Friday, August 31, 2012

CloudCrowd - Working in the "cloud"

CloudCrowd - Ref | Non-ref is an online work platform that has a few advantages over others, like CrowdSource or CrowdFlower. Unlike other "cloud" work platform, CloudCrowd provides quality work to the end-user because of its effective reviewing methods.

The "Credibility system": Like I said, CloudCrowd provides quality work results because it has a very good verification system. On a basic level, it is quite simple: everyone has a certain "credibility". If their work is accepted, their credibility rises, so they have access to much better work and/or other advantages. On the other hand, if their work quality is poor, their credibility decreases. The maximum credibility someone can have is 100. Whenever your credibility decreases under 25 your account is put on hold; if you continue to submit bad quality work, your account will be eventually suspended, so be careful.

Types of work - There are seven work categories: writing, editing, categorization, research, data entry, translation and other. Right after signing up anyone can do categorization or research work without any restrictions - it is actually pretty recommended to start with this kind of work.  After you have a decent level of credibility, you can move on to better paid work.

Writing credentials - What is more, if you're a writer or just want to try out some writing work, you have to pass a certain test, depending on the type of writing you want to do. For example, if you want to do marketing writing, you first have to prove your skills by writing a descriptive article on a certain product, and so on. They payrate for writers is very good, compared to the other types of work, starting from 3 cents per written work, up to 7 cents sometimes.

Referral system: This is one reason I said CloudCrowd is better than most other online work platforms - it allows referrals. They system has a 3-level referral program. Your commisions per referral are the following:

Payment: Your earnings will be automatically transferred to your PayPal account, without any fees and no matter if you earn $0.01 or $10. Here one of my payments:

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Topline guide (passive income)

I will be trying to give a detailed description of what Topline is and what it does exactly. Also, I will be giving a few tips and tricks on how to get some direct referrals, so bear with me throughout this.

What it does: Topline's plug-in replaces the ads from the websites you visit every day with their ads. For each page you visit that contains ads you receive 1 point. Later one, you will transform those points into money.

What you have to do: Obviously, you have to sign up first. Then, you will have to install that plug-in I was talking about earlier. It is available for Firefox, Opera and Chrome users, so there's no worry about incompatibility. After you do this, you're all set and you just have to continue with your usual surfing.

Point system: On average, after one hour of browsing, you will probably have around 150 points. Currently, the point value is set at $0.75 for every 1000 points, which is not so bad given the fact that you don't do anything. Once you have $10 worth of points, you can instantly cash out.

Payment: Like I said, the minimum payout is $10, to Paypal. There are no transfer fees.

Referrals: This is the most interesting part. You get 5% of your referrals' points, which doesn't seem that great at first, but if you manage to build a steady base of referrals - let's say 20 - you will earn a lot more than before, doing nothing. Here are a few tips on how to get direct referrals on Topline:
- ask your friends to join - Since they don't have to do anything, most of them will probably accept.
- post your referral link on Facebook, Twitter or any forums where you are active. By doing this, I managed to get about 50 referrals in one week (one post per day).
- use traffic exchange websites. EasyHits4You is highly recommended.
- use referral exchange websites (Datsoup is great).
- if you want it to really pay off, invest a couple of dollars into an advertising campaign on websites like Neobux, Clixsense, etc. Since Topline isn't so well known, you will probably get hundreds of referrals with about $10 invested, but it all depends where you'll post your campaign.

Proof: Here's how many points I managed to get in two days of surfing, with ~100 direct referrals:

Image and video hosting by TinyPic
Signing Up - Ref | Non-ref - If you think I've been of help, you can choose to sign up using my referral. Either way, thanks for reading! If you have any questions or you want additional details, just comment down here and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Brief guide on money making - How I earn my beer money [PART I]

I will try to be as coherent as I can, so bear with me on this but, no matter what, I will be as honest with you as possible. Those below are the websites I use to earn my booze money:

MTurk - Probably everyone knows about it. It has something for everyone: if you want to do only surveys, you have enough of them to keep you working at least one hour every day. If you want to do data entry HITs, just go for it! Like I said, there’s plenty for everyone. However, you have to know how to find those HITs that are indeed worth turking for. My strategy? I knock out everything I can find on the HWTF section, then I search for anything that I’m qualified for and is over one dollar. After that, I search again for “survey” or “study” that pay not less than 25 cents. Bu doing this, I can easily earn about $100 each week with about two hours of turking each day. You can use your money either to buy Amazon gift cards or transfer them into your bank account. Easy-peasey.

