joining us.

Please sign our petition urging your Congressional representative to act to save Internet radio:
http://capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/issues/alert/?alertid=9631541

Please feel free to forward this link/email to your friends - the more petitioners we can get, the better.

Understand that we are fully supportive of paying royalties to the artists whose music we play, and have done so since our inception. As a former touring musician myself, I'm no stranger to the challenges facing working musicians. The issue we have with the recent ruling is that it puts the cost of streaming far out of the range of ANY webcaster's business potential.

I hope you'll take just a few minutes to sign our petition - it WILL make a difference. As a young industry, we do not have the lobbying power of the RIAA. You, our listeners, are by far our biggest and most influential allies.

As always, and now more than ever, thank you for your support.

Tim Westergren
(Pandora founder)

So I'm passing this message on, and I hope that anybody who enjoys Pandora, or internet radio in general, will do whatever they can to help save it.

Technorati Tags: Pandora.com, music, radio, netradio, petition

Free Books From inBubbleWrap

2007-04-15T09:48:00.001+10:00

I thought I had blogged about this before, but apparently not, so I'm gonna do it now. It's a site called inBubbleWrap and they give away a free business-related book every weekday.

inBubbleWrap is run by 800-CEO-READ, who sell business-related books. So giving away a book a day is a bit of gimmick to showcase books and encourage more sales. Clever.

Some of the cool books they've recently given away include:

The Real Toy Story: Inside the Ruthless Battle for America's Youngest Consumers by Eric Clark
Planet India: How the Fastest-Growing Democracy Is Transforming America and the World by Mira Kamda
Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur: Why I Can't Stop Starting Over by Stuart Skorman
The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production-Toyota's Secret Weapon in the Global Car Wars that is Revolutionizing World Industry by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, Daniel Roos

And if those books aren't your cup-o-tea, they also give away books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad and CrazyBusy, etc. that can help you in both your personal and professional lives.

It's a cool little website, and even though I haven't won a book yet (oh, before I forget -- they'll only ship the free books to addresses in the US), it's been fun to try, and they've shown me a lot of great books to read . And I haven't had any problems with SPAM or anything after giving them my email address when I enter to win a book.

Technorati Tags: freebies, free, freestuff, free books, books, business books, inbubblewrap, 800-ceo-read

Doing More Paid Surveys

2007-04-12T13:10:00.000+10:00

After reading a blog post about paid surveys (that I won't link to because it was basically trying to con people into paying to join a paid survey scam site), I've been making an effort to increase my survey participation. And in just a week or so, it's really starting to pay off.

I've joined a few new programs, updated my profiles at some older ones, and I've made sure when I got a survey invitation in my inbox that I took the survey as soon as possible.

The results? I've been paid around $55 in Amazon gift certificates so far this month. $30 from ePoll, $10 from LightSpeed, and $15 from KRI Panel. And I've nearly got enough points for another $10 AGC from LightSpeed, and $10 cash from NFOMySurvey.

My advice for making money from paid surveys includes:

Use two dedicated email addresses -- sign up with one address, then when you've determined that a program is legit, move it to the other address
check those email accounts every day, and respond to any survey invitations as quickly as possible
fill out your profile as completely as possible
never pay for access to a list of survey sites

The thing I like about surveys is that not only do you get paid for doing them, but some of them are a lot of fun. I enjoy finding out about new products before they're released, and I looooooove telling companies what I think they're doing right and wrong (especially telling them what they're doing wrong!). Some of the surveys can be tedious and boring, and it drives me nuts when I spend 10 minutes answering questions only to be told I don't qualify for the survey, but mostly doing paid surveys is an enjoyable and rewarding (financially speaking, that is) experience.

Two New Sites for Bargain Hunters

2007-04-12T10:10:00.000+10:00

A post at ShoeMoney led me to a new "deal site" called Dealighted. Dealighted pulls all the deals from Fatwallet, Slickdeals, Anandtech , and GottaDeal, and puts them all together on one site.

The deals are submitted by real people, and you can choose to see the most popular, or all the deals that have been submitted. And there's also a price comparison function that's very handy. But I have to say that I agree with Jeremy's criticism; it would be nice if users could vote on the deals, or set preferences to filter out the deals they see (I don't want or need to see a "deal" for a free sample of the latest tampon technology, especially if they'll only ship to a US mailing address).

And the other new site I discovered (thanks to ProBargainHunter) is CouponLooker, a search engine for coupon or promo codes. CouponLooker collects coupon code info from a bunch of different coupon sites and lets you find them easily through their search engine.

These sorts of aggregator sites could come in real handy for those of us who like a bit of online bargain hunting, since it could mean we need to visit a smaller number of sites to get the same information.

Technorati Tags: bargains, bargain hunting, CouponLooker, Dealighted, shopping, price comparison, free stuff, coupons, coupon codes