First Post - What It's All About

This blog is meant to chronicle my adventures in pay-per-click, review, and gift card websites. I know there are a lot of websites dedicated to making money off of these things, so I guess I'll start by stating this: I don't expect to earn any kind of income off of these.

I'll start with my mission statement. The aim of this blog is:

1. To explore well known pay-per-click websites that "pay out" to citizens of the United States of America. Other countries may be included in this, but why would I join a website that only pays out in India if I live in Illinois? Please don't send me emails about international websites that don't pay out in the U.S.

2. To verify that these websites are legit and do, in fact, pay out. If I earn money, it's worthless to me if I can't access it, I get jacked around on payments, my rewards are taken away due to some technicality before I can claim them, et cetera. It doesn't matter if the payout is a nickel. The key point is that it pays out.

3. To assess whether or not the effort invested is worth the reward. If I spend 5 hours earning 50 cents, the effort is not worth the reward, and the website is not worthwhile.

4. To determine the most efficient way to utilize the program in question. Every system has tricks. Every system has more efficient and less efficient ways of accomplishing the same task. My aim is to decide what the most efficient way of earning money is (even if I don't really earn all that much).

These are the websites I have selected to explore:

Mylot - A social discussion website, somewhat in the vein of Yahoo! Answers. It feels a lot like a cross between a message board, Yahoo! Answers, and Myspace. You get paid a few cents for every discussion you post, rate, or reply to, and for every image you upload. I think your community ranking may also influence this. I'll be chronicling how many posts I've made, my ranking, earnings, where the earnings came from, stuff like that.

Sendearnings - A Pay-per-click/Pay-per-survey website. You are emailed ads, and you earn a few cents for every ad you click on. You also earn a few cents for every survey you fill out, and you can earn up to a few dollars for participating in certain offers (like credit report services, trial memberships at websites, et cetera). I'll be discussing how many ads I've clicked on, the types of offers I've participated in, surveys, stuff like that.

Ciao - I didn't check this one out until recently. You write product reviews, rate and comment on other members' reviews, and get paid for doing it. I didn't check it out for a while because... honestly, I don't know why. I wish I'd looked into it sooner, though, and I'll explain why.

MyPoints - This website rewards you for filling out surveys and completing offers with points you can spend on gift cards from various retailers. I've heard very good things about it, and joined recently - now I want to see how my efforts pan out.

Other Websites, Programs, and Methods - I will touch on other websites - including programs and methods - either as I discover and explore them or as the topic comes up. I have explored a few other places such as Hits 4 Pay and Gaming Lagoon. They aren't on the list above for specific reasons, however, and I'll get into that in further posts.

I would like to note that I have not yet hit payout on any of the above websites. I only recently joined them. I joined many others, but these are the ones that have proven most interesting and have gotten the most positive commentary from their members. I will be chronicling my exploits on these websites on a nearly-daily basis, and if/when I hit payout on them, I will be posting if, how quickly, and how payout was received.

I'd like to go on to say that I'm doing this partly because I'm currently unemployed. Being unemployed sucks. Without a job, I feel sort of purposeless. I'm an artist - mainly, an illustrator and graphic designer. The current economy is unfortunately not kind to artists. Scrabbling for money lately hasn't been fun, and these sorts of things are intriguing to me, so if I can explore a topic that other people on the Internet find interesting - and maybe make a few bucks in the process - then I think everyone wins.