Make Money on the Web updated

I updated my MMOTW site. I have some new programs there to share. I'm still looking for ideas and suggestions, so if you have any to share, please do. (I was actually considering posting some job-search sites because that may be the easiest way to get steady income, but I don't think many of those places have referral programs.)

I did get an interview with Chipotle Mexican Grill in Aventura, but no word back on that. I'm still filling out at least applications per week including Bay Harbor Islands, who needed a toll collector. Every time I see an opening for a toll collector, I'm surprised. (Of course, they're independent of the state and not using SunPass.)

If you know anyone that's hiring in the Miami area, please let me know.

No such thing as a free lunch

I was looking at an old page for programs that I had signed up for to make money online. Most of the programs had either shut down or didn’t recognize my login, so I deleted most of them. That left basically PayPal, Search Cactus, Spider Metrix, Epinions and Cash Clicking. I added adf.ly and EasyHits4U, but I plan on adding a few more.

If you’ve visited the site only to see these links, don’t worry. I plan on updating the site. I’ll probably get rid of the table and just have paragraphs. I also plan on breaking it up into categories like traffic exchanges or survey sites. I do have a few other programs to refer. I’ll have to go through my bookmarks and adf.ly links to see what I have.

As I may have stated before, it’s hard to make money off of any of these programs. Even with referrals, you usually need several and few people ever stay active enough to make it worth it. This is why I’ve been handing in applications to any store that will give me one. (My brother and I went out yesterday looking for places.)

I’d really like something like seti@home that would pay me money for doing distributed processing. I remember having seen one that never really promised to pay anything.

What would be best is some sort of passive income. Adf.ly is good because I can place the links somewhere and not have to do much else. EasyHits4U isn’t as good since it requires me to do so much surfing to get such a small payout. It’s better for promoting other things.

I guess there really is no such thing as a free lunch.

Plug Boards

I’ve found something called a plug board. I’m sure this is nothing new, but for those that haven’t heard of them, plug boards are a way to let people ‘plug’ their sites. There’s a limit, such as maybe 10 sites and they can apparently be either text or images.

The service that I found, located here, seems to be pretty simple. You select the number of rows and columns. (Text can only be one row.) I don’t mind, as it gives me the opportunity to show several banners at once. This site shows what ten banners look like together. Here you can see what text looks like.

I’ve locked the banners so that only mine will ever show. This way, I can put them in site rotators and show several banners at once. I’ve left the text links open. I may even put the link on the side bar as a way of letting people advertise. I’ve been rotating both on EasyHits4U with some luck, but if the text links change too much, I may stop using that one.

At the very least, it does make it easier to refer people to things. I’ll have to see how it works out in the long run.

Making money on the web

It’s so hard to find a job that I’ve been looking for other ways to get money. The problem with a lot of the online money-making sites is that you really can’t make a lot of money unless you’re lucky or have a lot of referrals. This isn’t to say that they’re all scams. Some do actually come through. It’s just that it’s not always easy to get a lot of money.

Selling stuff on eBay seems to work. I’ll list 40 items or so and at least two will sell for the minimum bid each month. Trouble is that we’re talking about items for 99¢ each. I was listing them for so low because that’s what I had to do to get free listings. (eBay has since lifted that restriction, but is only giving me 50 free listings per month rather than 100.)

I tried a few affiliate programs, a few of which you may see on the right side of the page. Cash4books.net, for instance, pays $5 if you sell them some of your used books. I tried the service myself and it does pay. I got a check that I could actually deposit. So far, I’ve gotten one person to sign up and it seems that their books never arrived.

I’ve even tried online gambling at CentSports. It claims that since they’re giving you 10¢ of advertiser-sponsored money to gamble with, it’s legal. Since it’s not your money, you’re not risking anything. If you lose, you get another ten cents to try again. You can cash out at $20, but I’ve never made it this far. One of my referrals did, but he decided to try to make more and lost, so I don’t know if they actually pay out or not.

Yes, I’ve tried site rotators. EasyHits4U is a good one. It’s easy to use, but you can’t cash out. The best you can hope for is that someone signs up under you. I’ve gotten at least two referrals to CentSports, including the aforementioned on. I think I’ve even gotten a few bids on eBay.

I’ve tried one called SendMeHits.com with less than spectacular results. They have both manual and automatic rotation and you can sell credits back to the site for money. However, the site has proven somewhat glitchy. The site often redirects me to another page randomly. Sometimes, I can’t even stay on the login page long enough to put in my user name. I do have referrals and they do seem to use the site, so I don’t know if it’s just me.

I’ve even tried micro working at sites like MyEasyTask.com and microworkers.com. The more expensive ones tend to be harder to get and the cheaper ones are usually something I’ve already gotten. I’ve been able to use earnings to get people to sign up for other things with varying success.

I still haven’t given up hope that I’ll find a job. I’m still looking. It would just be easier if I had some idea of where to look.

Will work for money

I’m down to needing only two Florida counties on Where’s George: Gilchrist and Madison. I’ve had to let my membership to Friends of George lapse because I just can’t spare the money right now, which makes it harder to tell when I’ve gotten the hit that gives me a new county. Thus, I don’t have links to post.

It’s been hard to post stuff here because not having a job means not having money to do anything interesting. I’d post more, but I don’t think that the general public wants to hear how I spent most of the past month sitting at home looking for work or going to the mall to fill out applications. There are a few prospects that I’m hopeful about, but I have no idea how many people I’m competing against. All I can do is keep filling out applications.

I know that I can work, but it’s hard to prove that to someone, especially when all they have is an application or a résumé. If I’m given 40 hours every week, I’ll show up for all 40. I’d even take 20, especially considering that most places are only hiring part time. Working 20 hours per week is better than sitting around waiting for my unemployment to run out.

I wish I knew where to look. It gets frustrating when you fill out 20 or 30 applications and you know that most of the places aren’t even hiring. Even among those that are hiring, you have to figure that everyone and their pet Chihuahua has already applied there.

I can’t give up, though. I know that sooner or later, I’ll find a job. I can only hope that it’s sooner.

A long time coming

I’ve been kind of busy looking for work. That and not having much cash means that I haven’t had many interesting hits. Much of what I have is spread over a long period of time. One is an article on Apple not taking cash for the iPad. I’m actually surprised that it’s still up there.

There are also two bills that I entered several months apart, here and here, that came together. I don’t imagine that it happens too often. (Yes, it’s been so long that one of the bills got another hit.)

In the interesting comment department, this bill is from someone who thinks that the bill is defaced. I think that the idiot part is a bit much. I remember first entering bills on Where’s George, worrying that someone would confront me about it. While I never had someone insult me about it, I guess it’s much easier when you’re not doing it in person.

Then, there’s the person that held on to the bill for two years. I don’t mind having a sleeper like that, but why wait two years to enter it? I can only imagine that they got more Where’s George bills and realized that my bill wasn’t so special.

One last note is that Calhoun County fell, leaving me with four Florida counties. I don’t have a link as I only noticed yesterday. I have so few counties left that I don’t really expect it.

Two new counties

I actually have news to post today. I’ve gotten two new Florida counties in the past week, both near the state capitol. The first was in Union County. Apparently, it’s still good to go, so I may pick up some of the other counties in that area. (This was one of three bordering Alachua County, where I have nearly 40 hits.)

The second was in Franklin County. It looks like this one was from a regular. It’s nice to know that there’s at least one Georger in one of the more difficult Florida counties.

This brings the remaining counties down to five: Bradford, Calhoun, Gilchrist, Jefferson and Madison.