There are many bloggers who devote their time to discover new ways of making money online. Many of them are probably aware of the existence of various forums where people can discuss different aspects of earning money on the web. You can either search for forums using search engines, or you can look at some lists of such forums that are sometimes posted on websites. Often such lists contain names of dozens forums where you can learn something about making money online. However, in this article I would like to discuss different categories of forums devoted to making money. Generally, you can divide them into eight basic categories. Here they are:
1. Webmaster related. They focus on creating a website, and earning money from it. Those who like created websites will enjoy this way of making money.
2. Miscellaneous. Those are general forums that discuss all types of money making topics.
3. Domain name related. Some people buy and sell various domains.
4. Affiliate/Internet marketing related. Affiliate marketing can be a big source of income according to many experts. Of course, it requires some marketing skills and patience.
5. Work at home related.
6. Business related. Starting an online business can be a difficult task, but it can certainly be rewarding.
7. Online programs and HYIP related topics.
8. Money saving and free stuff related. You would be amazed how much money you can save by various means.
You never know from what type of forum you may benefit the most, so make sure you check out at least a few types of them.
There are a lot of things Google Maps can be useful for. I am sure that are some things that you may not know about, even if you are familiar with the software. Did you know that you can use Google Maps in order to find cheap gas? Do you know how this can be possible? You can accomplish this by using the GasBuddy extension to Google Maps. GasBuddy can help you locate all of the nearest gas stations, and allows people to leave notes such as gas prices or availability of regular or premium gas. It is hard not to notice the high gas prices, but fortunately this program will help you save some money, especially if you use your car a lot. We might not be able to influence the price of gas, but at least we should try to buy reasonably priced gas. GasBuddy currently allows you to find cheap gas prices in USA and Canada. Since it has a network of over 180 websites, it probably has the most comprehensive listings of gas prices anywhere. It is interesting to stipulate what would happen if all consumers had instant access to gas prices in their city. Would all of the service stations ultimately offer gas at the same price?
I was surprised to discover a service for bloggers called BuyBlogComments, which sell blog comments for around $0.25. What they do is look for blogs with a similar topic to yours that have do-follow links, and post a link to your blog in a comment or even comment in your name. Their service is quite expensive though. You will have to pay $25 for 100 comments, $124 for 500 comments, and $240 for 1000 comments. I would not use their service for various reasons. One of them is because I prefer to do such things myself rather than pay someone else for doing them. I think that in my case it would be a waste of money. The sad thing is that bloggers who will be tempted enough to use their service will have an advantage over other bloggers who post comments on other blogs by themselves. You will not find comments written in my name that are not written by me, and I do not believe that such service is ethically justifiable. Most bloggers would probably agree that posting comments in someone else’s name is not the right thing to do. However, I do not think that services like BuyBlogComments will cease to exist if they have a lot of customers.
As I might have mentioned before, submitting your website to different blog directories is an excellent way to increase your website�s Page Rank and attract new visitors. You will have more links pointing to your website, which will help your blog in the long run. I am only going to list directories to which I did not have problems submitting my blog, and did not have to pay anything. I got the idea of posting a list of directories after unsuccessfully trying to register to a lot of them myself. Most of them were either no longer existing, not accepting registrations, or you had to pay a hefty fee to be included there. As I said, I would like to list some recent directories where I included my blog. Some of them are blog directories, and some of them are RSS directories. I am sure being listed in both blog and RSS directories is beneficial to bloggers. Here is the list of blog directories: http://www.sarthak.net/blogz/add.php, http://www.fybersearch.com/add-url.php, http://www.daypop.com/info/submit.htm, http://www.blogrankings.com/addblog.php, http://www.blogpulse.com/submit.html, http://www.bloglines.com, http://www.blogdir.com/dir/formreg.php.
Here is the list of RSS directories, where you can submit your feed: http://www.feedsee.com/submit.html, http://www.weblogalot.com/Ping/, http://www.search4rss.com/?add=default, http://www.feed-directory.com/addfeed, http://www.anse.de/rdfticker/addchannel.php, http://reader.rocketinfo.com/desktop/AddRSSFeed.jsp, http://chordata.info/suggest.php.
Submitting to directories can be time consuming, but those who have taken the time to do it will tell you that it is worth it. This way you will obtain a lot of backlinks and get a lot of new visitors.
In the past I briefly wrote about AdSense. This time I would like to indicate for whom this might be a good opportunity, because I do not believe that everyone will reap the same benefits using this program:
-Only popular websites with a lot of traffic will really benefit. That is because the probability of a visitor clicking on an ad is small and is often 0.5-2%. You will need huge traffic to have a lot of clicks on your ads.
-Websites about FOREX, curing cancer, or other topics which involve a lot of money, will have a lot higher earnings per click compared to an average website. That is because ads are displayed based on the content of your website, and the earnings for each click might range from 1 cent to $3. The price depends on the category of an ad.