Topline - Ref | Non-ref - This is the purest passive earner there is. The principle is this: you sign up, install their plugin for your browser and just continue surfing, as usual. This plugin replaces any ads with some of theirs and you get paid for it. Simple, huh? Vewy. They have a point-based system and for each website you visit that incorporates ads you get one point. For every 1000 points, you get $0.75. It may not sound as much, but given the fact that you do nothing is convincing enough, at least for me. Also, the minimum cashout is at $10, which can be achieved in about 2-3 months of surfing, without having any referrals. Also, for each referral you earn 5% of the points they earn. The money can be cashed out to PayPal.

NeoBux - Ref | Non-ref - A very intriguing PTC (Paid-to-Click) website. If you’re not familiar with the concept, what you have to do is click a given number of ads each day, for which you get a very small amount of money. Neobux offers you the possibility to rent referrals for a certain period of time, during which you get a sum of money based on how many clicks they have each day. Of course, there is the classical concept of direct referrals too, but, obviously, you don’t earn much from them, unless you get to have a large base of active referrals. Anyway, back to the rented referrals. This system gives you a lot of new opportunities, because you get to make decisions like recycling a certain referral if they have bad stats or adding more time to their renting period and so on. Also, for each ad you click you get three chances to the so-called “AdPrize” The prizes vary from points, cash or even Golden membership (which, believe me, is welcome anytime). Anyway, if you want to go deep I strongly recommend you their FAQ. The minimum cashout is $2, to PayPal, Payza or Neteller.

ClixSense - Ref | Non-ref - Another PTC website, but this one is not based that much on renting referrals. If you don't want to take your chances renting referrals that may or may not be productive, Clixsense is based on direct referral revenue and mini-tasks. More specifically, it incorporates the CrowdSource working platform, so you have work to do 24/7, even if the pay is not that good. If you get a decent number of direct referrals, you just have to click your ads every day (takes a few minutes) and that's it. Also, there are offers to complete, plus a nice mini-game called ClixGrid - very much like Neobux' AdPrize, if you're lucky you can win cash or points. You can then cash your money out to PayPal, Payza, Liberty Reserve or check. The minimum payrates can be found here.

Naturebucks - Ref | Non-ref - NatureBucks is a pretty straight-forward website. Here, you can complete various “offers”, which mostly consist of surveys or registering. You can even find a dedicated section to the best offers there are, here on reddit. Anyway, by completing those offers you earn either cash or points, which can be eventually transformed into cash too. The minimum withdraw is of only 5 cents to Paypal, or $1 for Amazon gift cards. Also, the 5-tier referral system is great if you can get a decent number of direct referrals, because you earn 20% from your level 1-5 referrals.

NatureGPT - Ref | Non-ref It’s pretty much like Naturebucks. You have a list of offers (mostly surveys) you can complete for either cash or points. Somehow, I even like this better than Naturebucks, because for each referral that earns at least $0.25 you get $1, bur only one time per referral, plus, of course 20% of what they earn next. You can then withdraw your cash to Paypal or use it to buy Amazon gift cards. The minimum payout is $2, which is decent enough in my opinion.

PaidViewpoint - Ref | Non-ref - Another survey site. Their surveys don’t pay very much, but you get about $1 only for completing you profile. After each survey you complete your so-called TraitScore also increases. How does this help you? After your TraitScore reaches a certain threshold, the amount of money you earn per each completed survey will increase. Don’t expect to earn hundreds of dollars every month, but if you complete a survey every now and then they will start pilling up. However, the minimum payout is of $25 to Paypal, which can be a bit disappointing for some of you.

Pollbuzzer - Ref | Non-ref- Very nice survey site. There are not any offers available, but you get a mail from them every now and then asking you to complete a short survey, worth $1. It does take just a few minutes, which is definitely worth the time, even if there’s not much to do. You can cash out your earnings to PayPal. Also, each time one of your referrals answers 4 of these polls you get one dollar.

CloudCrowd - Ref | Non-ref - It's a pretty good cloud working platform. You don't always find too much work to do, unless you do writing. But first things first. In order to do writing, you have to earn some credentials first, depending on what type of writing you want to do. I only applied for the marketing credential myself only once, and was rejected because I rushed through it and did a poor job, but I'm sure it's not that hard to get it. Also, they payrate for writers is decent enough, varying from 3 to 5 cents per written word, if your work is accepted. Furthermore, there is generally a lot of data entry work to do. You may find requests like "copy this and that into thegiven fields" and stuff like this. It isn't necessarily very well paid, but you can easily knock out a few bucks a day if you stick with it for, let's say, half an hour daily. If you're lucky, you may find some categorization work once in a while, which is easy and generally well-paid. There is no minimum payout; they will automatically transfer your earnings to your PayPal account every day.

Overall, I hope I’ve been helpful at least to some of you. Feel free to ask your questions if you have any. 

P.S.: I intend to make a post for each of those websites in the near future, detailing the whole "process", with tips&tricks, guides and much more.