My Adventures In Online Money Making

bitcoins

2011-06-04T23:43:00.000-07:00

Bitcoins are the new cool. Or were, I might be a little behind on this one.
BitCoins are a new e-currancy, which promises to destroy the old world order or vanish under the waves, depending on what you read, so why should you care? Well they are traded by some for real live USD at quite a high rate ($15 per coin) and that rate has been shooting up over the last few months and the coins themselfs are generated by running a small computer program. Every 10 minutes 50 new coins are created by someone running this software.

Alas the chance of it being you is tiny.

Cool

2008-12-12T14:48:00.000-08:00

I posted a review of my Netbook on Ciao, Dooyoo and epinions.

On Dooyoo I made £0.50 for the review, £0.80 in rates and £1.50 as it was awarded a Crown. On Ciao I made £3 in rates, plus £2 from the Premium Fund. On epinions I make $0.10 and received a rating of "helpful".

£7.80 for one review. I am rather impressed with it.

Hit $50 on TechSay - Again

2008-11-08T01:43:00.000-08:00

Woot!

Quicky...

2008-09-11T15:01:00.000-07:00

I've been playing with the Amazon Mechanical Turk today. I'd rate it better than PTCs for sure.

Bux.to Payment proof

2008-08-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

As promised, Bux.to payment proof.

I still would not join until Bux.to Reloaded is released.

Stats page:

http://img162.imageshack.us/my.php?image=statsdk2.png History: http://img162.imageshack.us/my.php?image=historylh1.png AlertPay: http://img216.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alertpaylm9.png

Quick Post: Bux.to paid!

2008-08-18T00:32:00.000-07:00

Wow. £11.93 is now sitting in my AlertPay account. Screenshots comming soon!

Different

2008-08-07T07:49:00.000-07:00

I have come across two rather interesting new sites just recently, SliceThePie and CoProducer.org. Not your normal make money slow sites, but instead almost a invest (time) in talent type things. Slice The Pie have a direct way of making money - reviewing unsigned bands, but on top of that you can invest into bands to help them on there way to stardom. It looks quite cool. We shall see how it goes. CoProducer instead lets anyone interested in film work towards the film, reviewing scripts, voting on actors and generally shape the film. Then when released you get a small chunk of 55% of the profit.

Earnings to Date

2008-08-06T03:01:00.000-07:00

As I have mostly given up on the PTC world I have stopped updating this blog. But today I was bored and decided to check up on my Google Adsense earnings and was quite suppressed to find I'm getting about one cent a day. Not bad at all given the tiny amount of work I've put in. So I'm going to try harder with blogs, and have created a new one called i haz teh codez on Java programming (what I do in The Real World). I think if I put some effort into it the two blogs together might be able to turn a little profit and unlike PTCs I can expect to actually see this profit.

While PTCs have yet to pay up, the survey sites (Tech Say and YouGov) are still going strong. I've not had the time to write any reviews, so alas my earning on both Ciao and Dooyoo has not moved. Dooyoo have paid up and this bought me one very good book from Amazon. Every now and again I go on an hour spree on MyLot and make a nice little five cent per spree.

Program	Owed	Paid
TechSay Type: Survey [Review]	$1.95	$150.00 (~£70)
YouGov Type: Survey	£13.60	£100
Dooyoo Type: Review	£2.12	£10
Ciao Type: Review (survey service split, not long use)	£2.07	£29.92
Epinions Type: Review	$1.55	-
MyLot Type: Pay To Post	$0.61	-
Bux.to Type: Pay To Click	$62.46	-
Google AdSense	$2.34

You will notice I have dropped all the PTCs now. They take up so much time and never pay out. Bux.to (the only one I still monitor) has now taken over 6 months to not pay up.

My goals for the next few months are to keep up with my new blog, to write a review on the book I bought with my first £10 from Dooyoo and write some more reviews for this site. The review for TechSay brings in more hits than any other page!

6 months and still waiting...

2008-08-02T08:29:00.000-07:00

Yeay Bux.to!

