Unobux is a new comer in the PTC jungle, will it be survive just like Neobux?, or it will following buxout or sandra click.. :( only time will prove it
Whats Included:
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Unobux Review - could it be the next Neobux?
Friday, February 6, 2009
Earning Extra Money From Home
The Internet has opened many opportunities for people who are interested in earning extra money. Instead of having to obtain a part time job you only need to sit down to your computer and locate several different ways you can start earning extra money without leaving your home. Before you begin, however, you need to take time to evaluate your needs and determine how much time you have to spend earning extra money from home. The amount of time you have to spend will have an effect on the ways in which you can earn extra money from home.
You will find many different ways that will allow you to earn extra money by using your home computer, but you don't want to jump at the first opportunity that sounds good to you. By analyzing your needs in terms of cash flow and time you can make a better decision about an income opportunity. One of the mistakes that people make is assuming there is less time involved with online money making opportunities when the reality is that you must spend the time if you want to earn money. The more time you have to spend or are willing to spend the more money you will be able to earn.
Another mistake that some people make is thinking they can join several different affiliate marketing programs and just promote their site when they first start. It is not like network marketing where you promote to one person who will promote to another in the network. You are the only person in charge of promoting your affiliate marketing site and if you expect to earn money with it you will have to consistently promote it. You also want to choose programs in which you have an interest. It's also good to choose ones programs that are related in some way so that you can identify a target audience and direct your promotion to that group.
You don't want to make the mistake of thinking you can sit down at your computer and right away begin earning extra money. In most cases it will day weeks and even months before you will begin to see any payoffs from your efforts. Of course, if you have an Ecommerce site you may begin earning extra money more quickly if you have the right products, but in most cases it is not going to happen immediately. That means you want to begin looking for ways to earn extra money before you are in a position that you need it to meet your financial obligations.
Finding different ways to earn extra money online is the first thing you want to do, and you want to begin this before you think about what you want to do to make some extra money. Give yourself some research time so that you will be able to take the time to look into different possibilities and choose the one that will be able to more closely provide what you are seeking in both time requirements and income.
Dustin Heath recommends that you visit http://www.chanano.com to learn how you can start your own home-based business earning multiple streams of income with a Plug-In Profit Site - Complete Money Making Site Setup FREE!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dustin_Heath
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Affiliate Marketing Tips - How You Can Avoid the 3 Biggest Causes of Affiliate Failure
You can actually cut your chances of affiliate marketing failure by half or more if you avoid a few simple mistakes that most affiliate marketers make. It's not rocket science. If you follow a few basic rules, you can avoid becoming the next affiliate failure. Here are the 3 biggest causes of a lack of success:
1. Promoting poor products
Promoting products that over-promise and under-deliver is a surefire way to kill your business. If you have a list of subscribers, they will soon stop buying from you if you promote half past six products. Before you promote anything, be sure to get a copy of the product if you can to check out its quality first before you roll out big.
2. Using the same ads everyone uses
Affiliate programs often provide email ads, pay per click ads and the like for promoting their products. Are you using these ads, unchanged? Then stop doing it! Start writing your own ads, or at the very least, make slight changes to the ad. Improve it!
3. Not having a consistent traffic action plan
This is probably the biggest cause for affiliate marketing failure. Oftentimes, it all comes down to driving targeted traffic to your offer. If you can do that, even a poor product will make money for you. Have a solid traffic generation plan that consists of strategies like article marketing, Web 2.0 and pay per click advertising. Determine how many articles you will write per day, how many PPC campaigns you will test and how exactly you will use Web 2.0 sites to market your affiliate products. In short, start making a plan.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
How to Choose the Best Home Based Business Ideas
For those who are looking for a home based business, it's important to know how to choose the best home based business ideas from among the available selections. Although it may seem like it's an easy task, the reality is that it is very complex-at least if you want to make the right decision. You don't want to dive in with no idea what you are doing nor do you want to choose something just because it "sounds like a good idea." You want to take some time to research and base that research on your own personal skills, education, experience and interests.
Why is it important to choose something that interests you instead of something that will make the most money? Look at some of the jobs you may have held in your lifetime. In which ones did you do the best? If you are like most people you excel doing a job that is of interest to you as well as something in which you have skills and experience. It is essential to look for home based business ideas that you will enjoy because if you enjoy what you are doing you will work harder and thus make more money. You have to look beyond just how much money you can earn because if you don't do the work that is necessary you are not going to make the same amount of money you would if you were working that home based business idea to its highest potential.
