How to Make Money on Myspace
Friday, November 23, 2007

There is a growing demand for advertising on social networking websites. The biggest site out there is Myspace, so the demand for Myspace profiles, friends, and advertising is larger than ever. Here are a few ways you can capitalize on Myspace and make money online.

Sell Profiles
Myspace profiles are usually bought on webmaster forums and through e-bay. There are legitimate webmasters and bloggers who buy Myspace profiles to get more exposure for their sites, but there are also a lot of spammers, so you may want to keep that in mind if you want to do this.

The going rate for profiles is $9 per 1,000 friends. This may seem like nothing, especially if you add friends manually, but there are ways to get a lot of friends in a short period of time. Here are a few ways you can build up your friend count:

Friend trains - Friend trains are sites where people post their profile after adding all the profiles on the site. This will get you a lot of friend requests and its a much faster way to add friends.

Bots - There are bots, or "myspace friend adders," that can make up to 500 friend requests an hour. Some of them cost money while others are free. If you Google "Myspace friend adder" you can find downloadable bots that will get you friends in no time.

Back-up profiles -After using bots and friend trains, you'll want to create a few "back-up" profiles. You can promote these profiles by posting bulletins that ask your friends to add your back-up. This way you don't have to spend hours on a train to get friend requests - all your friends will come to you.

You can also make money online by selling old Myspace profiles. Old profiles have less security measures (e.g. the captcha). They also show up higher on friend pages, which gives them more exposure and ultimately more friends. You can get old profiles by contacting your friends and family who have unused profiles they made in the past. This also includes bands on Myspace that broke up recently.

The best profiles have less than 5 digits in their friend ID. The smaller the friend ID number, the more valuable the profile is. You can find the friend ID by looking at the URL on the picture page:

Post Bulletins
If you have a lot of Myspace friends but you're not ready to sell your profile, you can try posting bulletins. Most bulletins are sold as package deals (e.g. "3 bulletins a day for 5 days a week). The prices can range anywhere from $5 a week to $50 a week depending on the number of friends you have.

You can post your services on a webmaster forum such as Digital Point. You can also contact websites who would want your services such as Myspace layout sites, friend train sites, and clothing companies.

Promote Your Site or Company

If you have a website, why promote someone else's site when you can promote your own? Many advertisers have found Myspace to be an effective way of getting new customers.

Before you do anything else, you should make sure your site or company is compatible with the average Myspace user. Most people on Myspace have a short attention span when they're online and want to be entertained instead of informed. The best sites to promote are gaming sites, college-humor sites, layout sites, and contests.

If your business fits this description your profile should reflect that. Your profile should be laid-back, personal, and interesting. Some companies fail at marketing on Myspace because they will put a flower or stock-image on their profile instead of a person. This defeats the purpose of Myspace which is a social networking site. Two of the most important things you can do is to use a real person's picture and a real name on your profile. This will give you a human quality and come off less like spam. You can read more tips about MS marketing on Buzz Networker.

After crafting your profile, one common way to get site exposure is to hold a contest. The contest doesn't have to have a cash award. Many t-shirt sites have contests for site models, and most friend-train sites have contests for a weekly position at the top of the train.

Post about the contest in your blog and encourage people to comment. If the post makes it to the top blogs section you will get infinitely more exposure. The top blogs are the ones with the most comments and hits for that day.

You can also make a group for your site, post bulletins, comments, and messages. If you plan on posting comments and messages make sure to be professional about it and don't spam. Most people on Myspace are immune to spam and will delete it without a second glance - you can also get banned.

You're already on MySpace 12 hours a day, but are you making money? If you're just waiting for some income to fill out that credit card application, making money online is a great alternative. If you set up your own little business, you'd even be able to apply for business credit cards or a useful and no-frills low interest credit card.

Posted by Crystal 6:19 PM 3 comments  

Labels: networking

10 Funnest Ways to Make Money Online
Saturday, September 29, 2007

1. Blogging












Blogging is one of the best ways to make money online because you are part of a community. If you're good at what you do you can gain credibility and be recognized for your blogging across the internet. For instance, you probably recognize the picture above and the blog associated with it.

Along with gaining credibility there is also the potential to make a lot of money. Peter Cashmore, founder of Mashable, is reported to make $166,000 a month, all from the one blog.

If you are new to blogging and interested in making money you should check out the blogs Shoemoney and Problogger. These blogs have a lot of tips for beginners on how to make money and get traffic.