TechSay Still Going Strong

2008-06-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

Just hit the $50 mark again with TechSay. Woot!

Mmm

2008-05-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

Not updated in quite some time. Bux - Still not paid. TechSay - Still paying nicely Dooyoo - paid. everything else - can not be bothered with. It all takes way too much time with very little in return. My advice to anyone looking at making money on the interwebs, ignore PTCs. They are either a scam or so slow at payment it really is not worth the bother.

Ahh well...

2008-03-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

Not unsurprisingly both Master Click and buxpro seam to have dropped off the map.

Promising

2008-03-15T04:09:00.000-07:00

BuxPlus 17 one cent ads and no minimum payout. We shall see if that holds water soon.

Requested a payout on Daily Clicks today

2008-03-13T09:22:00.000-07:00

Now I'm just going to keep the account ticking over to see if I get paid.

Quick Summary

2008-03-07T10:45:00.000-08:00

The upsy-downsy sites Daily Clicks is up again. No more MySQL errors or speed issues. Woot! But the number of adverts is has dropped to the 10-15 range. OK, still better than many PTC sites, but not the same as it was. They have also started a new site, Daily Clicks Pro, given they are struggling with just one I find this a very odd move. Bux.to has released its long-awaited Master Card, and it appears to have fixed its long running issue of the stats not updating quickly enough. My 15 refs now make me just 20 cent a day. Long may it continue. I was not all that impressed when I first started YayClicks, but against my better judgement I advertised for them, and got a nice hard kick in the balls for my trouble. Well, it looks like the kicking has not stopped yet. I get just 4 0.5c clicks a day. This is not a "get rich quick" scheme - so very true.

Too good to be true...

2008-03-03T13:41:00.000-08:00

Something I felt about Daily Clicks not so long ago (hopefuly by mid next week I will find out if it is, I'm on $9.12). Master-Clicks is even better than Daily Clicks, with 25 1 cent adverts last just ten to twenty seconds something has to be up, and other wise its only downer is its $15 payout, and you can only have one session a day, if you have a break then restart you loss the clicks. One to keep an eye on.

Woot! Paid!

2008-02-25T07:17:00.000-08:00

TechSay.com paid out, a nice check on £24.99 and Ciao sent £5.20 directly to my bank account.

Haha!

2008-02-24T08:39:00.000-08:00

Buy My (well his) Stupid eBook Ace... Yeah, not updated in a bit. So a quick update. Bux.to has slowed down to 1.25c per person per day. That is still almost 1% a day, so still good, just a lot lett than it use to be. I might scrap a lot of the PTC sites soon. They talk up so much time and offer little cash in return.

Earnings to Date

2008-02-10T10:51:00.001-08:00

Program	Activeness	Spend	Earnings	Received
TechSay Joined: 2006-12 Type: Survey [Review]	0 surveys sent	-	$100.50 (£51.40)	$50 (£21)
YouGov Joined: 2002-12 Type: Survey	2 surveys sent	-	£104.35	£100
Ciao Joined: 2007-03 Type: Survey & Review	0 reviews written no rating	-	£37.12	£29.92
Dooyoo Joined: 2007-06 Type: Review	0 reviews written no rating	-	£11.90	-
Epinions Joined: 2008-01 Type: Review	0 reviews copied no rating	-	-	-
ClixSense Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	$10 (£6.23) $1 (adverts)	$5.65	$4.80 (in adverts)
Bux.to Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	$16.98 (£8.84)	$34.71 (£17.83)	-
DailyClicks Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC [Scam Warning]	High	-	$5.16 (£3.13)	-
MasterBux Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Low	-	$4.70 (£2.41)	$2.00 (in adverts)
Clix4Coins Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$4.83 (£2.48)	-
The Clickers Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$1.16 (£0.59)	-
Bux3.com Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$2.51 (£1.28)	-
YAYClicks Joined: 2008-02 Type: PTC	High	$6.21 (adverts)	$1.32 (£0)	-
Google AdSense Joined: 2008-01	None	-	$0.01 (£0)	-
MyLot Joined: 2007-06 Type: Pay To Post	Low	-	$0.51 (£0)	-

Where the money is not in GBP I will display the current value in GBP according to xe.com until it is paid, then I will use the amount I received/was charged. I will include any bank fees.

