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how to make money through social networking... the tedious way

MyLot uses the interactive aspect of social networking to create a site where users are paid to make posts on discussion boards. As many companies are looking for new ways to connect with their consumers, these companies have established their presence on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. The pace has only increased as MySpace claims that it has passed Yahoo! in term of web traffic. This shift makes a lot of sense because advertisers only want to market their products where potential consumers could see them. This is why they like Google and Yahoo! because people often view their pages multiple times per day.

MyLot is a site that wants to jump on this bandwagon. In order to gain the critical amount of participating users such that advertisers would care, MyLot is paying their users per post to participate in discussion forums here. Initially, users will get pennies per post; however, with MyLot's referral scheme, users could potentially earn a lot more. Doesn't this remind you of all the "get paid to be on the internet" schemes from 8 years ago?

Anyway, there seems to be a lot of participation in this scheme despite the enormous time it requires to write meaningful posts. Users also makes money if their discussion topics generate a lot of discussion, so some users are going out of their way to make outrageous topics that clearly scream "I just want to be devil's advocate so I can make lots of money." I even found a post regarding a user's decision in whether she should have sex with her boyfriend even though she is a virgin. If you read further, apparently this user has pictures of her baby in her profile.

As many people look for more ways to make easy money, I feel sorry for all these users who feel obligated to make posts just to make a meager income. Instead of wasting all that time writing posts for pennies, you may as well spend that energy writing about things you care about. There are enough people on Blogger that share their thoughts for free (before the arrival of Ad Sense). Some of the people who cared enough about what they're writing eventually make enough money because they have popular blogs and websites.

posted by Koh @ 7:50 PM