2. Create Your own Second Life Store













I'll admit it, I'm a recovering Second Life addict. Second Life can be a lot of fun, it will make you want to spend hours there. If you haven't heard of Second Life, its a virtual game where people can do pretty much everything they do in real life, including shop, which there is a lot of.

According to the SL website, there has been $1,265,653 USD spent on Second Life in the past 24 hours. This money is spent on virtual clothes, cars, even guns, which individual shop owners make and sell. There's less risk here then owning your own real-life business, but it can be just as fruitful and a lot of fun. [Read More]


3. Share Your Videos















There are sites that will pay you a share of their profits to share your videos on their website. A good video has the potential to earn you thousands of dollars - just think about how much Chris Crocker would have made if his videos were on a profit-sharing website. The videos don't have to be professionally done, just look at most of the videos on Youtube. People actually prefer amateur videos. If you like being in the spotlight this can be one of the funnest ways to make money online.


4. Share Your Pictures

Sharing pictures online is something people do every day - why not get paid for it? There are dozens of sites that are offering a revenue share for the page views that your pictures get. If you spend time on Flickr you should consider opening an account on a profit-sharing photo site. You can still have your pictures on both sites while making money on one.

A great thing about making money on these sites is that it can be a passive income. You can put your pictures up on a site, and as long as they get page views you will make money, even if you don't return for months. Some of the picture-sharing sites are pretty fun and will have you wanting to return, though.


5. Try Your Luck on Moola





Moola is an internet game site like no other. They give you a penny when you sign up that you can double by playing a game against another player. You keep doubling your money every time you win a game. You can cash out after you win $10, or you can play for the grand prize of $1,000,000. Its free to try and its super addicting.


6. Network With Friends

Since revenue-sharing sites have blown up this year, there are now a handful of sites that will pay you to do the same thing you do on Myspace. The most popular one is Dada - which pays you to chat, upload your pictures, and refer your friends.

If Dada's not for you, you should check out Mylot, Gather, and Squidoo. With so many options there's bound to be one that you will enjoy.


7. Play Guitar












You can earn extra cash by uploading your videos on Guitarvids.net. You can put up videos of you and your band, or make guitar instruction videos. Whatever you do this is probably one of the easiest and funnest ways to make money online if you're a guitar player. [Read More]


8. Design T-Shirts

Getting paid for your original designs is probably one of the most rewarding ways to make a living. There are three major websites that you can sell your t-shirt designs through for free. You can also sell your designs on aprons, calenders, and bumper stickers. If you love to design clothes and merchandise but hate sales, consider entering a t-shirt design contest instead.


9. Post on Forums

Posting on forums is one of the fastest and easiest ways to make money online. Granted, the pay isn't that great, but it may pay your water bill, and you'll have fun while doing it.

Check out my post where I review paying forums, or you can learn how to become a full-time forum writer.


10. Give Advice

If you are knowledgeable in any area there are places online where you can give advice to people who need it. There are few things that are funner than giving your opinions on topics you care about - and you don't need an advanced degree to do it. You can give dating advice, tips on gardening, even gift-giving suggestions. You can get paid an hourly rate, anywhere from $6-$20 to give advice over the phone, through e-mail, or through web chat. [Read More]


Making money through blogging and other online means is a great way to earn some cash to pay off those credit cards debts. Next time you get one of those offers for cash back credit cards or low interest, high reward business credit card offers, consider using the money you make online to pay them off so you won't be in debt.

Posted by Crystal 1:25 PM 19 comments  

Labels: networking, pictures and video, writing

How To Make Money With Squidoo
Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Squidoo is a fairly new site that allows you to make money by promoting your website and affiliate links. Its similar to a social networking site in that you can network with other people trying to sell their product and make money online. However, its not like Myspace or Facebook. Squidoo is comprised mainly of articles and is more focused around business and sales.

When you sign up for Squidoo you are asked to create your first lens. A lens is basically a single web page. On the page you can add certain features which are called modules. A module can range from a piece of text to a guest book. They also have E-bay and Amazon.com modules which allow you to promote your products and affiliate links.

The biggest appeal of Squidoo is that the web pages are easily indexed by Google and have been known to get a high page rank over time. This can be something to think about if you're looking for a new way to promote your blog or website. It can also be used to easily sell your products and get refferals.

