Making Internet Money - how?

Alfred J. Kwak

Scrap that, let's talk about payed internet activities in general. So, what are the best ways to earn some quick cash on the side?

old OP:

Hey,

I'm just curious about the whole thing. I stumbled upon http://www.reviewstream.com/ yesterday, and it looks like it could be quite worthwhile for putting up one-paragraph reviews and cashing in some bucks. Now I want to ask, are there perhaps any sites similar to this one and does anyone here have any experiences with these services?

JHunz

Unless things have changed a lot recently, all of the "make a little money on the side" options on the internet end up paying well below minimum wage. So unless you really, truly cannot find any other way to make money, they're probably not worth it.

Sir Carcass

You could always look for data entry or transcription jobs.

Heartlash

Making money on the internet is shockingly similar to making money anywhere else. It usually requires a fantastic idea, loads of work, and lots of time.

Don't expect to make more than a few bucks a year unless you're really quite dedicated.

Alfred J. Kwak

Nooo, I'm not talking about a "real" job here, just something to do on the side, from home. Like, for example that review site I mentioned, which gives at the moment gives you $2,50 for every review you write (about movies, games, restaurants, ect. - doesn't have to be longer than about one paragraph).

MoSiAc

Wow my work firewall lists that site as a spyware / adware warning. So that's sorta iffy.

I have always heard about buying stuff cheap at like yard sales then selling it on ebay, but I've heard ebay sort of sucks now.

I know amazon has a sort of reviews / quiz website that you can get nickles and dimes for if you have a lot of free time at home.

Fantasma

Making Internet Money requires skills and technical abilities that maybe you don't have at present.

1. Selling Stuff: Used, new at very low price. It is very risky though and you must cover your backside in case the buyer is a swindler or someone from Nigeria.

2. Setting up a website with interesting stuff so that you can route traffic and have people click on ads that can generate money.

3. If you are a talented programmmer, you could theoretically create a cool application and charge money for it. Just to give you an example, I bought a multimedia application from a programmer in Russia who uses a third party billing company, he charges US$40.00 per registration.

Beltaine

What about blogging?

I've seen some people rave about making extra money by starting a blog.

No idea how that happens.

MoSiAc

There's a site called like pay2blog or some such. You have to have a fairly popular blog already and then basically whore yourself out to companies looking for good reviews. They'll pay per word and I think the more traffic you get the more popular you will become and therefore can charge more per review.

Hotlead Junkie

I've had sucsess doing commissions on Deviantart, may be worth considering if you can draw at all. I kept my prices low and got some nice tips/bonuses for nice, speedy work.

What skills do you have?

DirtyDirtyVagrant

You're pretty much either selling something or you're not. If you are, it's either a product or a service. You figure out who you're selling to, you market to them, and then you spend a long ass time building up a reputation and working your ass off for what might eventually be a payout. This is assuming that you have something worth selling in the first place.

If you're not selling, then you're typically an author or something, and your site merely attracts visitors, allowing you to make advertising money. In order to make any money at all your site has to have tens, hundreds of thousands of unique hits every day, which means it had better be pretty goddamn interesting.

In the case of things like comics or games, you can do a combination of the two. Like this site does.

Darksier

Make interesting video logs and acquire steady traffic. Slap on advertisement with hosts such as blip or get an agreement with youtube and you'll start making money. Sounds easy, but requires a lot of dedication if you want to actually make something out of it. My friend's ex-girlfriend started a simple vlog talking about games and generated enough traffic in about 6 months to acquire ads and start making a few hundred bucks a month now.

Alfred J. Kwak

So, here's my problem:

I'm not so good with computers (yet), I can't draw for shit (and deviantart is overrun anyway), I don't have a high-traffic blog (or any at all), and I'm also not a girl. Which leaves me with the buying cheap/selling high stuff, which I tried at a smaller scale and was not good at.

Not the best conditions, I take it.

Darkewolfe

No. God, why is this question asked so much? If there was a really easy way to make money on the internet with minimal high-demand skills and low time-investment, we'd all already be doing it. If we were all already doing it, the demand for it would plummet and it would stop being a paying gig.

Fantasma

A real world work sounds like a second option for you, why do you want to work from home?

Six

You may want to consider just getting a job.

Alfred J. Kwak

Fantasma wrote: »

A real world work sounds like a second option for you, why do you want to work from home?

I'm living in a rural area where it's hard to get legal work and even harder to find illicit work (without the right contacts), and I'm moving to another country in about a month and a half. So, anything easy that nets me some spare cash would be appreciated.

MoSiAc

Thought about hitting up craigslist and looking for anyone looking for a little manual labor or something? Might be a little hard but it'd be extra money and exercise to boot!

exmello

I know someone who has had particular success taking advantage of rich old men on the internet with foot fetishes.