That doesn't mean you have to choose home based business ideas that fit into the categories of hobbies because doing that will create conflict as well. Choosing something that is a hobby and trying to turn it into a business may not work for you unless you can stop seeing it as a hobby and begin to see it as a business. For example, if you enjoy writing as a hobby and think you can enter into business as a writer, you have to begin to see from all angles. Some people are unable to take a hobby and turn it into a business venture because they no longer enjoy doing that when it becomes something they have to do.
When you're looking at home based business ideas in order to choose the one that is right for you there are many things you have to consider with the most important being the amount of money you expect to earn. If you're looking for a second or even primary income your needs will be different than if you just want to make some extra spending money. You also want to analyze how many hours you want to devote to your home based business. This will go hand in hand with your potential earning capacity because the more hours you devote to your business the more money you will earn. Combining all of these factors with your skills, experience, education and interests will help you choose the best home based business to meet your needs.
Dustin Heath recommends that you visit http://www.work-at-home-internet-marketing.com/ to learn how you can start your own home-based business earning multiple streams of income with a Plug-In Profit Site - Complete Money Making Site Setup FREE!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dustin_Heath
Sunday, February 1, 2009
How to Be a Top Online Marketer in 2009?
You have a business program like affiliate program but you never succeed, the only thing remain in your mind is how you can be succeed even you don have any experience yet. Nowadays lots of people were trying to be a successful online marketer, most of them are using SEO technique to generate more free traffic onto their site. Well today i’m gonna briefly explain to you how you can be a successful online marketer by giving you the best tips to be on top
1. Know Your Role
You know the role to be online marketer before you jump toward it? If you don know then its hard for you to take this serious job and the first thing that probably crossed into your mind was advertising your program and get downline as many as possible. Actually its not like that, if you ever been in a company and you send your application there, what is the first thing they will teach you before they can accepting you? Policies, how its works, the thing you should do and the thing you shouldn’t do. Thats it! If you got that then you can take this role
2. Behave on yourself
Be an online marketer doesn’t have to be a jerk. If you know the best part of advertising but you still need to know more proper information on how to do it, then as soon as the people know your successful story and how did you take this job at first time, then they can admire you that you are playing fair
3. Be Confident
If you ever seen someone who advertising their affiliate program and they claimed themself that they can earn a hundred or even thousand of dollar but you don know how far is their experience and you’re not really sure about their words then you should consider twice before you can take their part job. Sometimes be an online marketer must have this attitude, but that doesn’t mean you can faking up your successful story only just wanted to get downline for your own. I’m not saying you should lie to people or pretend to be something that you absolutely aren’t. My point is, if you’re starting out your business and you absolutely are new, then just be confident and believe that your business program is worth to try. People will judge you from that and will respect you more than anyone else because you have good personality. If you continue this way, people will believe in you, and as soon as you become an expert then you are in the first place by pretending in your confident. Fake it until you make it!
4. Help People out
Building a relationship and network with other online marketer is a must. If you think you are an expert because you probably had successfully selling all your stuff and earn thousand of dollar per month and you don need to teach the new one (because you think its just a waste of time) then you all are absolutely moron! You might don even know that there is a hundred of expert people out there that were still willing to teach people even the little guy, helping them out to achieve their goal. And the point is, you can’t live without anyone help. You help people and people will help you to gain more exposure as a top online marketer.
5. Associated with Successful People
You need to associate and get closer to successful people. That way will teach you and help you out from the problem you’re getting into. Go get networking with people because people simply can’t live with their own world and try to solve their own problem without anyone support. Neil Patel is one of the example. He is well associated with hundreds of successful people, which many of them are older than his age. Read why he can be successful, and you are not.
6. Be Yourself
Don try to fool anyone else with your fake personality as anyone may have bad point against your act. Just be natural and people will see that you are truly honest and can be trusted. This is important if you want to get anyone respect as you can indirectly increase the popularity of your reputation.
7. Expose Yourself
You need to put yourself in everywhere so people will know you and as soon as you become popular, then everything will run smoothly. Build up your own Wikipedia page, be active in forum that related to Marketing, be an active spokesman / commenter in every social media bookmarking/networking site, post picture of yourself in flickr and let people know your best captured shot, Upload nice video in youtube. Just expose yourself and let people know who you really are
8. Be Humble
Not everyone is perfect, and be humble is the best way to realize yourself even you’d probably become an expert marketer in the future, but there’s always someone greater than you. You still need to realize that you can’t live without anyone support (the one who teach you) as they have drag you so hard to this road, you need to do the same with the newbie, help them out and don blow them off!
9. Don Give Up
Every road has its own burden, If you can’t bypass it, then you’ll never succeed no matter what your business program is. And if you give up so easily in online job then don ever think you can be successful with your offline job.
