Disappointed by MyLot

For those of you who have followed my writing, you will know that I have recommended MyLot as a way of making money online in the past.  I must confess though, that despite my initial enthusiasm, I have become rather disappointed with it.

I am speaking in terms of the money making mainly (although the full page adverts can be a bit annoying too).  My earnings on there have been very low.  Even when I spent quite a bit of time on MyLot, I only seemed to bring in a few cents.  I could earn more in ten or fifteen minutes on Amazon MTurk than I could earn in several days on MyLot.

Maybe I am being unfair.  You only make money with MyLot if you are active with it and as I no longer spend much time on it, I make very little money.  People who enjoy the chatter and social networking side of MyLot rate it higher than I do and have commented so to me.  Although I do enjoy social networking, I tend to do all mine on non-earning sites like Facebook.

If you have photos that are of general interest (not just snaps of friends and family), however, then I would say that you would do much better uploading them to Redgage, rather than MyLot.  As well as earning money from the initial upload, you can also earn extra if people stumble across your photos on Google Images etc.  Although you won’t earn a fortune in Redgage either, you do seem to earn more than on MyLot.  I have earned 50-something dollars from Redgage for the photos I’ve uploaded, which is about ten times as much as I’ve earned from MyLot (although most of that money came from discretionary prizes that were awarded to me by Redgage, rather than through direct earnings, I’ll admit).

8 Websites that pay you

I thought it might be useful to write a list of websites that pay you, along with my assessment for how lucrative I have found them in terms of online earnings.  These are all websites that I use, or have used, to make money online.  I give a very brief explanation with a link to a much more detailed review, followed by my online earnings rating – the online earnings rating is subjective, of course, as it is quite possible that someone else might sign up to a site and have a completely different experience to my own.

Crowdsourcing Sites

In the crowdsourcing sites, you make money by performing simple tasks on your computer for online employers in return for small payments.  Tasks might include things such as copying text from scanned business cards, completing online surveys, writing short blog articles, tweeting adverts, writing descriptions of photos or videos.

Amazon MTurk (Mechanical Turk) – The site that this blog is named after and a great site if you want to make money online quickly.  There are times when I find it frustrating, however.  Despite the (occasional) problems, this site is probably one of the better websites that pay you.  Full review: Top 10 Amazon Mechanical Turk Tips and Tricks  Online earnings rating: 8/10

Microworkers – Similar to Amazon MTurk but a much smaller outfit, which gives it some advantages as well as disadvantages.  A lot of spammy jobs on there, so I tend to pick off one or two good ones each day and therefore find that making money money online is slower than with Amazon MTurk.  Still worth doing though.  Full review: The Pros and Cons of Making Money Online with Microworkers  Online earnings rating: 7/10

Social networking websites that pay you

These sites pay you for online social activity.  This might include things like: starting discussions, uploading photos, commenting on people’s profiles, bookmarking links to websites or posts.

myLot – I had a lot of hopes for myLot when I first started it, but overall I have been a little disappointed by it.  It seems difficult to make more than pennies each day, in my experience, although I must say that the ‘work’ that you do is hardly taxing.  Maybe I just don’t use it enough, as there are people on there who say they earn a dollar a day or more just for chatting.  Full review: How To Make Money Online With MyLot  Online earnings rating: 4/10

RedGage  - I have known about RedGage for a long time, but only started using it recently.  I personally prefer it to myLot, although both sites can irritate me a little at times (myLot because of the full page ads and RedGage because it can be a little glitchy at times).  The great thing about RedGage, however, is that you continue to make money online even when you do nothing after you have uploaded enough stuff.  It’s never going to make you a millionaire, but the community on there are friendly.  Full review: Can I earn money online with RedGage?  Online earnings rating: 6/10

Onine reward clubs

These sites pay you for doing things like completing online surveys, reading emails, watching videos, playing computer games, shopping online.

