Diana the Valkyrie's Guide to the Internet
A hard man is good to beat
While I'm on this subject, here's a few ways to actually make money while surfing. I haven't signed up for any of these, so A) I don't know how good they are, and B) I'm not actually recommending them, just telling you about them. A lot of them are "Multi-level marketing" schemes (MLM), whereby if you persuade other people to join up, you get revenue from your "downline". So, for example, if someone you sign up gets $1, maybe you get ten cents. Or maybe 25 cents, whatever. And if he signs up someone, you get a cut of that person's action, too. Typically, this could mean that you can annoy all your friends to get them involved, and make an additional $1 per week. Maybe more. It depends how much you're willing to work to make that ten cents. There's usually some ceiling to how much you can make via this, check the details.
Which brings me to C) I haven't signed up, so I don't get anything if you sign up. And please don't invite me to join your "downline" because I don't do MLM schemes.
Before I get down to details, there's one thing about this kind of scheme that bothers me. Where on earth are they going to find advertisers dumb enough to pay for an advert that is very likely going to be ignored? Or is the plan to expand operations while losing a bundle of money, and then float the company with an IPO to proudly take it's place alongside all the other new internet companies that don't make money either? I mean, when you look at the Amazon.com accounts, they made a loss of $138 million on $314 million sales in the last reported quarter. And they're usually cited as a big success story. "We did a lot this quarter," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO. So you did, Jeff; so you did.
GoToWorld.com is a search engine and magazine/community, and they pay you money to use their browser. If you surf the Internet and have the banner-viewer activated then you will have viewed 180 banners in an hour and you get paid 40 cents. If you surf for a couple of hours per day, a few days per week, you can make $5 per week. This doesn't put you in the Bill Gates league (or even up there with Mr Formby the window cleaner), but could pay you enough to buy a couple of bottles of beer (or a month on my web site). There's also an MLM scheme, so you can annoy all your friends to get them involved, and make an additional $1 per week.
AllAdvantage gives members the ability to "Get Paid to Surf the Web" (which is done with the Viewbar™) and to get cash refunds from on-line shopping. For the first 15 hours you are online with your Viewbar on you will be credited 50 cents per hour. So again, you stand to make $5 per week maybe. There's also an MLM scheme, so you can annoy all your friends to get them involved, and make an additional $1 per week, maybe.
UtopiAD is an advertising serving engine, that pays its members a percentage of advertisement revenue, which they say is much more beneficial to members than a "flat rate" payment model. Maybe. It depends on how good they are at selling the adverts. I looked at their site, I couldn't work out how much you'd be likely to get. According to their press release, their web site has been up since August 6, 1999, so as internet businesses go, they rank as an old established business. And yes, there's an MLM scheme here too, but I'm blessed if I could work out how it works from their description.
ePIPO will pay its Surf Partners (well, they aren't going to call you "marks", are they?) 60 cents per hour to surf the web. Well, that sure beats the 40 and 50 cents that Goworld and AllAdvantage offer. Maybe you'll make three bottles of beer per week from them. Plus, they have the good old MLM scheme that lets you annoy your friends. They're pretty new too. In fact, their web site says they're starting up in September 1999. Hmmm, maybe 40 or 50 cents isn't that bad.
Sharkhunt also offers a percentage of the revenue received from advertisers. You will earn 25p each hour that the Adbar is open. 25p? Hey, these guys must be British! Well, 25p is about 40 cents US. And there's the usual MLM scheme. Their adbar takes up 10% of your screen. Right now, they can only send out cheques in Pounds Sterling, but they're hoping to expand. Today England, tomorrow ... who knows, maybe other countries too? I wonder if they know that Americans call cheques "checks"?
Fed up with getting junk emails? Well - good news! You can sign up to get even more junk email! Money-for-mail. But when I went to their web site, it said "The Money For Mail Site is down for temporary maintenance to help serve you better. Please return in a few minutes." So I went back after a while, and it was still down. I'm not sure how being out of action serves me better, maybe they know something I don't? Anyway, it's back now, and you get between $.20 and $2.50 per email. Plus you can annoy your friends by trying to get them to sign up, in the usual way. Hey! $2.50 just for getting an email? Ah, I see. That's from your "downline", all the folks you've badgered into signing up.
So what's the catch? Well, let's look at it from the advertisers' point of view. They're the ones who are paying for your name. Now, imagine you're a possible advertiser. Are you going to pay $2.50 for some guy's email address, knowing there's a pretty high chance that your email isn't going to do very much? Or even $.20? But the payouts depend on advertisers doing exactly that.
So why are they doing this? Well, let's see. Maybe there really are advertisers that are willing to pay $2.50 to discover that my email address is Valkyrie@thevalkyrie.com. Oops. I just gave it away! Oh well, I can set up another email address. Or another hundred email addresses. Oops! I shouldn't have said that, now the advertisers will get really cold feet. Still, I'm a quality sales lead, aren't I? I mean, I checked all the boxes that says I'm really interested in buying everything, so I'll get lots of junk emails at $$$ per email. Yes, I am keen to buy a waffle-iron and fondue set. No, I don't have one already. Yes, I'm a shopping fool, just tell me and I'll buy.
Or ... hey, lookee here. I get a share of stock in the company when I sign up, and another share for each referral. So I guess they're thinking of an IPO, a listing on the exchange. Well, if they can show they've a zillion members, and each member is worth $3000 (that's how they valued Freeserve when it floated), then ... well, you get the idea.
I haven't signed up for any of these. If any members have, I'd be interested to hear from them, provided I can publish the information in this newsletter. But if you do write to me, don't tell me how to sign up. I already know, and I already decided not to.
Next month, I'm planning to cover "internet stocks", with special emphasis on "success stories" such as Amazon.com. My sources of information, by the way, are the information that these companies put about their deals on their web sites, and the SEC database, which anyone can access at http://edgar.sec.gov/cgi-bin/srch-edgar