Now what will you think? Do you still have an ability to be an successful marketer this year? i’m sure you will. As long as you have strong will and strong mind to compete with others then everything is possible
Top 10 AdSense tips
As you all already know, the only way to monetize your site/blog is by placing an adsense, nowadays there are many adsense program namely AdBrite and Bidvertiser for example. But what i would like to tell you is the tips how to put your adsense correctly, there are 10 adsense tips in total, so here they are:
#1: Find your keywords
Before serving ads on a web page, check its keyword density. A free and advanced tool for finding the most prominent keywords in a page can be found here: SEO Density Analyzer. Copy the most important keywords to a text file ([web page name]-adsense-keywords.txt).
#2: Improve your keywords
Get keyword suggestions from Overture Search Inventory and from Google AdWords Sandbox. Get new keywords that can help you improve your ad relevance. Enter the keywords from [web page name]-adsense-keywords.txt and save the suggestions to [web page name]-adsense-suggestions.txt.
#3: Keep your website focused on a theme
Use the keyword suggestions to enhance your web pages and to build theme-based content. And also try to get your keywords into the anchor text of your incoming links as much as possible. Don’t forget that Google AdSense is keyword-targeted advertising: Google AdSense bases its advert topics on your websites content, this means that content-rich websites of a popular topic should attract a large amount of ads.
#4: Write a new page every day
One of the best tips is to add a new page to your web site every day. The more content you have, the more visitors you will get. Put an Adsense unit on each and every content page of your site. But where? You will find more about that from the next AdSense tips.
#5: Choose the right AdSense format
Wider formats are successful because the ads are compact, easy to read and are complementary to the content. The top three AdSense formats are:
336×280 large rectangle
300×250 medium rectangle
160×600 wide skyscraper
Another successful format is the 468×15 horizontal ad links, that can be placed under your navigation bar.
#6: Color tips
When creating your Google AdSense ads it is recommended to use the color scheme and style of your website so that the ads blend in well. Ads without background color and borders perfom better than ads within borders with background color.
Create a custom AdSense palette:
border color = background color of your web site
background color = background color of your web site
link color = blue, color of your links
url color = black, #999999
text color = black, #333333, color of your main content
You can also rotate your color palette: select multiple color palettes that blend with your site to create variety.
#7: Position tips
Visitors tend to look at the big headlines to see if your page is worth reading. If you get them interested, they will read the text and look for your navigation links.
Place the AdSense ads in a prominent place around the top/left part of your page or under your headlines, where your visitors are most likely to look at.
If you have an article page with a long body of text, the bottom of that article is a good place for AdSense ads because your visitors read the text and then they want more resources.
#8: Increase the number of ads, but not too much
If you have a lot of text on a page, use multiple AdSense units. You can use up to three AdSense units on a page, two AdSense search boxes and one unit of ad links.
Link units allow the user to refine what they’re interested in. So if they may not be interested in specific ads on your page, they might be interested in a particular topic, and by clicking on a link unit and a link in the link unit, they’ll be able to specify that they’re interested in that specific topic and get a lot more options and variety on the ads that might appear.
AdSense for Search allows visitors to search Google.com or your sites (up to 3 domains). You earn money whenever they click on the ads that come up on the search results. If you click the Open search results in a new browser window checkbox in the AdSense for Search settings, you won’t lose your visitors.
#9: Preview Google ads
You can find out what ads will be served by Google AdSense if you install Google AdSense Preview Tool, a very simple tool available only for Internet Explorer 6.0. Click to advertiser sites without generating invalid clicks, and easily add their URLs to your URL filter list. Because AdSense uses geo-targeting, Google serves different ads for other countries. Instead of faking your IP or travelling abroad to test your ads, use this AdSense tool to see what ads see your visitors from France, Germany or other countries.
There may be no Google AdSense ads available for your webpage, so Googlw will display Public Service Ads. You can hide them using alternate colors or images. Make sure you include the image in a simple html file as a link (use target=”_top”). The image size should be the same as the dimension of AdSense units. In the alternate url box, enter the absolute url of the html file.
Read more about alternate ads.
#10: What not to do
Don’t click on your own ads
Don’t ask others to click on your Google ads
Don’t manually change AdSense code
Don’t place Google ads on sites that include prohibited content (e.g.: adult sites)
Don’t employ cloaking, hidden text or farm links
Don’t use AdSense ads on the same page with similar ads (e.g.: Yahoo Publisher Network)
I found out that all these tips have been shared in many forum/site, so i’m gonna give you a little of my resource
From WebCosmo Forum
From Digital Point Forum
and Make Money Online blog
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
101 Ways to Monetize Your Website or Blog
Recently when i search something in Google, i accidentally found this nice article and thought i’d share with you all
Text Link Advertising
Text Link Ads (aff.) - The leader in paid text link ads.
LinkWorth - Keep up to 70% of the ad revenue.