-Sites which already have a lot of ads displayed on their websites might discourage their readers from visiting their site by adding even more ads.
-Ads are served based on the website content. Websites about a very specific topic like, for example, computer monitors, will benefit far more from AdSense than websites which do not put emphasis on one topic like, for example, directory type websites. The reason for this is that visitors might actually appreciate ads which pertain to their interests.
-Webmasters that host their website on their own domain will reap greater profits, because they will be able to keep 100% of their income, unlike Blogger blogs, which will have to share their earnings with Blogger.
There has been a study done that suggests that people are abandoning compact disks in order to buy music from stores like iTunes. This is especially true of teenagers, as half of them do not buy a single compact disk even during a whole year. In 2006 the number of teenagers that did not buy a CD was around 40% according to a study. This shows a quite drastic trend, as at the same time the sale of digital songs grew fifty percent. This is mostly due to iTunes, which appeared to be an excellent business idea. The reason that many people are using their services is that you do not even have to leave your home to buy any music you want. Buying music this way is a very simple process. Additionally, you can find what you are looking for a faster than in a traditional store. Another reason is that the cost of storing music digitally like iTunes does is very low, and as a result customers pay less for their favorite music. On the other hand, traditional stores need a lot of space to store their CDs.
I think that the fact that the Internet is getting more and more popular each year is one of the main factors of the decline of the popularity of CDs. People spend a lot more time on the Internet, so it is natural for them to buy music online.
The number of Internet users is constantly growing and little thought has been given to the potential capacity of the Internet network. There has been a lot of speculation that the current Internet architecture will reach the limits of its capacity by 2012. It has been stated that Internet may not be able to cope with the increasing amounts of video content on the Internet. Videos amount to 40% of today’s traffic, but by 2012 it is estimated that it will be a lot higher number. To remedy the situation, a lot of money is needed to invest in a new infrastructure. While many Internet users are worried about the current situation, I think that as long as companies invest money in to maintain their network, there should not be any problems.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Clixsense is a company that pays its users to view ads. When it comes to the reaction to this program in the community, there is not a consensus when it comes to agreeing if this is a good money making program or not. Many people joined the program, because they have nothing to lose. Overall, I think this is a good opportunity to check out, but it depends on what are your objectives. That is why I have listed below for whom this program may be attractive.
For whom this program might be especially attractive:
-People who do not mind viewing ads. Since you can indicate your interests you might come across some ads which you will benefit from.
-People who are able to have referrals signed under them. You could potentially earn a lot more this way.
-People who want to learn how �Get Paid to View Ads� systems work.
-People willing to experiment with buying premium membership.
For whom this program might not be as attractive:
-People wanting to earn a lot of money very quickly. I do not believe this is the ultimate money making opportunity. However, a little money is better than nothing.
-People �hating� ads. We are used to spam arriving at our mailbox, so I imagine some people simply cannot stand spam or ads.
If you have any experience with this company, then let me know by posting a comment.
From time to time, I like to inform my readers of some ways to make extra cash. This time I will focus on a relatively unknown company. Clixsense is a company that pays its users to view ads. Basically, you get paid for browsing ads and viewing them for 30 seconds. You can view up to 5 ads per day, and you get paid for viewing each ad from $0.01 up to $5. Usually you will be paid from $0.01 to $0.1. You can select the type of ads you wish to view, so they can match your interests. You can also select all of them, since you can earn more money this way. Payments are made by check on the 10th each month, provided that your earnings amounted to $10. If your account balance is less than $10, earnings will carry forward until you have met the minimum check requirement.
This company also offers an affiliate program where you earn 10% of the revenues collected from your referrals and 50% commission on any member you refer who upgrades their account to premium status. Premium status enables you to view more ads, but costs $10. I do not think you should upgrade to premium status, because I do not believe you should pay for money making programs.
ClixSense is a money making opportunity that is all about viewing ads for money. They also pay $5 for each referral that decides to upgrade their account to premium. However, the problem is that there are almost no ads available to view, and they usually only pay one cent anyway. You could potentially make money with this company by referring others to upgrade their account to premium. However, the problem is that then the mechanic of it would resemble a pyramid scheme. That is because only those who refer others would really earn money. Since I do not like the idea of such programs, I cannot recommend it, as I want the readers of my blog to actually earn money not only by having many referrals.
Personally, I did not lose any of my money on this program, and by reading about ClixSense I gained some knowledge about how such programs work. I think there are a lot of better programs available to earn money on the web such as AdSense. You could potentially earn hundreds of dollars per month if you have a lot of traffic. Just keep in mind that you need an established website to earn any serious money with AdSense. Adsense is all about traffic and targeted advertising.