The Word on Work-Online.org

Some time ago, I joined work-online.org upon a fellow blogger's referral. It sounded like an okay site. They pay you to write "stories" (essentially keyword articles - 400 words minimum, btw) and they pay you 25 pence for each one while you haven't completed 100 stories. Go over the 100 count and they pay you 50 pence per story. Go over 300 and they pay you 75 pence per story. Once you have 500 stories under your belt, they pay you a whopping pound (a quid! gah! about 77 php for 400 words!) for each one. That's really not a lot, but to justify going for this rate (since I usually get paid by local publications 1k+ php for a 500-word article)- um, my understanding is that you can write about anything so long as you include the necessary keywords. Research isn't necessary (or bugging an expert to quote in your article). You get opps in bulk. You can eke out 400 words in 3 mins without the usual writing standards you adhere to. I was just waiting for the right time to start trying this site out when I came across this discussion in MyLot. This person has earned about 65 pounds and has yet to be paid. She said she'd contacted the admin a few times and she always just got assured that she would be paid, except that there has been no follow through just yet. She said she'd update us if and when she gets paid, but no word from her yet. I think I'll wait before writing anything. I'm definitely not referring anybody yet. If the word on the (cyber) street remains bad, I'll ditch it with no regrets.

Why I'm Ditching Socint

So I've really cranked up the effort on the online paying gigs. About a month ago, I learned about Socint.com from one of the discussions on MyLot. Whoever did the posting referred to the site as a PT socialize site, pretty much like MyLot. I joined up and later found out that it's not as cut and dried as MyLot, which allows you to earn actual money to reply to threads, send messages, etc. What happens with Socint is that you earn points for activities you do. These points will then allow you to join their raffles. It's like paying to buy a raffle ticket. The prizes include $10 to your Paypal or AlertPay account, iPod shuffles, additional Socint points (which will enable you to join more raffles), etc. Naturally, I was interested in the cash prize, the raffle ticket of which costs about 250 points (depending on how active you are - I wasn't -, amassing this many points can take anything from a day to a year, lol. It took me a month.). I think that particular raffle had a limit of 100 tickets, which meant that I had a 1 in 100 chance of winning. Naturally, I didn't win since I've always sucked at raffles, which then leads me to my point: I'm not a gambler, very rarely a risk taker and Socint is just not for me. The discussions are also not worth my while as I have yet to find a truly intelligent thread there. I can just wisely transfer my efforts there to the clearly more profitable MyLot. That's my take on it. Let me know if you differ in opinion. My mind is open to being convinced otherwise.