A painful week as YAYClick gave me a kick in the balls for promoting them. Ciao cushioned the blow a little as my review on Super Paper Mario received a small cut of the premium fund.

I have spent an hour on MyLot today & yesterday, made a little under $0.10 a go, and unlike PTC it was an enjoyable hour.

Scam Warning: eGold Click

2008-02-08T14:57:00.000-08:00

I was hoping to write a mini first-impressions review on a new site I came across today called eGold Click. While this is one of the most basic PTC sites I have seen, it did other a very cool feature: Instant payout. Every 1c is meant to be beamed directly into ones eGold account. Alas as in any case that sounds too good to be true, it is. 12 hours later and no extra one cents have been sent to my eGold account.

YAYClick Scam?

2008-02-07T10:50:00.000-08:00

YAYClick are going to clear downlines when the downline has been obtained via PTC sites. They are currently letting the downline stay until the first payout. This all screams of scam to me.

Earnings to Date

2008-02-03T09:00:00.000-08:00

Program	Activeness	Spend	Earnings	Received
TechSay Joined: 2006-12 Type: Survey [Review]	0 surveys sent	-	$100.50 (£51.40)	$50 (£21)
YouGov Joined: 2002-12 Type: Survey	0surveys sent	-	£103.35	£100
Ciao Joined: 2007-03 Type: Survey & Review	0 reviews written no rating	-	£35.12	£29.92
Dooyoo Joined: 2007-06 Type: Review	0 reviews written no rating	-	£11.90	-
Epinions Joined: 2008-01 Type: Review	0 reviews copied no rating	-	-	-
ClixSense Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	$10 (£6.23)	$5.01 (£2.54)	$4.80 (in adverts)
Bux.to Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	$16.98 (£8.84)	$30.62 (£15.55)	-
DailyClicks Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC [Scam Warning]	Low	-	$5.16 (£2.62)	-
MasterBux Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Low	-	$4.35 (£2.20)	$1.00 (in adverts)
Clix4Coins Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$4.65 (£2.36)	-
The Clickers Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$0.97 (£0)	-
Bux3.com Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$1.94 (£0.98)	-
YAYClicks Joined: 2008-02 Type: PTC	High	$6.21 (adverts)	$0.43	-
Google AdSense Joined: 2008-01	None	-	$0.01 (£0)	-
MyLot Joined: 2007-06 Type: Pay To Post	None	-	$0.37 (£0)	-
advercash.net Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Dropped	-	$0.42 (£0)	$0.41 (in adverts)
Paid Clicks Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Dropped	-	$0.55 (£0)	-

Where the money is not in GBP I will display the current value in GBP according to xe.com until it is paid, then I will use the amount I received/was charged. I will include any bank fees.

Paid Clicks & Advercash have been dropped. I don't think either of them are scams, I just don't have the time for this many PTC sites. I am a little annoyed with Bux.to at the moment, the stats are not updating and I'm sure I am loosing clicks because of it. I never really expected the 10 clicks a day metric used on the sites front page, but I am now down to 6 clicks a day with 6 days out of 20 with big fat zeros by them.

While I have yet to be wowed with the new site YAYClick, I have gone on a large advertising campaign for it, using up most of my balance on ClixSense and all the "points" on The Clickers. I figure the time to do this is while the site is still new.

DailyClicks.biz Update

2008-02-01T18:48:00.000-08:00

My balance on DC has been restored. I still don't trust the site, but we shall see what happens with it.

PaidClicks

2008-01-31T13:38:00.000-08:00

I'm quitting PaidClicks. I have clicked 166 adverts and made a tiny $0.678, or about .4 a cent per click. It is just not worth the time and effort. I tried YayClicks today. Lots of "low pay out" and 10 1 cent clicks in the advertisement. The reality was quite different – very few 0.5 cent clicks and a industry standard $10 payout. I don't think I will stick with it.