You can make money with any niche on Squidoo. Take this lens Dating Tips For A Man for example. This article is entertaining and has a lot of good advice. It also has many Amazon affiliate links which blend into the layout. The writer has categorized the Amazon books based on the type of advice you are looking for. The first Amazon module is "Great Stuff on Amazon," then there are books to "Learn to tell if she's lying," and "If you want her back you may have to learn forgiveness," etc. This is a clever way to promote your links without having a hard-driving sales pitch.

One of the easiest ways to gain popularity on Squidoo is to pick keywords that aren't too competitive. You need to find phrases that have high demand and low supply. To find the demand for a keyword phrase you can go to wordtracker.com and use their keyword tools. This will help you get organic traffic through Google search results and give your lens a better ranking.

If you are interested in internet marketing, and don't want to pay for advertising, you should check out Squidoo.

Posted by Crystal 11:06 AM 2 comments  

Labels: networking, writing

Make Money Asking Questions
Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Fun Advice is a social question-and-answer site similar to Yahoo answers. They offer 40% adsense revenue on the pages which your questions appear. Although you probably won't get rich doing this, its even easier than answering questions for money. If you're looking for advice, why not use a site that will pay you? It only takes a second to ask a question, but you'll be earning money for as long as the site stays online.

Posted by Crystal 7:44 PM 1 comments  

Labels: give advice, networking, writing

Make Money With Dada's Friend$ Benefits
Monday, September 10, 2007

Dada.net is a social networking site with thousands of blogs, videos, and pictures. In March of this year they partnered with Google adsense to offer 50% revenue share for ads clicked on users profiles and blogs.















With Dada's "Friend$" program, you also receive a percentage of revenue from your friend's pages and clicks.

There isn't a way yet to make good income on revenue sharing sites, but this may be one step closer to accomplishing that. On many other networking sites you only make money when you post comments or update your blog, whereas Dada's Friend$ system can be a passive income source. If you enjoy social networking this is probably one of the best and it doesn't hurt to make a few extra bucks a long the way.

Everyone's looking for a great way to make free money. If you're thinking about starting your own business, there is plenty of money for women entrepreneurs and businessmen. Or, if you haven't been careful about saving in your 401K, you can get money for retirement!

Posted by Crystal 10:17 PM 3 comments  

Labels: networking, pictures and video

Social Bookmarking Sites With Revenue Share
Thursday, September 6, 2007

Social bookmarking sites allow you to share your favorite sites with the world by saving them to a website and tagging them with keywords. The most popular bookmarking sites are del.icio.us, digg, and furl, but hundreds of sites are gaining popularity as social bookmarking continues to expand. Two bookmarking sites, Simpy and Infopirate.org, are growing rapidly because they offer an adsense revenue share for their users.








Simpy offers 100% adsense revenue to their users. You simply enter your adsense ID and you can start to make money on all the pages where your bookmarks appear.







Info Pirate offers an 80% revenue share for bookmarking sites. Their Google ads are small (small text at the bottom of the article descriptions) , so its unlikely that you will make good money using this site, but it is a good site for other reasons. Their layout is great and they have good content that will make you want to spend some time here.

By using these sites you can also promote your site to gain more exposure. If you own a blog you probably spend a lot of time on bookmarking sites already, so why not use one that pays?

Posted by Crystal 10:50 AM 7 comments  

Labels: networking

At Home Customer Service Jobs
Thursday, August 30, 2007

There are companies now looking for in-home customer service representatives. Customer service reps are hired to take orders on the phone, offer tech support, and/or sell products. To be a customer service rep you are required to have a dedicated phone line, a computer, and high-speed internet access.

Alpine Access connects companies with work-at-home employees. The service they offer is completely free. When you sign up you will see the employment opportunities available to you. I have signed up and at this time they have 4 positions available. Two positions are for part-time customer service representatives, one position is for a full time representative, and the other is for a full time payment specialist of a company.

After you find the job you want you can upload your resume to apply. For the positions that are open the only requirements they have for representatives is that they have a high-school diploma or GED. They don't specify how much you can make but according to an article MSN the pay usually starts around $8 an hour for this type of work, although the pay may vary between each employer.

LiveOps Inc. is a call-center whose agents work from home. New agents are usually paid $6.50-$8.50 per hour in addition to commission and incentives. Over time agents can make between $9.00-$11.00, and some exceptional agents make up to $20.00/hour.