Text Link Brokers - Make money buy selling links in a directory on your site.
Live Customer - Static HTML ads with flat monthly rates.
LinkAdage - Matches advertisers with publishers
Direct-Link-Ads - Keep up to 75% of the ad revenue.
PaidTextLinks - A smaller text link program.
Kontera - Create contextual links automatically.
Vibrant Media - Vibrant in-text advertising.
TextAd.biz - Basic text ad service.
SearchFriendlyAds - Not live yet.
YzMedia - Another text link option.
Direct Sales
KickStartCart - A shopping cart, merchant account and marketing tools.
PayPal - One of the lowest-cost choices for selling your own products.
EasyStoreCreator - Provides a package that includes hosting, merchant account integration, and shopping cart.
1ShoppingCart - Offers different packages with marketing tools, shopping carts and merchant accounts.
ASecureCart - An affordable shopping cart service
NetSuite - Full e-commerce option.
GotShoppingCart? - Free version available.
3D Cart - Includes marketing, statistics and more.
Americart - 30-day risk-free trial.
MonsterCommerce - Full of features.
PPC
adsense
Google AdSense - The industry leader.
Yahoo Publisher Network - Yahoo’s AdSense alternative.
Chitika - eMiniMalls is not a typical PPC program, it is different kind of pay-per-click product promotion.
Kanoodle - A second-tier PPC option as opposed to Google and Yahoo.
Ads-Click - You set the price per click for ads showing on your site.
AdBrite - Control and customization options.
ABC Search - Another 2nd-tier option.
BidVertiser - Large network PPC program.
Clicksor - Contextual ads program.
Qads - Ad program from Qumana.
PeakClick - Pays in Euros.
DoubleClick - Another targeted PPC
option.
RevenuePilot - Keep 60% of the revenue.
Search Feed - Another option for targeted PPC ads.
Targetpoint - For publishers of all sizes.
OneMonkey - Keep 80% of the revenue.
Miva MC - PPC ads plus the option for contextual PPD ads.
ClickBooth - Claims to have the highest payout in the industry.
Banner Ads
AdEngage - Not a typical banner ad, the’re photo ads with text.
AdDynamix - Also offers other options besides just banners.
BannerBoxes - Your keep 75% of the revenue from each click.
Affiliate Programs
Commission Junction - One of the leaders. Manages affiliate programs for all kinds of products.
Click Bank - All downloadable affiliate products.
LinkShare - Claims to be the largest pay-for-performance affiliate marketing network.
MoreNiche - Its been more than 2 year since they build this business. You can earn $10 for signup bonus, another $15 dollar will be added to your account if you promote their affiliate product in your site, it doesn’t matter if the visitor will purchase it, you just putting it there and you got another $15 so in total you can earn $25 as for your start
Azoogle Ads - Also claims to be the largest performance-based online advertising network.
Amazon - One of the oldest and most successful affiliate programs.
Context Links for Amazon’s Affiliate Program - Auto creates affiliate links to Amazon’s products.
Paid Reviews
ReviewMe - Get paid to review other websites and blogs.
PayPerPost - Make money writing about website, products, services and companies.
Parked Domains
Revenue Direct - Make money from a parked domain.
Parked - Another option for parked domains.
Random/Various
The News Room - Make money by placing news items on your site.
Tribal Fusion - Represents the advertising for selectively approved websites.
IndustryBrains - Has a few different options that would fall into various categories above.
Adknowledge - Options for email, web, and search engine inventory.
Yesadvertising - Lots of options, including contextual ads, email, banners and pop-unders.
ValueMedia - Several different options, including video.
Auction Ads - Make money by displaying Ebay items.
IntelliTXT - Contextual ads that include video.
PremierAd - Lots of different options. You keep 80% of ad revenue.
BurstMedia - A variety of different options.
Advertising.com - Multiple options, including video ads.
Openads - Online advertising software.
Casale Media - You choose what type of ads you want on your site.
VC Media - CPC or CPM options.
Ads by RSS - Places ads on your website, using RSS.
AdSpaceAuctions - Sell ad space on your website through an auction.
TextMarks - Monetize your blog with text message alerts.
Sell Ad Space
AdSonar -Provide content-targeted ads.
BlogAds - You control the ads that appear on your site.
Crisp Ads - name your price for direct sponsors.
ADSDAQ - Choose your asking price for ads and ADSDAQ matches you with advertisers.
AdVolcano - Set your own prices and ad sizes.
RSS Feed Monetization
Pheedo - PPC for RSS feeds.
PostPostWordPress Plugin - Display affiliate links or ads before or after your feeds (other uses beside just advertising).
Feedvertising - Runs txt link ads in your feed.
