Saturday, June 4, 2011

Swagbucks.com - Review and Tutorial

Possibly the most popular paid-to-search service is Swagbucks.com, a site made popular by its referral system. I remember a time on YouTube when almost every technology-related channel featured the site, touting their amazing prizes and earnings from such a simple service. But is it all true?

Swagbucks.com has been online for a number of years, and, while new ways of earning "Swagbucks" have been added, the same core feature remains; randomly earning by using their search engine. About every 4-5 searches, you'll earn anywhere from 5-50 Swagbucks. This currency can be redeemed for things such as Amazon.com giftcards, charitable donations, and even Xbox 360s and PS3s!

So how can it be exploited? Fairly simply, in fact. First, you can use VCCs (virtual credit cards) to complete offers run by Swagbucks. These can normally be purchased for $1-$2; add some money to them, and you can safely complete some offers! Expect to earn around 2500 SB for about 30minutes of work and around $5. For more information, look forward to another post published soon.

The second and less lucrative way to earn is by botting - automatically using the search engine at random times. If you are adventurous, I've previously coded a bot, and I left it unobfuscated for all to play around with: http://www.filesonic.com/file/1127141391/swagbucksbot.txt

However, I'd also recommend LIMES, by Darkness from thebotnet.com/. It can be found here: http://thebotnet.com/bots-of-tbn/53408-release-limes-4-0-simple-but/

Once again, Swagbucks is a great service to use if you're looking to earn money online through searching!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Youdata.com - Review and Summary

Youdata.com summaries itself as being "The World's First Attention Payment System." While I have begun reviewing very similar sites in the past, Youdata.com has undoubted made its name in the market normally cluttered with PTC sites.

Like other sites that send specifically-targeted ads, you'll have to complete a lengthy survey prior to actually receiving much of any ads from Youdata. About 50 questions later, you may or may not actually receive ads; as has been stated before by other sites1, the most prolific advertisers are those targeted more towards women, and more specifically to those with children. However, that doesn't stop others from earning.



Advertisements pay it two ways. The first is by viewing a banner ad for which you'll be paid a flat rate of $0.05. There's no timers to speak of, no external windows to close - everything goes by very smoothly and quickly. But better than that is the fact that you can view multiple ads at once; earn $0.15 with one click of a mouse and view three ads at the same time. From there, you can earn varying amounts by actually clicking a link. Once again, there's no timer on the pages your are paid to view - you just exit out when you're done!

So what's the catch? $0.05/ad seems like a rate only scam PTC sites can offer, doesn't it? Still, you can expect to be paid via PayPal each Friday. YouData can pay that out because the advertisements are so targeted, you may not see more than one or two per month. For that reason, the affiliate program is so important. You can earn up to $1.00 per direct referral - limits aren't  normally implemented by most PTC sites, but it probably won't affect your earnings much. You'll earn $0.01 per referral click - also paid each week. A simple process for a professional and well-paying site!

So there may be some troubles with the site such as a lack of ads and a barebones referral system, but that's more than made up for by high ad rates and weekly payouts - no limits set! So start answering those "MeFiles" and start earning!

1 (http://www.imreportcard.com/other/youdata/)

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Beezag.com: Review and Summary

Many sites have begun rolling out paid-to-view-video projects that, as the name would allude to, pay you for watching a certain product's commercial. Beezag, while definitely not the newest entries, has remained one of the largest sites, and, after being out for many years, remains a great site to earn from viewing videos and making money online.


The concept of Beezag is simple; videos are tailored based on your interests, meaning advertisers pay more, and you earn more. You can start by watching a few videos, go and fill out a larger portion of your personal summary, and be able to watch a few more videos. If you have the time (~15minutes) to do so the day you sign up, you should have been able to answer the entire survey, and watched an equivalent of about a $1.00 worth of videos.

From here, expect to earn around $0.50/day from a few minutes of videos and maintaining your account. The amount you earn from watching videos ranges from 20-100 points, which converts to anywhere from $0.02-$0.10 (100points = $1.00). With videos of the standard commercial length, you'll be working for about $6/hour - not bad for mindless work. However, some videos do not pay via points, but instead will only give an entry for a related sweepstakes - offers I wouldn’t recommend.

Instead of using a normal CAPTCHA service (which can be exploited fairly cheaply, a task that I will discuss in a later post), Beezag uses their own form of "human-detection"; and frankly, it's actually a bit difficult and interactive. Two numbers in white and floating across a black background are shown at random times during the video. Following the video, you'll have to correctly enter the two numbers, or have to re-watch the video with new numbers to look out for. Don’t respond quickly enough, and you’ll still have to re-watch it.

Any way to bot this process? For the time being, it seems a bit unlikely.It would take quite a while to exploit it with accuracy. Nonetheless, discussion has been going on about doing so, though nothing has yet come out.

So, all-in-all, is Beezag worth your time? I’d say it is. While you will actually have to watch each commercial closely, the pay isn’t half bad. While payout is set at 8000 points (with options for PayPal and Amazon.com giftcards) - fairly standard, if a bit high - the referral program implemented offers another way of earning 10% off of those you refer. Just another way to earn online!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Bing Rewards - Review and Tutorial

The number of paid-to-search sites has continued to grow, with some of the larger sites like Swagbucks and iRazoo still gaining points in the market after being out for a number of years. However, possibly the largest giant in the field in Bing with their "Bing Rewards" feature for users of the search engine.


Currently ranked the 16th largest website in the world by Quantcast1, you may need to ask yourself exactly why a company so large as Microsoft would need to include an incentive for people to use their products. Wouldn't you expect this to be a quick promotion to get people to get away from relying on Google's products? You would thing so, but Microsoft has claimed that the service will be available even longer than the originally-estimated December 31st, 2011 end date!

So how do you earn? First, you've since been able to use any popular browser (it used to only be available to Internet Explorer users). From there, install the Bing Search bar, and you're set!

There's no luck involved when it comes to earning; you're paid the same basic way every time. You're paid 250points for signing up, and you're paid ~5points for completing each offers (normally clicking a Microsoft-related promotion), and of course searching!

Promotions such as "Search and earn. Earn 1 credit per 2 Bing searches up to 6 a day until June 4." are frequent, but when these types of offers aren't running, you can expect to receive 1 point for each 5 searches, and you could earn a maximum of 5 points/day.

The things that make this search-rewards site different are important. For one, there's no CAPTCHA requirements to be found. Therefore, you can naturally search throughout the day, no different than you normally would. Off you go!

Finally, what's your actual incentive for joining other than earning prizes? You can redeem points for things like a 3 month Hulu+ membership (should take ~2.5months of searching), a $5 Amazon.com giftcard (~2months of searching), or even a month of Xbox Live Gold (~5 months of searching). All in all, there are some great prizes to save up for.

In the end, I'd recommend signing up for an account as quickly as possible. If nothing more, spend 2-3minutes per day saving up for another month's worth of Xbox Live.

1 (http://www.quantcast.com/bing.com/)