Swagbucks – A popular website with a strong following.  You collect a virtual currency called swagbucks, which you can then exchange for products online, PayPal money, or Amazon giftcards.  Full review: Swagbucks tips and tricks  Online earnings rating: 7/10

Inbox Dollars – Similar to Swagbucks in many ways, but a smaller outfit.  I actually prefer Inbox Dollars to Swagbucks, but make sure that you don’t give them your main email address as they send you lots of emails, which can be annoying.  Full review: Review of Inbox Dollars  Online earnings rating: 7/10

Writing sites

These sites are more involved than the others, as you have to write informative articles and have a good command of the English language.  This means investing a lot of time and energy, often doing research as well as writing.  Earnings are slow at first.  They gradually build, but it can take months before the dollars begin coming in.  HubPages and Squidoo make their money through Google adverts and companies like Amazon, and give the writers a share.

HubPages  You write informative articles on a topic you know.  Good community.  Has been through some tough times after getting hammered by Google, but now seems to be on the way back up, at least for may writers.  There are some big earners on there, although most writers earn well under $15 per month.  Use my referral link to.  Online earnings rating: 7/10  Sign up to HubPages with my referral link.

Squidoo  Similar to HubPages in essence, but the payout system is a little different.  I didn’t have much success with Squidoo and gave up on it, but others swear by it as an earner.  Online earnings rating: 5/10  Use my referral link to sign up to Squidoo.

UPDATE (February 2014)

I would avoid MyLot altogether as they are no longer and earning site.  Redgage is no longer much good either.

Bubblews is a good site, however, if you just want some (relatively) quick and easy money.

Review of Redgage: a website that pays you to bookmark links and upload photos, videos, and documents

In my latest look at methods of making money online, I have been playing around with the website, RedGage, which advertises itself as a website that pays you for online social activity.  In some senses, it has similarities with myLot, although so far I am finding it more enjoyable and there would appear to be greater opportunity to make money online.

I have posted a full review of Redgage and my first impressions and experiences over at HubPages in my article: Can I earn money online with Redgage?  But basically, Redgage is a website that pays you to bookmark links and upload photos, videos, and documents.  In return, you are awarded payments according to how many viewers you get.  Views can come from other RedGage users, who you can befriend like you would in sites like MySpace or Facebook; or views can come from outside the site, from bookmarking sites like Faves.com, Delicious, Digg, Reddit or from people searching online with Google.

The RedGage viewers tend to die away after 48 hours or so, but I am hoping that I will get Google searchers over time, who will gradually build up viewing figures.  Typically, I only make a few cents for each photo uploaded, so it is hardly a lucrative venture in the short term.  Although there are lots people on RedGage who make hardly anything, there is a minority who’s online earnings are more substantial.

I am in the fortunate position of having lots of articles that I have written that I can link to, plus many photos that I can upload.  However, if you don’t have lots of your own articles, you can always post links to other sites, like you would do in social networking sites like Reddit and Digg and you will still make money from people using your link as they pass through RedGage. 

Like with most of these sites, I don’t think that RedGage is going to make me a millionaire (I have made $6 over 4 weeks so far, and the minimum payout rate is $25), but I am finding it fun to participate in and still hoping that my online earnings rate will gradually increase over time.  The RedGage website is a little glitchy, but I like my experience there so far and see more potential for making money online there than I do with myLot, which has been a little disappointing for me, so far.

UPDATE (February 2014)

I no longer recommend RedGage and MyLot as effective earning sites, as they have both changed for the worse since this article was written.

Amazon MTurk vs Inbox Dollars, which is best?

Amazon Mturk vs Inbox Dollars, which is best?

Having written a review of Inbox Dollars previously, I thought it might be interesting to use my MTurk blog to compare InboxDollars and Amazon Mechanical Turk directly from a worker’s perspective and discuss which is best, rather like I did with Mturk or Microworkers,which is best? giving the relative advantages of using each website as a method for making money online.  So here is my MTurk vs Inbox Dollars comparison.