Alfred J. Kwak

exmello wrote: »

I know someone who has had particular success taking advantage of rich old men on the internet with foot fetishes.

I need his number and a link to the website, pronto.

j/k

Szechuanosaurus

Alfred J. Kwak wrote: »

Nooo, I'm not talking about a "real" job here, just something to do on the side, from home. Like, for example that review site I mentioned, which gives at the moment gives you $2,50 for every review you write (about movies, games, restaurants, ect. - doesn't have to be longer than about one paragraph).

If $2.50 for a paragraph if text is the sort of money you're looking for then you could probably whore yourself out as a cheap article writer pretty easily. I can't imagine why, but there are people who will write for about $1-$2 per hundred words and people willing to pay them for it. It seems like it would be translate to a pretty poor hourly rate to me though.

In fact, that's a good question, how much time do you have to dedicate and how much money do you need/want to make? Also, what do you enjoy doing? If the ROI is going to be low it would be preferable to do something you enjoy with your spare time which you can also make a bit of money off the back of.

neville

Alfred J. Kwak wrote: »

Fantasma wrote: »

A real world work sounds like a second option for you, why do you want to work from home?

I'm living in a rural area where it's hard to get legal work and even harder to find illicit work (without the right contacts), and I'm moving to another country in about a month and a half. So, anything easy that nets me some spare cash would be appreciated.

Sell plasma

Elin

neville wrote: »

Alfred J. Kwak wrote: »

Fantasma wrote: »

A real world work sounds like a second option for you, why do you want to work from home?

I'm living in a rural area where it's hard to get legal work and even harder to find illicit work (without the right contacts), and I'm moving to another country in about a month and a half. So, anything easy that nets me some spare cash would be appreciated.

Sell plasma

This may not be accurate outside of the US of A. I know up there in Canada Land plasma is treated as a donation, just like blood so there is no cash involved.

Kiwi

I'm a huge fan of PineCone Research surveys. These guys are awesome - $3 for 10-15 minute surveys. Plus sometimes they send you samples of stuff. Their reward:effort ratio is way higher than all the other sites I've tried.

They've pretty much funded my iTunes shopping sprees, which is cool.

If anyone was interested, here's a link:

http://www.pineconeresearch.com/signup/RR570DS1.asp

neville

Kiwi wrote: »

I'm a huge fan of PineCone Research surveys. These guys are awesome - $3 for 10-15 minute surveys. Plus sometimes they send you samples of stuff. Their reward:effort ratio is way higher than all the other sites I've tried.

They've pretty much funded my iTunes shopping sprees, which is cool.

If anyone was interested, here's a link:

http://www.pineconeresearch.com/signup/RR570DS1.asp

nice 404, bro

Kiwi

neville wrote: »

Kiwi wrote: »

I'm a huge fan of PineCone Research surveys. These guys are awesome - $3 for 10-15 minute surveys. Plus sometimes they send you samples of stuff. Their reward:effort ratio is way higher than all the other sites I've tried.

They've pretty much funded my iTunes shopping sprees, which is cool.

If anyone was interested, here's a link:

http://www.pineconeresearch.com/signup/RR570DS1.asp

nice 404, bro

Oh, whoopsies. The link was from a couple months ago and just figured it still worked. Nevermind then!

neville

Yeah, can't sign up either

Mmmm... Cocks...

Elin wrote: »

neville wrote: »

Alfred J. Kwak wrote: »

Fantasma wrote: »

A real world work sounds like a second option for you, why do you want to work from home?

I'm living in a rural area where it's hard to get legal work and even harder to find illicit work (without the right contacts), and I'm moving to another country in about a month and a half. So, anything easy that nets me some spare cash would be appreciated.

Sell plasma

This may not be accurate outside of the US of A. I know up there in Canada Land plasma is treated as a donation, just like blood so there is no cash involved.

Guess it depends where? I'm almost certain I've known people that have sold their plasma.
Though they have said you aren't "paid", rather you're compensated for your time.
Guess it's a legal thing?

Tigress

I've earned extra cash here and there by joining survey panels. It really depends on if the company conducting the market research is looking for your demographic and you usually get $1 (or the equivalent) for every 20 surveys, but sometimes you score a really good one that nets you a $50 Visa gift card or a $100 check. And the ones that give you points towards free stuff got me two nice appliances (a mini deep fryer and 4-slice toaster) and a sleeping bag that I take to conventions. And the free samples are always nice as well.

Failing that, you can do odd jobs around your neighborhood. Or if you are skilled at a certain craft, set up a website and sell them online. I sell my costume-making and sewing skills online in this manner and make between $100 - 200 profit off each costume, depending on how complex the costume is and how much materials cost me. (Link is in my sig if you're interested in getting an idea of how to go about it.)