Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Squidflix: Generate Revenue Generating Webpage in Under 5 Minutes
Squidflix.com is one of the few publishing portals available on the internet where you can literally create a fully functional (and revenue generating) webpage in less than 5 minutes.
All you have to do in order to publish a movie-review webpage (or lens) is this:
1. Sign in with your Squidoo ID (registration is free)
1. Sign in with your Squidoo ID (registration is free)
2. Select a movie (movies in languages other than English are also accepted)
3. Decide whether you love the movie or positively hate it.
4.Fill in a submission form with the details you would like to publish on your lens (title, cast, plot overview etc.)
And you are practically done!
However, you can always return and edit the page, upload photos, add new modules and jazz up your lens.
Squidoo, for their part will put in Google and Infolinks ads and Amazon and Ebay links, and share with you a percentage of the revenue generated from these sources.
Though some people claim to be earning over $5000 a month with Squidflix, but personally I have had no such luck.
If you have 5 minutes to spare and want to do something fun and worthwhile then I’ll definitely recommend Squidflix, but if you are mainly looking to make a few fast bucks you may as well give this site the miss.
3. Decide whether you love the movie or positively hate it.
4.Fill in a submission form with the details you would like to publish on your lens (title, cast, plot overview etc.)
And you are practically done!
However, you can always return and edit the page, upload photos, add new modules and jazz up your lens.
Squidoo, for their part will put in Google and Infolinks ads and Amazon and Ebay links, and share with you a percentage of the revenue generated from these sources.
Though some people claim to be earning over $5000 a month with Squidflix, but personally I have had no such luck.
If you have 5 minutes to spare and want to do something fun and worthwhile then I’ll definitely recommend Squidflix, but if you are mainly looking to make a few fast bucks you may as well give this site the miss.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Catasia Studio : Screencast Software Review
If you are looking to create computer based video tutorials or demos to promote your products and applications then the easiest way to go about it is by using a screencast software which captures all the actions going on on your computer screen and directly renders it to popular video formats which can be used in just about any which way you want.
Though there are a large number of free online and offline screencasting options available on the internet, it is quite likely that if you are trying to produce a video with any degree of professionalism then you would want to use a paid screencast software, and sooner rather than later. Here is a look at one of the more popular paid screencasting software, Catasia Studio.
Features I Like About Camtasia Studio 6
Intuitive User Interface
Camtasia Studio uses a very user friendly interface which is so intuitive that you hardly ever need to consult the help files, which themselves are are pretty comprehensive albeit compact. But to help you master the software better you can also download or stream short tutorial videos from their website.
Features I Like About Camtasia Studio 6
Intuitive User Interface
Camtasia Studio uses a very user friendly interface which is so intuitive that you hardly ever need to consult the help files, which themselves are are pretty comprehensive albeit compact. But to help you master the software better you can also download or stream short tutorial videos from their website.
Zoom-n-Pan
The Zoom-n-pan feature gives you great control over the camera angles (such zooming in to a particular section of your screen) and is very handy in just about any tutorial as it allows you to focus in on the relevant part of your screen in every single shot.
Caption
Caption is a very basic feature and present in most screencast software. It basically allows you to add subtitles to your video and is a very handy feature as it will almost invariably increase your audience.
Call-Out
The Call Out feature allows you to add various kinds of "boxes" inside your video during post processing and maybe used for a variety of purposes such as highlighting text, drawing special attention to a part of the screen or to simply blur out sensitive information from the screencast.
Drawback of Camtasia Studio 6
I had just two issues with my Camtasia Studio 6 software:
- It is slightly difficult to get the aspect ratio right in order to get the maximum possible screen area for your video. Further, if you are using captions they too tend to eat up quite a bit of screen space.
- The Youtube version of the rendered videos often turn out to be of a slightly lower quality than expected as per the preview.
The latest version of Camtasia Studio available is Camtasia Studio 7 and it is priced at a marginally expensive $50 for the individual license and also offer a host of different licensing options.
Monday, February 20, 2012
New Age Online Billionaires
Now that the depression is firmly behind us, the dotcom bubble is beginning to grow in size once more, and this time the focus has shifted from Google and is set on a number of new and moderately old online enterprises like Facebook and Groupon. Here is a look at the 4 fastest growing dotcom giants, each of whom are valued in several billions.