Earnings to Date

2008-01-27T10:39:00.000-08:00

Program	Activeness	Spend	Earnings	Received
TechSay Joined: 2006-12 Type: Survey [Review]	0 surveys sent	-	$100.50 (£51.40)	$50 (£21)
YouGov Joined: 2002-12 Type: Survey	0 surveys sent	-	£102.85	£100
Ciao Joined: 2007-03 Type: Survey & Review	0 reviews written no rating	-	£35.12	£29.92
Dooyoo Joined: 2007-06 Type: Review	0 reviews written no rating	-	£11.90	-
Epinions Joined: 2008-01 Type: Review	0 reviews copied no rating	-	-	-
ClixSense Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	$10 (£6.23)	$4.59 (£2.31)	-
Bux.to Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	$16.98 (£8.84)	$23.95 (£12.09)	-
DailyClicks Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Low – High chance of being a scam!	-	Waiting!	-
MasterBux Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$2.31 (£1.16)	-
Clix4Coins Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$4.43 (£2.23)	-
Paid Clicks Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$0.55 (£0)	-
advercash.net Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$0.40 (£0)	-
The Clickers Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$0.72 (£0)	-
Bux3.com Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$1.02 (£0.52)	-
Google AdSense Joined: 2008-01	None	-	$0.01 (£0)	-
MyLot Joined: 2007-06 Type: Pay To Post	None	-	$0.34 (£0)	-

Where the money is not in GBP I will display the current value in GBP according to xe.com until it is paid, then I will use the amount I received/was charged. I will include any bank fees.

I am quickly losing interest in PaidClicks (15c this week) and advercash (8c this week). I might be very mean soon and scrap both of them; I don't think I have time for under one cent adverts. TheClickers is also chocoblock full of under one cent clicks, but at least has a slightly better interface, if a few too many anti-auto-clicker protections.

DailyClicks.biz Scam Warning

2008-01-26T03:51:00.000-08:00

A week or so ago PayPal decided the best way to handle the complaints from PTC site users was to ban all PTC sites from using it as a payment handler. Most sites have taken this in their stride and moved over to Alertpay, eGold and the like.

DailyClicks.biz however decided the best thing to do was zero every one of its user's accounts. Apparently the admin of DailyClicks.biz are attempting to restore the lost information, however this is too little to late for me. I'll watch my account for the next seven days but I do not recommend Daily Clicks.

Edit (2008-01-27): Against my better judgement I have decided to give DCs a second chance. Anyone missing funds should add a post to this thread. I will update should my account be restored.

I however still do not recommend DCs, and would highly recommend against putting any money into it.

Edit #2 (2008-02-02): My account has been restored. Now to see if they will let me check out. With almost 25 1 cent clicks a day this should not take anywhere near as long as some of the other PTC sites.

Earnings to Date

2008-01-20T13:21:00.000-08:00

Program	Activeness	Spend	Earnings	Received
TechSay Joined: 2006-12 Type: Survey [Review]	2 surveys sent	-	$100.50 (£51.40)	$50 (£21)
YouGov Joined: 2002-12 Type: Survey	0 surveys sent	-	£102.85	£100
Ciao Joined: 2007-03 Type: Survey & Review	0 reviews written no rating	-	£35.12	£29.92
Dooyoo Joined: 2007-06 Type: Review	0 reviews written no rating	-	£11.90	-
Epinions Joined: 2008-01 Type: Review	0 reviews copied no rating	-	-	-
ClixSense Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	$10 (£6.23)	$4.23 (£2.16)	-
Bux.to Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	$16.98 (£8.84)	$18.60 (£9.50)	-
DailyClicks Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$3.70 (£1.89)	-
MasterBux Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$1.82 (£0.93)	-
Clix4Coins Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Medium	-	$4.16 (£2.12)	-
Paid Clicks Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Medium	-	$0.40 (£0)	-
advercash.net Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Medium	-	$0.32 (£0)	-
The Clickers Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Medium	-	$0.49 (£0)	-
Bux3.com Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$1.02 (£0.52)	-
Google AdSense Joined: 2008-01	None	-	-	-
MyLot Joined: 2007-06 Type: Pay To Post	None	-	$0.33 (£0)	-

Where the money is not in GBP I will display the current value in GBP according to xe.com until it is paid, then I will use the amount I received/was charged. I will include any bank fees.