FeedBurner Ads - If you use FeedBurner’s services for distributing and tracking your feeds, you also have the option of using their advertising services in your feeds.
MediaFed - Automatically inserts ads into your feed.
FeedShow - Puts PPC ads into your feed.
Fedafi Publishing Network - Monetize your feed with the Fedafi WordPress plugin.
Yahoo Publisher Network - PPC ads in your feeds.
Job Boards
Joards - Put a job board on your site and keep 75% of the revenue.
Job-a-matic - Another option for making money with a job board.
WP Plugins
AdSense-Deluxe - Embed AdSense or Yahoo Publisher Network ads into your blog.
AdSense Sharing Revenue and Earnings System - A plugin for blogs that have multiple writers. Let each of your writers make money from ads on their own posts.
AdSense Injection - Inject AdSense ads throughout an existing blog.
Google AdSense Referral Rotator Plugin - Make money by referring other users to AdSense.
Amazon Media Manager - Easily ad Amazon affiliate products to your blog.
WP-Amazon - Quickly search for products and add Amazon affiliate links while writing your posts.
Last Amazon Review Plugin - Displays your most recent review of a product listed on Amazon and includes your Amazon affiliate link.
Text Ads Link Widget for WordPress Sidebar - A simple widget that makes it easy to display text ads in your sidebar.
WPAds Plugin - Show and rotate ads on your blog.
AdRotator Plugin - Randomly rotates ads that you choose.
WP E-commerce Shopping Cart Plugin - Creates a shopping cart with tons of features and options for your WP blog or website.
EasyPayPal WordPress Plugin - Integrates your blog and your PayPal account to accept donations or fees.
Buy Me a Beer Plugin - Accept donations from your readers by asking them to buy you a beer (or coffee) if they liked your post.
CafePress - Sell your own products on your blog.
YAK - Simple shopping cart plugin.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Best Tips before joining Paid-to-click sites
Hi, I would like to share tips before you can join any kind of PTC (Paid-to-click sites)
1. Always see if there is any forum, click on the link to make sure if the link is working
2. Read their Success Story and Payment Proof and see if anyone have got paid
3. See when did the last payment given
4. Look at how may earning do these people got when they have invested (Usually its located in Success Story sub forum)
5. See how many ads per day, normally a sustainable sites would give only 7 - 8 ads/day if there is more and the min payout is lower (about $2) then you must be fully aware of that site, because there is a chance that admin would never pay its member
6. See also their rates per click, a sustainable sites can give you 1 cents per click and 50% downline earning, a VERY sustainable sites will give you only half cents per click ($0.005) like what TakeTheGlobe have
7. See how many advertiser in their ads, if its less than that or only self-sponsored ads (meaning: only the admin advertising his own program) then there is a chance that site would close anytime.
8. Do NOT accept the site that transferring your money by BankWire account - never trust that site!!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Introduction - InterNET... peluang bisnis yang cerah
Dear Friends,
Kebanyakan orang ingin mempunyai usaha sampingan, tapi seringkali niat ini terbentur modal, waktu dan kesempatan. untungnya saat ini internet sudah semakin mudah dan murah, dimana dibalik maraknya internet ini terselip beberapa peluang yang dapat dimanfaatkan bagi yang jeli melihatnya, dengan modal mulai dari Rp. 0 hingga modal yang tak terbatas, sayangnya masih banyak orang yang salah kaprah dalam menggunakan internet untuk mendulang penghasilan. untuk itu melalui blog ini diharapkan kita dapat bersama-sama belajar hingga mendapatkan keuntungan yang maksimal dari internet ini
salam,
Pemula dibidang InterNET Bisnis
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
PTC Sites
Around 10-15 links a day.
HOW to earn:
You view websites in 30 second sessions via the "Surf Ads" page.
Earnings:
Standard members $0.01; Premium members $0.015
Payment process:
You can request for payment once you're account balance is at least $10. Your payment will be processed and issued via AlertPay within 7 business days or less
My earnings:
$0.62
Friday, February 15, 2008
Buying Gold For Investing
While buying gold or gold ornaments, you have to check for the purity of the yellow metal. You can get gold of much purity. Perfect sovereign will be 24 carrot or 100% pure Gold. Generally gold for ornaments are gold mixed with copper in a less fraction, 22 carrot or known as 916 is the purity of the ornamental gold. Make sue that when you buy gold, you are getting only 24 carrots or 22 carrots gold. If you take with you an expert in gold business, he will able to identify even the small variations in the metal's purity. He requires only mostly hand weighing and the view of the color. So it is better to take the help of an expert while buying gold for investing.