Facebook
Founded by Mark Zuckerberg in the first half of the last decade, the social networking site Facebook has steadily gained in popularity and has over 500 million members, who share their thoughts and photos through the website everyday. It is currently worth a whopping $50 billion dollars and is one of the most serious competitors to Google's throne. In fact, if rumors are to be believed, Facebook may soon go into all out competition with Google by introducing search engine and free e-mail services.
Facebook's early gestation period has been turned into an Oscar nominated movie, The Social Network.
Groupon
Founded by Andrew Mason, Groupon is famous for providing its 50 million subscribers with deals of the day e-mails in which local businessmen offer large discounts to attract new customers. Groupon was founded in 2008 and is currently valued at $15 billion dollars.
Twitter
Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams in 2006, and has since then revolutionized the way of posting on internet, replacing lengthy blog posts with 140 character posts known as tweets. At present Twitter is valued at $10 billion.
Zynga
Zynga, the developer of several popular social games like Farmville, has made tremendous progress in the last one year and has roped in a number of big investors and its estimated worth is $7 billion dollars. However, it is popularly believed that the real figure is probably closer to the $10 billion mark. According to analysts, Zynga earned $850 million last year from selling game credits alone!
Founded by Mark Zuckerberg in the first half of the last decade, the social networking site Facebook has steadily gained in popularity and has over 500 million members, who share their thoughts and photos through the website everyday. It is currently worth a whopping $50 billion dollars and is one of the most serious competitors to Google's throne. In fact, if rumors are to be believed, Facebook may soon go into all out competition with Google by introducing search engine and free e-mail services.
Facebook's early gestation period has been turned into an Oscar nominated movie, The Social Network.
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| The Groupon official logo |
Founded by Andrew Mason, Groupon is famous for providing its 50 million subscribers with deals of the day e-mails in which local businessmen offer large discounts to attract new customers. Groupon was founded in 2008 and is currently valued at $15 billion dollars.
Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams in 2006, and has since then revolutionized the way of posting on internet, replacing lengthy blog posts with 140 character posts known as tweets. At present Twitter is valued at $10 billion.
Zynga
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| Zynga founder Mark Pincus with his dog, Zynga |
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Make Money from Product and Movie Reviews
Out of the several ways you can make money on the Internet, one of the easiest and most popular is by writing product reviews. Most review sites are free to join and offer either upfront or residual payment for reviews you write for them. The following is a list of the most popular websites that pay you for your reviews:
1) Review Stream: Review Stream is one of the few websites on the Internet that accept international members as well as pays upfront. Set up with an aim to pay for every review published with them, it is one of the best places to earn substantial money on the net. They accept reviews of almost everything and anything under the sun, ranging from books to softwares to local restaurants.
The amount they pay for reach review varies between $1.25 to $2.5. Apart from that they buy slightly inferior reviews at a bulk rate, which is the normal rate divided by five.
2) Epinion: Epinion is another major player in this industry but unlike Review Stream they only offer a passive revenue sharing for your reviews. They encourage you to write reviews on products available on their store and a percentage of the sales made by them is distributed amongst the authors. This does not mean that you cannot write a negative review on Epinion as they pay you even for negative reviews.
3) Ciao!: Ciao! (Not to be confused with Ciao.com) is another major website dealing with reviews and is probably powered by Bing!. However they do not accept international members. Ciao has specific websites for different countries such as Ciao.co.uk for the United Kingdom, and Ciao.it for Italy. If you live in any of these countries then I can assure you that Ciao has one of the finest revenue-sharing policies out there.
4) Softwarejudge: Softwarejudge accepts reviews of only softwares. For every review published on their site that pay you a minimum of one dollar but it might go up to as much as $50. However the cash redemption process of Softwarejudge is slightly troublesome and you’ll probably have to write quite large number of reviews before reaching their payment threshold of $100.
5) Squidflix: It is a subsidiary of Squidoo and is dedicated solely to movie reviews. You simply need to choose a movie, decide whether you love it or hate it, write hundred words about it and Squidflix will do the rest. It will display Google Adsense and Infolinks(optional) advertisements on your Web page (or lens as they are called). Apart from that you can also easily integrate Amazon and eBay modules and earn through referrals by displaying related products available on Amazon or eBay.
6) Shvoong: Shvoong accepts reviews of all most all forms of published text ( such as books, news etc.) as well as websites and movies and the site pays 10 per cent of the revenue generated from your reviews.
