I'm planning on doing at least one column in the future about the various ways in which people make money off of the Internet, and how well it works out. So far, I've got the following general categories:
Affiliate Programs - Programs that require you to make a sale to a customer / a customer to purchase something through a link from your website in order for you to get paid.
Get Paid To Click - Programs that deposit a certain amount of money into an account whenever you click on an advertising banner or link.
Get Paid To Read - Programs that deposit a certain amount of money into an account whenever you click on an advertising banner or link and remain on the target webpage for a given amount of time.
Get Paid To Surf - Programs that pay you (or pay you a return on an initial investment) to allow a browser-based program to surf through webpages that you might be interested in.
Get Paid To Answer - Programs that pay you to answer questions about your opinions, behaviors, lifestyle, or other subjects of interest to marketers.
Get Paid To Participate - Programs that require your participation in other ways not covered by the above.
Secret Shopping - Programs that recruit your services as a shopper, and require you to report on a particular business's practices or perform other evaluative tasks for quality control purposes.
Web Advertising - Programs that pay you to host banners or links on your website, either paying per impression (per time the page is loaded) or per click (per time a user clicks on the advertisement.)
And I'm sure there's others that I'm not thinking of at the moment...
So here's the question - what is a method of making money (or earning free stuff that has monetary value) on the Internet that you use, or have heard of? If you've tried this in the past, what are some examples of programs and sites that have worked well for you - or ripped you off?
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Comments: 33
There's always selling - I've sold crafts on etsy.com and worked for a woman who sold clothing on e-bay.
I will never get rich and it won't replace a regular income, but I am able to pay for all of our groceries every month and have some funny money:)
To answer your question about what works......I read ll of the fine print and give most a try for a while. If it seems that they will take forever to pay, are scams in general, require me to invest, or just fill my email with crude, I move on and don't visit them again. If it just takes a little time and doesn't have a lot of convoluted rules and hoops that I have to go through, I keep it up.
Every site counts. I may only get $10 here or $5 there, but when you do this with a lot of sites, it adds up.
I just started posting daily articles about different online programs, been keeping an eye ball on me or something?
I also write for Associated Content for additional cash.
I also do "secret shopper" stuff once in awhile. Mostly for free pizza and $16 per shop.
I use to be on MyPoints but they asked me to leave when a loophole in the program let me earn enough points for a 32" widescreen TV, a GPS, and a laptop computer. ;^)
And there is NetWinner, basically choosing numbers game, which pays in gift cards. I also won $25 cash from them.
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Jim Swan's "None-Too-Great Hits" now on iTunes. Featuring the title song from his novel, "Dawn in Honolulu"
Austin, would appreciate your feedback on my contest entry photo essays:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977076643
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977083521
thanks!....gayle
I also participate in a number of different survey sites and have reveived giftcards and the like for participation. Most now have where you collect points for answering surveys and then can redeem them at different levels for various items or cash. Since many of them switched over to this system in the past year, I have not redeemed any points yet, but in previous incarnations, I had redeemed for cash in the $10-$20 range. I even had one just automatically mail me $2 for a survey I completed and it was a nice little surprise in my mail box.
A couple of the survey sites also have had me test products and I have received all kinds of items in the email from them. I have received hair coloring, razors, air freshener sprays, tuna helper when they were wanting opinions on a new flavor and other things. All these freebies add up to several dollars worth of savings in the long run. A website called Vocalpoint (designed for mothers, primarily) sends me samples of things all the time so that i can try them out and give my opinion on them. It is kind of nice to open the mail box to a little surprise like that.
there are so many that at the end..after youve spent a while jummping hoops they come up with you must respond to 2 and up offers
::notes the article's been flagged as 'Other':: Huh - that's odd. ::pokes off a letter to Gather's support staff::
makes cleaning up a necessity. I also cancel email accounts when the spam gets out of hand. I earn $1300 a month and reinvest 300 back in for advertising. My two biggest earning sites make me $20 a month others are up and down and some are just for cheap advertising. I will usually cancel a site that I feel I am wasting time on.