Requested my second payout from TechSay today, I should receive my next ~£20 in about three months. I have also requested a payout of £5.20 from Ciao, this should arrive the end of next month.

I am quite unhappy with ClixSense, I do wonder if the initial selection of premium clicks were a little dishonest. I got a lot of clicks for big companies like BA and Walmarts. After the initial 280 however I have not seen anything like this, just you bog standard dodgy diets and dubious money making programs. I am very happy with Bux.to at the moment as I broke even today, even with its very occasional skipping of refs updating.

I've chucked AdSense on to my list but I don't think I'll ever see anything from it. I currently only have one site (this one) in a competitive market (make money blogs are ten a penny). However we shall see, and if I ever get off my arse and finish a Facebook application I think it might be a nice little earner. If it makes more than the £20 a month for hosting however is a different matter.

Earnings to Date

2008-01-15T14:52:00.000-08:00

Program	Activeness	Spend	Earnings	Received
TechSay Joined: 2006-12 Type: Survey [Review]	0 surveys sent	-	$89.50 (£45)	$50 (£21)
YouGov Joined: 2002-12 Type: Survey	0 surveys sent	-	£102.85	£100
Ciao Joined: 2007-03 Type: Survey & Review	0 reviews written no rating	-	£34.60	£29.92
Dooyoo Joined: 2007-06 Type: Review	0 reviews written no rating	-	£11.90	-
Epinions Joined: 2008-01 Type: Review	1 reviews copied no rating	-	-	-
ClixSense Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	$10 (£6.23)	$4.00 (£2.04)	-
Bux.to Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	$16.98 (£8.84)	$13.26 (£6.77)	-
DailyClicks Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$3.03 (£1.54)	-
MasterBux Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$1.53 (£0.78)	-
Clix4Coins Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$3.97 (£2.02)	-
Paid Clicks Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$0.33 (£0)	-
advercash.net Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$0.22 (£0)
The Clickers Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$0.30 (£0)
Bux3.com Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$0.64 (£0)
MyLot Joined: 2007-06 Type: Pay To Post	None	-	$0.33 (£0)	-
MyFreeShares Joined: 2008-01 Type: Unsure [Review]	Pointless	-	$0.0002739 (£0)	-

Where the money is not in GBP I will display the current value in GBP according to xe.com until it is paid, then I will use the amount I received/was charged. I will include any bank fees.

Paid Clicks returns a lot of server errors and while it has about the same number of adverts as say Bux3, I am not earning anywhere near as much. I'm only going to stick with it until I hit $3, then I think I will quit. I also don't think Advercash or The Clickers will last much longer as both have a reasonable number of $0.005 or below links, but few $0.01 links.

I have stopped the sillyness that is MyFreeShares. I really wanted to keep with it, it seams just such a cool idea, but I will need to wait over 900 days before I see any cash. That is a little too long for me. While I expect both Epinions and myLot will take just as long I don't care as much as I enjoy short stays on myLot and I'm only doing Epinions to see what the US review scene is like.

Mini Review: MyFreeShare: Waste of time

2008-01-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

MyFreeShare intrigued me. They offer a share in the money made via adverts to each of the users of the site, so I joined up and got my share. One share out of just 700k shares, each valued at 0.00011 a day. But you can get more shares, either by buying them in packs of two hundred, or by earning them in a PTC section of the website (you could make on average 0.21 of a share each day). Assuming that the share values remained steady (the number of shares did not, so I would guess over time if more people join the value of the shares would go down) via just the PTC section of the site you could expect to hit the minimum payout ($10) after 928 days. If you bought 400, and used the PTC each day it would just take 218 days. Yeay for Excel, bye bye MyFreeShare.