MTurk Advantages

There is no minimum threshold to reach before you are paid with Amazon MTurk, unlike with Inbox Dollars where you have to get $30 before you can receive anything (or $40 if you do not want to pay any charges).

 You don’t get lots of emails clogging up your inbox from MTurk like you do with Inbox Dollars.

If you find a good MTurk requester with lots of hits, you can learn how to do that task and stick with it for a long time, often building up decent earnings.

There is more work and a much wider variety of tasks that you can do on Amazon MTurk.

If you want to buy products from Amazon, then MTurk is great as you can earn and buy very quickly.

Inbox Dollars Advantages

There seems to be more overseeing of the jobs in Inbox Dollars, meaning that there are far less jobs on there that appear to be scams.  You are certainly safer from fraud anyway, though you can still get scammed, methinks.

There are no jobs that pay completely rip off prices, like in Amazon MTurk. 

There are is a regular supply of surveys in Inbox Dollars to do and these are good for bolstering income.  The number of surveys on MTurk can be erratic and the money you receive for taking the time to do them varies considerably.

You can earn money for shopping online with Inbox Dollars which is not an option with Amazon Mechanical Turk.

You aren’t dealing with lots and lots of different requesters like in Amazon MTurk, which can be a pain.

You are usually paid relatively quickly with Inbox Dollars, whereas you can never be quite sure when you will get your money with Amazon MTurk

General Summary of Amazon MTurk vs Inbox Dollars, which is best?

Overall, I use Inbox Dollars on a regular basis to build up earnings over time, whereas I tend to do Amazon MTurk in spurts, depending often on which MTurk requesters are posting hits at the time.  Inbox Dollars is more reliable in some ways, in that you tend to get paid at a more consistent rate and within a consistent time frame.  MTurk has a greater volume of jobs and a bigger variety, however.

How much money do you earn online with Amazon MTurk?

How much money do you earn online with Amazon MTurk?  This is good question and a relevant one for someone who is weighing up various ideas to make money online.  In my experience Amazon Mechanical Turk is actually a relatively straightforward option for making money online, as it is free to sign up to and once you have got used to the set up of the site, you can easily find out details of what each Amazon MTurk hit (task) entails and how much money that you will earn for its completion before you click to accept it. 

If you want actual earnings figures for MTurk then I will give you an idea of how I work and how much I earn in return for completing MTurk hits.  I tend to work in stints of two to three hours per day on MTurk.  Where possible, I do hits for MTurk requesters that I have worked for before, as then I know that there is a good chance that I will be paid and I also have a rough idea when.  For those two or three hours work, I would normally expect to come away with somewhere between and $8 and $18.  There may well be MTurk workers out there who do much better than that, if so, please feel free to comment.  I think the most that I have made is $27 in a half day but that is not typical for me.

On my bad days, a lot of my time is wasted on trying to find suitable MTurk hits.  On the good days, I find hits straight away and get straight on with it.  I don’t use any programs to cheat, though I am aware that there is software out there that some people have experimented with, such as software for generating reviews, blog posts, written articles etc.   

There are people who say that they have stumbled on reasonably well paid tasks that they can complete a lot of very quickly and they’ve come away with earnings of  $200+ for a day’s work, but that has never happened to me.  I would also remind people to be wary of the very high paying hits, as many of them are scams, designed to get you to hand over personal information.

I am relatively cautious when it comes to choosing jobs, but my wife is more experimental and that means her MTurk earnings tend to be more variable.  You can sometimes find lucrative MTurk hits by looking around and trying things.  But one risk of doing a lot of completely new MTurk hits all at once is that sometimes the requester will reject all your hits, either because you didn’t understand the instructions properly and did the tasks wrong, or because you have been unlucky and got one of the dishonest Turk requesters.  This can damage your rejection stats and effect your future work, as well as waste your time.