Most of the reputed jewelries will be giving guarantee for purity of 916. Make sure that you collect the guarantee card with the purchase voucher. This will assure up to a level good gold quality. There are many markings on the gold, like hologram markings, telling that it is pure Gold. Purchasing such hallmarked gold materials will be mostly provide pure items.
It is better to avoid ornaments for investing. Gold coins are the best option for buying gold. Ornaments making is very costly. If you want ornaments, you are forced to pay about 15% to 20% more than the actual gold price. Here gold coins play a role. Also it is a truth that gold coins only provide the purity maximum, as they are not processed for converting into ornaments. Make sure that when you purchase gold for investing, you getting it from only reputed firms with long history of existence and selling. Make sure that the gold piece what you take have all symbols of quality as prescribed the federal governments. Members of the PNG are the better dealers for reliable Gold.
With the advent of Internet, the gold purchase is easy. Many online vendors offer pure gold coins apart from usual local dealers. It is advisable to take the help of some skilled personals to check the purity before buying.
Robert Grazian is an accomplished niche website developer and author. To learn more about buying gold for investing visit High Income Online for current articles and discussions.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Robert_Grazian
Friday, February 1, 2008
Avoiding HYIP Scams - How to Start with HYIP Investment :Hyip Expert's Advice
Thursday, January 3, 2008
E-Gold
According to the company's website, as of April 2007, e-gold had 112,188 oz (3,492.0 kilograms) of gold and 138,567 oz (4,313.1 kg) of silver in storage, which is worth approximately US$86 million. There are typically 66,000 e-gold spends each day totalling 15,000 oz (470 kg), which is about US$10.5 million. There are over three million e-gold accounts of which about one quarter are active.
History
e-gold was founded in 1996 by Dr. Douglas Jackson and Barry K. Downey. Transactions using e-gold have grown dramatically since 2005. The total amount of gold bars (over three tonnes) in the e-gold system is approaching the size of the national reserves of smaller countries. e-gold now generates a substantial income from spend and storage fees — there is a charge of a few cents to make each e-gold "spend" and e-gold itself now earns well over a million USD per year from fees.
The number of e-gold accounts (as claimed by e-gold) grew from 1 million in November 2003 to 3 million on 22 April 2006.
Role in global commerce
Many small businesses in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, each with full-time staff, now operate as "digital currency exchangers", doing nothing other than buying and selling digital gold currency for national currencies which are not backed by hard assets.
e-gold transactions — a "spend" — are completed electronically, usually using the web interface, and they always settle by weight of the metal even if denominated in some other way. A user may send (or "spend") a tiny amount of gold (a fraction of a gram, ounce or kilogram) to another user account instantly, anywhere in the world.
Even though e-gold is careful to not advocate any particular political agenda, as the Liberty Dollar does for example, e-gold could be viewed[who?] as a libertarian form of private currency.
Asset protection
e-gold is, according to its website, "100% backed by gold"
Unlike fractional-reserve banking, e-gold holds 100% of clients' funds in reserves with a store of value. Proponents of the e-gold system contend that e-gold deposits are protected against inflation, devaluation and other possible economic risks inherent in fiat currencies. These risks include the monetary policy of countries or territories, which are perceived by proponents to be harmful to the value of paper currency.
The repository of the actual bullion bars with serial numbers and other data can be seen using the live "Examiner" function on the e-gold web site. Bullion is held in allocated storage with Brink's Global Services (part of The Brink's Company), Transguard Security Services (part of The Emirates Group) or MAT Securitas Express AG (part of the VIA MAT Group). Clients hold an unallocated share of this allocated bullion.
Read More......
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
High-Yield Investment Program (HYIP)
Overview
HYIP operators generally set up a website offering an "investement program" with returns as high as 45% per month or 6% a day that discloses little or no detail about the underlying management, location, or other aspects of how money is to be invested because no money is invested. They often use vague explanations, asserting little more than that they do different types of trading on various stock markets or exchanges to generate the returns they purport. The SEC has said the following on the matter: "These fraudulent schemes involve the purported issuance, trading, or use of so-called 'prime' bank, 'prime' European bank or 'prime' world bank financial instruments, or other 'high yield investment programs.' ('HYIP's) The fraud artists... seek to mislead investors by suggesting that well regarded and financially sound institutions participate in these bogus programs.
Some investigators believe that the majority of HYIPs are Ponzi schemes, in which new participants provide the cash to pay a profit into existing investors' accounts. However, as there are no formal statistics available about the HYIP sector, much of the material in this article is based on anecdote and conjecture.
HYIPs are able to succeed in collecting large sums of money for the operators because the initial payoff to first and second round participants helps the scam to continue spreading by word of mouth as long as new participants are found and/or old participants leave their money in the scheme in hopes of gaining interest on their principal payment. Participants are usually presented some form of an appeal to emotion or faith that the HYIP will help them achieve quick financial freedom. HYIPs may also mirror Pyramid Schemes by offering current investors incentive commissions, for example 9% of current investment, to recruit new investors.