Posted by Crystal 9:20 PM 1 comments  

Labels: give advice, networking, sales

Get Paid To Post In Forums II
Sunday, August 19, 2007

I wrote a post last month about forums that pay you to post. After writing it I was intrigued to find more forums that pay. So far I have found two more forums that are noteworthy which I have been spending a lot of time on.

CraZoo pays .02 for a new thread and .015 per post. They also pay you .002 every time your referrals post. They have 2,945 active members and over 8,000 threads. The forum topics are general: sports, movies, technology, etc. The minimum payout is $10.00.

Adept Web Community is new but its one of my favorite forums to post on. They only started last month but they already have 178 members. The amount you get paid per post isn't clear, but it seems to average around .03. So far I have made 16 posts and I have .54. Their minimum payout is only $3.00, via pay pal.

After signing up on Adept Web Community you have to go to your user control panel, click "group memberships" and add the group "paid users" to get paid for your posts.

Don't expect to make a fortune doing this. It can be more time consuming than it seems, but it's still a fun way to earn a few extra bucks.

Posted by Crystal 6:06 PM 2 comments  

Labels: forums, networking, writing

Make Money Writing on Newsvine
Friday, August 10, 2007

Newsvine is a user-generated-content site with news stories and product reviews. As a writer on Newsvine you are given your own "column" with a domain (i.e. yourname.newsvine.com). You can write about anything you consider newsworthy.

Writers get 90% of the ad revenue from ads displayed on their pages. The ads displayed are banner ads, therefore the more traffic you generate to your articles the more money you will make.

Newsvine is a great site to be a part of because it's one of the most personalized news sites on the internet.

Users can vote and comment on each article. An article that receives the most votes is shown on the "featured articles" section for that day. This is a great way to be rewarded for writing a good article because the more votes you receive the more exposure your article will get.

There are even more ways to receive exposure for your writing. Newsvine has a friends list option that can help you network with other writers. When you add a friend they will have the option to add you back. If they do, they will be notified every time you post new articles. There is also an option to put a chat room on your article instead of a comment option. This can be a creative way to drive more readers to your articles.

When you sign up you will first become a writer in a section of their website called "the greenhouse." Once you receive comments and votes you can e-mail them and receive your own column on their main site. This is their way of weeding out spammers from their site.

Once you become a writer on Newsvine you can post full articles, polls, or seeds. "Seeding" is posting a link to another website with a quotation or short description of the site. You also earn ad revenue from seeding and polls.

All-in-all, this seems like a great way to make money by writing. The promotion tools are limitless on this site and the ad revenue is very high. This is they type of site I could spend a lot of time on, not just for the money.

If you are interested in finding similar sites to Newsvine I have an article Easy Freelance Writing with links to more user-generated-content news sites.

Posted by Crystal 9:02 PM 4 comments  

Labels: networking, writing

Social Networking For Money
Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Gather.com is a free site where you earn points for posting comments, posting pictures, making groups, and inviting friends. It's just like any other social networking site except it pays you money. Currently each point is worth .02 cents. The amount of points you receive for each activity depends on the popularity of your posts. Right now they have a promotion where you can get a $20 gift card just for getting 5 friends to sign up.

Your points are redeemable for gift cards unless you get over $50. If you get over $50 you can redeem them for cash via paypal.

A writer on Associated Content wrote an article saying that after creating an avatar, making a group, and posting three articles she had already written she had over 200 points when she checked her account the following day. It took her about an hour to do, and the points keep accumulating as long as her group and articles receive traffic.

Gather is also surprisingly easy to use. The layout looks clean, it's easy to navigate, and it loads fast. Earning points definitely doesn't feel like hard work on the site.

Posted by Crystal 2:53 PM 5 comments  

Labels: networking, pictures and video

Owning a Store In Second Life
Friday, July 20, 2007

Second life is an online virtual world where players can get together to chat, play games, buy clothes, even attend real-life schools. Second Life currently has over 8,000,000 online "residents", 1,548,131 of which have logged on in the past two months.

Second Life also has its own currency, called the Linden, which players can exchange for 3D products such as clothes, jewelry, weapons, and more. Almost anything you can buy in real life is being sold in Second Life.

The current Linden exchange rate is 240 Lindens per 1 US Dollar. Most clothes and smaller products sell at about that price, although depending on where you shop, prices can rage from 1L - 2,000L.