7) Gomolo: It is probably a subsidiary of Shvoong and specialises in Indian and especially Hindi films. Its revenue-sharing policies are same as Shoovng.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Niner Niner Collaborative Blogs : Review
Like Associated Content, Bukisa and Triond, Niner Niner Collaborative Blogs is a paid to write service. Niner Niner has been around for quite sometime but has never gained a lot of popularity and in all honesty I cannot envision them becoming a raving success anytime soon. But still, I think it really deserves to be reviewed. So here goes:
- Basic Set Up of Niner Niner Collaborative Blogs
- Articles Accepted by Niner Niner Collaborative Blogs
- Niner Niner Payment Structure
- It is the only content writing site I know which offers a $5 sign up bonus!
- Instead of passive revenue sharing, Niner Niner pays upfront for your content. Depending on which blog you publish your article they will pay you $.10 to $.50.
My Thoughts on Niner Niner Collaborative Blogs
If you are into 5 minutes writing or lack the skill to write full length articles then you can certainly give Niner Niner a try. It is specially favorable for those who are not adept at getting page views, because of their upfront payments.
On the downside, Niner Niner claims permanent exclusive rights to your articles and the money their paying is quite shabby in comparison to others who impose this criterion.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
She Told Me : Earn Adsense Revenue for Promoting Your Blog
She Told Me is basically a social bookmarking site similar to Digg or Stumbleupon with the basic difference that it allows its users to earn Adsense revenue from their social bookmarks or scoops. Here is a look at this interesting social bookmarking service:
Sign Up Process at She Told Me
In my experience, She Told Me is the only social bookmarking site which has a manual review system before an application is accepted. This along with the one-woman She Told Me team makes signing up for the site a rather slow process but nonetheless effective against spammers. Basically you have to fill up their application form (most fields except your E-mail ID and reason for joining She Told Me are optional) and then they will run some sort of a check (don't ask me!) and if they think your application is legit then they will approve your account. Usually this process takes 4-6 days time but may get inadvertently delayed. Here is a quote from their welcome E-mail to help you understand the situation better:
Revenue Sharing at She Told Me
She Told Me offers you 100% Adsense revenue earned from your scoops. Sounds too good to be true? Actually it is! What She Told Me actually does is put a small Adsense ad on top of your scoop and you earn revenue from that only. So, personally I feel it is quite unlikely that you will ever earn anything substantial from She Told Me. However, She Told Me is pretty good at generating traffic site and that is after all the main criterion for a good social networking site.
Sign Up Process at She Told Me
In my experience, She Told Me is the only social bookmarking site which has a manual review system before an application is accepted. This along with the one-woman She Told Me team makes signing up for the site a rather slow process but nonetheless effective against spammers. Basically you have to fill up their application form (most fields except your E-mail ID and reason for joining She Told Me are optional) and then they will run some sort of a check (don't ask me!) and if they think your application is legit then they will approve your account. Usually this process takes 4-6 days time but may get inadvertently delayed. Here is a quote from their welcome E-mail to help you understand the situation better:
Please note that reviewing applications takes time and I'm the only one doing this job, so if you find that 1 or 2 weeks have passed since you registered and you've heard no news from me, you should contact me, it could mean:
- your application has been rejected (no notification when your application is rejected, if you're not a spammer it's an error, so please apply again and contact me afterwards)
- I really have too much work on my plate at the moment (you can ask me for a quick approval, if I have time at this moment I'll do it)
- I'm on vacation (there's not much we can do about that)
But please do wait at least one week before enquiring about your application, don't add to my workload :-)
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| Screen Shot of a Shetoldme scoop |
Revenue Sharing at She Told Me
She Told Me offers you 100% Adsense revenue earned from your scoops. Sounds too good to be true? Actually it is! What She Told Me actually does is put a small Adsense ad on top of your scoop and you earn revenue from that only. So, personally I feel it is quite unlikely that you will ever earn anything substantial from She Told Me. However, She Told Me is pretty good at generating traffic site and that is after all the main criterion for a good social networking site.
Notes:
- She Told Me is most closely resembles Xomba bookmarks (i.e. you must write a short 200-500 character description to your shares) with the obvious difference that scoops (on She Told Me) offer Adsense revenue share while Xomba bookmarks does not.
- Before you start posting on She Told Me you better read their content policies as the list is rather long (and you don't want to get banned from such a great site!)
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