The introduction of e-currencies in the late 1990s made it possible for HYIPs to operate on the Internet and across international boundaries, and to accept large numbers of small payments. HYIPs usually accept payments by either e-currency, like e-gold, and INTGold (now defunct), or use specialist third party payment processors like AlertPay, SolidTrustPay, CEPTrust, TriStarMoneyChangers and StormPay.
The largest documented HYIP scam was OSGold, founded as an e-gold imitation in 2001 by David Reed. OSGold folded in 2002. According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in early 2005, the operators of OSGold may have made off with USD $250 million.
CNet reported that:
At the height of its popularity, the OSGold currency boasted more than 60,000 accounts created by people drawn to promises of "high yield" investments that would provide guaranteed monthly returns of 30 percent to 45 percent.
The second largest documented HYIP was PIPS (People in Profit System or Pure Investors). The investment scheme was started by Bryan Marsden in early 2004, according to the Wayback Machine record of pureinvestor.com, and spanned more than 20 countries. PIPS was investigated by Bank Negara Malaysia in 2005 which resulted in Marsden and his wife being charged in a Malaysian court with 97 counts of money laundering more than 77 million RM, equivalent to $20 million. Even after these charges were brought forth, many of Marsden's followers and investors continued to support him and believe they would see their money in the future. This type of rationalization and denial can often be seen on many HYIP forums.
HYIP games
As a result of online forums and monitoring sites which have made HYIP investors more aware of their nature, some HYIP operaters promote their programs as a "ponzi-structured game" where one should "not invest money one cannot afford to lose", and where there is "never a guarantee of earnings or refunds". They promise to pay out up to, for example, 95% of deposits, the rest going to hosting or other fees and the owner's profit.
In such "games", the first participants ("investors") may make a good profit and are encouraged to refer other people to the program because of referral commission, the fact that they have already made back their principal and are playing with profit, and that the more people who deposit money, the more money can be paid out to participants. In theory, strategies can be developed to maximize profit using these games (but, of course, since this is a zero-sum game, such strategies work by taking advantage of ignorance or errors by others). Some forum users may gain a reputation whereby others will trust their word that they have been able to withdraw their profits, encouraging others to invest in the hopes that more will invest after them and that they can therefore make a profit. As these games are by definition Ponzi schemes, it is inevitable that the vast majority of participants who are not at the top of the pyramid will lose their money.
These "games" might be considered as lotteries. However, the odds of winning cannot be determined, as one cannot know whether one is playing early enough to win money (that is, whether a sufficient number of new participants will follow). Thus, these activities are unlike a lottery or other forms of regulated gambling, where a participant has an equal chance of winning no matter when a ticket is bought, or where the odds of the game are known.
HYIP programs generally appeal to the same kind of person who is attracted to gambling. Like gambling, HYIP "games" are a way of separating the participant from his money, while offering a small chance of making a profit. This accounts for their rapid proliferation.
HYIP participants
As can be readily determined from perusing various HYIP monitor forums, a large number of HYIP participants continue to participate in new schemes after they have already lost money in schemes that folded. The fact that most of the programs are labelled "scams" on the HYIP monitor boards (see below) suggests that many of the participants are aware of the risk and know that most HYIP's are fraudulent but choose to put money in the programs anyway. This kind of irrational risk-taking behavior is typical of gambling addicts.
HYIP monitors
HYIP monitors, or HYIP listing/rating sites, are personal or commercial websites that list and/or promote HYIPs for referral commissions. The monitor charges each HYIP a listing fee which is usually then invested into that program, although there exist free listings and occasionally monitors which invest their own money. The monitor then labels the HYIP as "Paying" or "Not paying/Scam" depending on whether interest is received within the terms specified by the program. Monitors also allow other HYIP investors to rate and comment on the programs, based on factors such as promptness of payouts and responsiveness of the HYIP administrator. Programs with higher ratings achieve higher rankings on the monitor sites, which coupled with a "Paying" status may entice more investors who rely on the monitor.
In some cases, HYIPs may only pay monitor sites to keep their "Paying" status visible, but do not pay other investors. As HYIP monitors are not affiliated with the HYIPs themselves, they are unable to prevent investors from being scammed; they neither help to recover lost funds nor track down the scammers. Promoting or perpetuating Ponzi schemes is a criminal offense punishable by jail terms or fines in most countries. That the monitor sites place disclaimers saying that they "do not promote the programs advertised on their website" does not absolve them from criminal liability.