Earnings to Date

2008-01-11T01:15:00.000-08:00

Program	Activeness	Spend	Earnings	Received
TechSay Joined: 2006-12 Type: Survey [Review]	0 surveys sent	-	$89.50 (£45)	$50 (£21)
YouGov Joined: 2002-12 Type: Survey	1 of 1 survey completed	-	£102.85	£100
Ciao Joined: 2007-03 Type: Survey & Review	0 reviews written light rating	-	£34.60	£29.92
Dooyoo Joined: 2007-06 Type: Review	0 reviews written light rating	-	£11.90	-
Epinions Joined: 2008-01 Type: Review	3 reviews copied light rating	-	-	-
ClixSense Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	$10 (£6.23)	$3.61 (£1.84)	-
Bux.to Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	$16.98 (£8.84)	$7.50 (£3.83)	-
DailyClicks Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Medium (Offline a lot)	-	$ 2.15 (£1.10)	-
MasterBux Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$1.23 (£0.62)	-
Clix4Coins Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$3.73 (£1.90)	-
Paid Clicks Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$0.13 (£0)	-
advercash.net Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$0.11 (£0)
The Clickers Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$0.15(£0)
Bux3.com Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$0.19 (£0)
MyLot Joined: 2007-06 Type: Pay To Post	Very low	-	$0.33 (£0)	-
MyFreeShares Joined: 2008-01 Type: Unsure	Medium (not much to do)	-	$ 0.0017 (£0)	-
iCashOut Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Blown up	-	$0.50 (£0)	-
PowerBux Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	QUIT	-	€ 0.09 (£0)	-

Where the money is not in GBP I will display the current value in GBP according to xe.com until it is paid, then I will use the amount I received/was charged. I will include any bank fees.

Despite starting on a real low, and having a lot of down time, DailyClicks is catching up quickly thanks to its high pay per click ($0.01) and very large number of adverts. I am worried about its stability, both in business and hosting. Clix4Coins started on a high thanks to its large sign-up bonus ($3), and high pay per click ($0.03-$0.01 depending on advert). But they only have 4 stable adverts, and rarely have any other advertising coming in. Bux.to is a nice little earner with mostly active refs earning me around $1.30 a day. Bux3.com is following the very same model as Bux.to and has the same number of adverts each day, if it did not have the speed issues it is currently plagued with I would consider investing a little into it.

Tip: Spamtastic

2008-01-10T06:37:00.000-08:00

While some of the larger sites, like the review sites and the big survey sites might be trusted with ones email without worry of being spammed to oblivion, many of the smaller, especially the PTC sites, I don't trust as far as I can throw them. To help prevent your inbox becoming a tin of spam we need to be able to know who has given out our email address, and ideally filter out any crap.

The solution to this is just use one off, throw away email address. Now creating hundreds of accounts on Hotmail or Yahoo would be impractical. Google Mail offers two very neat features to help with this. The first is the plus sign, for the email address fake@gmail.invalid the address fake+anythingyoulike@gmail.invalid is also valid, and will be sent to fake@gmail.invalid. Very cool, however many web administrators are unable to read and understand the specifications that state what is valid email address, and will throw an error on the plus sign. The other option with Gmail is to insert full stops into the address. fake@gmail.invalid, f.ake@gmail.invalid and f.a.k.e@gmail.invalid would all go to the same address (fake@gmail.invalid). Alas this is not so easy to tell who sent you the mail.

While the features offered by GMail are nifty, they do mean the company have access to your real email address. An alternative to this Sneakemail, this lets you create unlimited aliases your main email address, then delete it once you no longer require it.