Although it's not guaranteed that you will make money owning a store in Second Life, there are people who have been successful. Jennifer Grinnell, owner of the store Mischief, quit her job as a dispatcher when she began to make more from her virtual store than she did at her full time job. You can read more about it in Wired Magazine. There have also been many others who found success owning virtual stores, including companies such as T-Mobile, Sony Ericsson, and Playboy.

You need to have a basic understanding of graphic design before creating items in Second Life, but being an expert isn't required. Secondlife.com has free modifiable templates to start you off, and you can buy modifiable textures in many stores.

If you are interested in owning a store without doing graphic design, there are warehouses in Second Life that sell bulk items which can be modified, transfered, and copied. SLexchange.com lists items like these and more.

Creativity is one of the most important aspects of being a designer and store owner in Second Life. There are hundreds of stores that buyers can choose from. You should have an original idea that will make you stand out from the rest. If you can get people talking the money will follow.

Second Life Insider is a blog that discusses everything that is happening in Second Life. While not business-oriented, I recommend reading it because it will give you an idea of what is popular in SL and what buyers are looking for.

There are plenty of ways to make money online, and you can even pay off credit card debt in the process. Many people will look for a low interest credit card if they're not able to pay off their charges quickly, and student credit cards are a great option. If you're charging more than you're making, maybe you should try a Second Life shop!

Posted by Crystal 3:00 PM 12 comments  

Labels: design, networking, play games

Mylot: It's Like Myspace With Money
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

If you spend a lot of time on sites like myspace and facebook, you may be happy to hear that there is a similar site that will pay you to network.

Mylot offers incentives to it's users for taking part in discussions, uploading new pictures, and for referrals. The pay out is pretty small. It averages around 4 cents for a comment and 10 cents for a new topic. The minimum payout is $10, so you could expect to get paid every month by using this site. Although this isn't much money, if you enjoy doing it, it can be worth while.

One thing I like about it is that they have a good hold on spammers. A lot of people who use Mylot seem genuine, not like they are trying to make a quick buck. Therefore if you are looking to network and meet new people, using Mylot can be a way to do it while getting paid. They are ranked 6,000 on Alexa, which means that there is usually a lot going on and a lot of members online. They currently have over 100,000 members.

The downside is that their lay-out is bad. It's hard to navigate and it looks disorganized.

Here is a screenshot of their discussion page:



I wouldn't go to Mylot expecting a second income, but if you are looking for a way to network while earning a little extra on the side, I would definitely recommend it.

Trying to make good money is not as hard as it seems. Many people are able to put extra money into their savings accounts while still being able to pay off their bad credit credit cards. Many people don't realize that, much like airline credit cards, some sites will reward you for doing what you already do!

Posted by Crystal 11:06 AM 5 comments  

Labels: networking, writing

Make money giving advice
Saturday, July 14, 2007

If you have a webcam and knowledge in any field, you can make money giving advice online. Giving good advice is a great way to make money, especially if it's about something complicated like credit card offers or finances. Many people have questions on, say, the validity of low interest credit card offers or how effective student credit cards are for young people.

Here are a few sites that are looking for help:

Kasamba
As an expert on Kasamba, you set a rate per minute for your live advice. When someone needs your services they give you a message and you set up a time to talk. They can choose to talk to you either through e-mail or webcam chat.

While looking through the site I saw a profile of an expert who charges $20 per minute. She had 240 ratings, which means that at least 240 people payed her $20 a minute for advice. Obviously there is money making potential in this.

Jyve
Jyve is also a site where you charge an hourly rate to give advice. The difference is that you get customers by answering questions in a chat room. If some one likes your advice, they can tip you or start a private session with you. When you enter a private session you begin to earn the hourly rate that you set.

Ingenio
You can list your services on Ingenio including your expertise, training, and the rate-per-minute that you charge. The difference with Ingenio is that it connects you with people who are looking for advice over the phone. Although this isn't an online opportunity, I think it is worth listing because it is something that you can do at home with the same relative ease as working on a computer.

Don't be discouraged from applying if you don't have an advanced degree. There are many things you can give advice about that don't require college degrees. For example:

Dating
Gardening
Collecting
Travel
Astrology
Numerology
Gift giving

and more.

So try it out, you might surprise yourself.

Posted by Crystal 4:53 AM 4 comments  

Labels: give advice, networking, writing