In order to generate a "paying" status early (so that future visitors will see it) and maintain it for the longest possible time, newly opened HYIPs list their site quickly as well as constantly pay monitors their interest on time. Added to the fact that many monitors invest the listing "fee", and that a commission is received on each deposit made by people who visit the HYIP via the monitor, they are the most likely to profit when a program runs out of funds.
HYIP owners can manipulate monitors and forums, by paying people to comment positively or by using a range of IP addresses or proxy servers in different locations so that "paying" votes appear to come from around the world. This allows the HYIP to rise up the rankings more quickly than others, giving participants a false sense of security. Additionally, even if they know it will scam in the future, some participants will also rate new HYIPs positively until the HYIP stops paying, because they want more people to invest after them in the hopes that the program will last longer. Future scammers can also build up a good reputation on forums for a large payoff once most forum members trust them.
The problem is seen as many monitors appear only to make certain programs more acceptable and trustworthy.
Mechanics
Though Ponzi and HYIP schemes have thrived and multiplied since at least the early 1900s, the combination of the Internet and Electronic Money has played an important role in the rapid growth of HYIP's in the first decade of the 21st century. Like many businesses with a narrow niche market, the Internet has enabled HYIP scammers to find a global market of people who demonstrate by their behavior that they "want to be scammed". Somewhat similar to the poor person who spends a large percentage of his income on lotto tickets in hopes of striking it rich, HYIP participants invest money in a "company" in a foreign country that offers returns that are "too good to be true", that publishes no verifying information, and has no way of being held accountable.
The use of digital payments systems has made it much easier for operators of such websites to accept payments from people worldwide. Electronic Money systems are generally accepted by HYIP operators because that is the only payment system to which they have access. Obviously, acceptance of credit cards and ACH would give them access to a far larger pool of prospective victims, but the difficulty of opening a merchant processing account while hiding their identity prevents them from doing so. Since digital money systems generally don't issue credit and don't earn interest on their client accounts, they often do not perform investigation of their merchant clients, as a bank typically does.
Once the HYIP operator has received the payment, it is difficult and costly to track them down across several national borders. This would be the case regardless of whether regular banks or electronic money was used.
While some HYIP operators exploited this weakness, several digital currency companies responded by taking measures to discourage their system from being used for HYIPs. Certain HYIP operators, such as David Reed, opened digital currency companies serving the HYIP niche. Examples of payment systems started by HYIP operators that eventually folded include Standard Reserve, OSGold, INTGold, EvoCash and most recently EMO Corp[8]. StormPay was started in the same way in 2002, but has remained in business even though the HYIP that is was created to serve was shut down by the State of Tennessee.
The preference of HYIP operators for e-gold may be because other digital currencies run by HYIP operators that catered to the HYIP niche (see above), have folded, as the operators have made off with the deposits. That is to say, HYIP operators don't trust each other, but they do trust e-gold, which has remained a stable and reliable payment system for over 12 years.
HYIPs have often been started under the guise of companies. Some have gone so far as to actually incorporate their company in countries with lax fraud laws. Due to these locations, operators may be effectively immune to normal laws that would protect a consumer in that consumer's country. The operators have been known to host their website with a webhost that offers "anonymous hosting". They will use this website to accept transactions from participants in the scheme. The HYIP scam may also create sites which employ spamdexing or other adversarial information retrieval techniques in order to attract potential victims by creating an impression that the company has done no wrong. HYIP Monitors are one such example.
Because the amount of money "lost" by a given HYIP participant is generally quite small, and that the nature of the scam is relatively obvious, government task forces on Internet crime do not generally give them high priority.
Rationalizations
Often HYIPs will claim that they make money through non-existent yet plausible means, playing to people's gullibility or ignorance on the subject. In the case of the prime bank scam, many people were led to believe that they were buying banknotes in a clandestine organization called prime bank. Other HYIP scams claim that they use special software or algorithms that have the ability to forecast markets in order to make money.
Social aspects
HYIPs generally appeal to emotions of investors who are looking for quick cash. Unfortunately, often those who play become part of the scam. They are encouraged to promote it in order to receive payment on their investment. In this aspect, it mirrors a Pyramid scheme in that users must recruit others in order to profit.
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Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Pay per click (PPC)
Pay per click ads may also appear on content network websites. In this case, ad networks such as Google AdSense and Yahoo! Publisher Network attempt to provide ads that are relevant to the content of the page where they appear, and no search function is involved.
While many companies exist in this space, Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter are the largest network operators as of 2007. Minimum prices per click, often referred to as Costs Per Click (CPC), vary depending on the search engine, with some as low at $0.01. Very popular search terms can cost much more on popular engines. Arguably this advertising model may be open to abuse through click fraud, although Google and other search engines have implemented automated systems to guard against this.
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Size Genetics
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