Mixed Signals with Bux.to

2008-01-09T09:16:00.000-08:00

Bux.to has a +10 rating over at uronlinebiz, but yet is on the Scam list at PTC Talk and the boycott list at GPTBoycott. I have no reason to trust either of the sites that much, so which to believe?
I don't recommend investing in it at the moment; I do think it is worth playing the clicking game and seeing where it leads you. At one dollar a week, you can reach the payout level in 10 weeks, then click lightly for a few months (yeah I am not a fan of 60 biz day payouts either) to see if it works, and keep an eye here to see if I get paid I will ask for a payout once I've made my $17 back plus a little to make sure they are not just handing back my money to get me to pour more into it. I'm currently getting about $1 a day, so just 20 days will see me.

Review: TechSay.com

2008-01-09T05:39:00.000-08:00

Tech Say, as you might have guessed by its name is a specialised survey site and deals solely in technical surveys and target only IT professionals. No Brand Index or If Asda Smart Price Soap Was A Person Which Would He Be here, instead questions about the MIMESweeper and its effect on your email infrastructure. If you are not interested in such questions you might want to head off to a more interesting review now and ignore Tech Say.

Surveys, Frequency and Screening

I seam to get about one survey a month, which is less than the general survey sites. I am also very frequently screened out; out of the past eight months I have been accepted for just a single survey! Half the screening questions threw me out the moment I said I was a developer, and not in charge with the purse strings. The second half had very in-depth technical questions, I'm guessing they twigged on that I really did only know the basics about NAS, Exchange and various other tech. The survey I was accepted for was... hard. They are after a person who configure scary looking boxes in server rooms with flashing blue lights and that is not me. I fumbled my way though the questionnaire, but I don't think they gained much useful information, and I found it rather dull. If I was the sort of person who did said blue flashy light configuration I might have got more out of it. In length it was about 20 minutes, this is on par with other survey sites. The time to be rejected depends on the survey, the half that only want people with purchasing powers end very promptly (a minute or so), while the ones that want people with some knowledge on the subject can take a good five minutes before you get the boot.

Cash

Tech Say has set a high threshold for pay out at $50 (~£25), not as high as the one-cheque-in-two-years YouGov but much higher than Ciao at a tiny £5. Each accepted survey nets you an impressive $10; significantly higher than anything I have done on YouGov, Ciao or TNS. Just five accepted surveys will lead to a payout. Being kind souls they hand out $1 for being rejected. At just under 50 pence the rejection pay is very close to YouGovs standard payout. On September the 10th 2007 I finally hit the $50 payout limit. It took nearly two months before I finally received a check for £21. Right now I need just one more accepted and one rejected survey to get a second payout. Unfortunately TechSay has decided to give you "Tech Points" rather than plain cash. I am not a fan of points, miles and the like, preferring a simple amount in cash. This does mean that at some point in the future all you points could drop drastically in value.

Site

The site is simply laid out as a set of tabs across the top of the page for each of the functions (Profile, balance, help and the like). But as it is a pure survey site, and does not keep a profile of you the amount of widgets to play with is very limited.

Registration

Registration is simple enough, a few personal questions such as your address and business title. After confirming your email address you are in.

Closing Comments

This site pays a large amount per survey, but the rarity of the surveys, combined with the low chance of being selected to participate means this site is not as worth while as it first appears.

Recieved

As off March 2008 I have recieved 100 USD (~46 GBP). I think this is the best proof I have that it is not a scam.

Please note that this review is also posted on Ciao and Dooyoo

Bye Bye PowerBux

2008-01-09T02:13:00.000-08:00

Only one week in, and it is time to say bye bye to one of the programs I have joined. PowerBux only has one PTC advert each day. This means it would take almost three years before seeing €10.
After making this decision I searched about to see if I was missing anything from this program, only to be met with a lot of sites screaming scam. I should have done this first, so lesson learnt. Search more.

How-To: Getting on your feet

2008-01-08T05:46:00.000-08:00

The first thing we need to do is get a few quid (bucks whatever) in our pocket. Let's start with the rather low aim of £5 a month, I know most online Make Money Fast start with £5 a week, but I am a little more realistic. You can start hitting the survey sites, and I recommend you do. YouGov will pay £50 every two years - £2 a month. But it will be a long wait before you have it in your pocket. So I will not include dedicated survey sites for now, as what we want is money quick. To start with I recommend using Ciao and Dooyoo. Ciao is both a survey site and a review sites, and while its reviews pay less than Dooyoo its very low payout limit (just £5), and reasonable number of surveys means you can look at £5 just from surveys in just two to three months. A good chuck of what we are after. Dooyoo is a pure review site and will pay the lions share of our five pounds. Just posting a review will earn you £0.50.

Sign up to both Ciao and Dooyoo and spend a day or so reading other peoples reviews and rating them. As you get money each time your review is rated, people are more likely to rate someone who has rated them. Then write some reviews. Don’t go overboard and churn out twenty so-so reviews! Write between one and three a week, and if you enjoy it, and have enough stuff to review build up to at most one a day. Any more and a fair number of people will see you as a churner and will start to ignore you! Continue rating people, hit both the "New Reviews" section and return rate anyone that rates you. By the end of the month you should be getting a little under £1 per review spread across the review sites. If you can do six reviews a month we have the £5 target.

Earnings to Date:

2008-01-08T03:50:00.000-08:00

Program	Activeness*	Spend	Earnings	Received
TechSay Joined: 2006-12 Type: Survey	Done 65% of surveys sent	-	$89.50 (£45)	$50 (£21)
YouGov Joined: 2002-12 Type: Survey	Done 90% of surveys sent	-	£102.35	£100
Ciao Joined: 2007-03 Type: Survey & Review	Low	-	£34.60	£29.92
Dooyoo Joined: 2007-06 Type: Review	Low	-	£11.84	-
ClixSense Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	$10 (£5.10)	$2.59 (£1.31)	-
Bux.to Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	$16.98 (£8.60)	$2.85 (£1.44)	-
DailyClicks Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Medium (Offline a lot)	-	$0.50 (£0)	-
iCashOut Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Medium (Offline a lot)	-	$0.50 (£0)	-
MasterBux Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Medium (Offline a lot)	-	-	-
MyFreeShares Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	Medium (not much to do)	-	$ 0.0006 (£0)	-
PowerBux Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High (but only has a few adverts)	-	€ 0.09 (£0)	-
Clix4Coins Joined: 2008-01 Type: PTC	High	-	$3.57 (£1.80)	-
MyLot Joined: 2007-06 Type: Pay Per Post	Very low	-	$0.27 (£0)	-

Where the money is not in GBP I will display the current value in GBP according to xe.com until it is paid, then I will use the amount I received.

* Normally this would be between the current Earned To Date and the last, but as it is my first this is "since joined".

A quick history...

2008-01-08T02:32:00.000-08:00

Many moons ago I was tempted into the survey taking scene with the promise of 50 lovely pounds. Given I was skint at the time I though this sounded like a great plan. Two years latter and I finally received my first £50 from YouGov. Not the riches I imagined two years previous, but that £50 did come at a good time, and I decided to investigate the “Free Money” online funkyness. I started by joining a number of other survey sites. Many of them I found irritating in the extreme, and gave up on them long before I reached the payout limit. The exceptions were TechSay and Ciao. Ciao especially interested me as it would also pay me to write reviews. I then got into the Review Writing scene which I found to be a much better earner than surveys alone. Split between two sites (Ciao and Dooyoo) I make £1 per review. They are also a lot more enjoyable. In order to get a reasonable return on your work you need to do more than simply churn out shoddy reviews, or even write half way decent ones. You will also need to read and rate reviews. You need to be known, if only a little. So if you sign up before you even write a review spend two days just reading and rating reviews (hitting the "New Reviews" section and looking up stuff that interests you). This way when you do write your first review the regulars will already know you. Anyway we are heading a little off topic here… Every now and again a review Ciao throws up something interesting, such as MyLot, a forum that pays you to post and Bux.to a Pay To Click program that pays you to look at adverts, and this is where I am at now. Intrigued with the idea than someone will pay me for arsing about.