ChrisBailey.info

So, is PeopleString.com a scam?

The relatively short answer for those who don’t want to read my rambling below, lol.  No, I wouldn’t say that peoplestring is a scam.  But there is a lot of hype and misleading info out there about the true potential of this type of site.  You can make money with sites of this nature, but unless you can recruit heavily, the amount is negligible.

When dealing with internet based money making opportunities, it’s not always quite as simple as whether something is an outright scam or not.

The basic premise of “paid to” anything, i.e. paid to read email, paid to click, etc. is seriously flawed when it comes to the ability to attract major advertisers.

Along with YourNight.com, PeopleString.com is one of many relatively new “paid to” social networks on the net that is luring many naive internet users into thinking they can make substantial money playing around on a social networking site.  A few others that may or may not still be around are wowzza, yuwie, flixya, friendswin, hellohello, revver and  guba.

For the most part, I have very few issues with these types of sites.

Unfortunately, just like so many other money making ventures on line, they are ridiculously overhyped and create unrealistic expectations for naive new members.

PeopleString’s mantra is ‘Where You Own the Web’ and they claim they are giving back 70% of profits to the members.

With misleading banners such as PeopleString promoters are suckering people in at a pretty good clip.  And yes, I actually wasted some time and registered as a free member with PeopleString.

Supporters of these misleading opps love to challenge those of us who point out the flaws by saying we don’t know what we’re talking about if we haven’t joined.  This, of course, is a bunch of crap.

If the opp you are looking into is even somewhat upfront about what they offer and you have a little bit of marketing knowledge, you can easily see through the hype and find out what you need to know.

So, what exactly does PeopleString offer its members.

As mentioned before, they claim to give back 70% of profits to their active members.  This is based on a point system that allows members to earn People Points for their activities on the site.    If you loaf on the site enough, you can earn up to 200 People Points per day.

There is no set value for these points and revenue sharing is distributed on a fairly inconsistent basis, but it is distributed.

PeopleString wants you to believe that they will someday be making big bucks from major advertisers when in reality these types of paid to sites never hit the big time.

Big time advertisers have little interest in these incentivized types of sites.  As someone who buys my own advertising, I would much rather purchase CPA or CPM ads from sites that I know visitors are coming to my site out of genuine interest as opposed to hoping to earn a few pennies from a site like PeopleString.  The type of traffic that a retailer gets from sites like PeopleString simply doesn’t convert into sales.  It never has and it likely never will.

In addition to the revenue sharing, People String allows the members to earn in the following ways:

• Overrides on the earnings of your downline starting at 5% for your direct referrals and 2% on your 2nd through 6th levels.
• Mail Box Cash Box, which many promoters market as a great opportunity, although it’s not really showing any promise of going anywhere or generating serious interest from any major advertisers.
• People Dollars – these allow members to earn almost instant cash rebates for completing offers or ordering products/services from various company.  This is really nothing new or original and members could often earn the same or more back by doing the same thing via companies like ebates.com
• Cash Back shopping – again, similar to what ebates and other companies have offered for years.

When People String first got going, they were also dangling extra commission earnings for those people interested in “upgrading” at a cost of $200.  This is supposedly going to be stopped on May 16th.

They’ve been threatening to close off the upgrade opportunity since the middle of last year.  Then they started saying that they were going to cut things off at 5000 upgrades.

So instead of just cutting it off at 5000 as stated, they are deciding to allow their marketers to grab as much cash they can by setting a deadline date so experienced marketers can keep on pushing their downline to upgrade, even though the benefits will be significantly less if and when upgrades are no longer offered.  Those final few to upgrade won’t be able to pocket the $40 that original members used to be able to get for coercing direct referrals to shell out $200.  Or the $10 overrides from lower level upgrades.

The bottom line is that PeopleString isn’t much better or worse than many other biz opps out here on the net.

Following are some reasons why I don’t consider People String to be anything special.

Unoriginal – Paid social networks are nothing new and they are always going to be small time venues just like paid to read email and paid to click sites.  They can hang around forever and if you know how to recruit thousands into a downline, you might be able to make decent money.

And unlike original social networks like Facebook, PeopleString has not created a site from scratch.  Instead, they bought a cheap, off the shelf social networking script from socialengine.net  and like to act as if integrating the site with major players like Facebook and Twitter is some big accomplishment when in reality they are simply purchasing mods an plugins to achieve these simple tasks just like those of us who use WordPress and Joomla platforms do.

Ownership allowing, encouraging, and participating in the hype.  This is especially true of the big stink many promoters and ownership are making about the Alexa.com rankings.  This is not a great selling point to draw in major advertising dollars because anybody with a little bit of experience in internet marketing knows that the Alexa rankings are particularly irrelevant for sites like People String where users have a financial incentive to visit.  Past surfing ponzi scams like StudioTraffic and 12DailyPro easily cracked the top 500 and 300 respectively.  Over the last 7 months, they have climbed in Alexa steadily but are now starting to stagnate, especially in the U.S.

9/29/09
Global: 4,921
USA: 2,961

5/12/10
Global: 1899
USA: 773

Just for kicks, I joined PS on 7/22/2009 and I’ve “earned” a whopping $14.64 doing what I already do with Facebook in nearly 10 months.  Just like so many other opportunities online, there is very little money to be made with PeopleString.com unless you can recruit heavily.

Name	Referral	Date ?	Status	Amount
Search & Ad		4/13/2010		$ 1.38
Jan Search & Ad		4/1/2010		$ 0.88
Facebook Account Confirmed		3/20/2010		$ 0.10
Deal: Cell Phone/Facebook Questions		3/16/2010		$ 0.10
Nov/Dec Search & Ad		2/12/2010		$ 4.17
October Search & Ad		1/19/2010		$ 2.40
Email Confirmed		1/4/2010		$ 0.10
Deal: Wagging Tails Cards (#81)		12/19/2009		$ 0.06
Deal: Think Cash.com (#80)		12/7/2009		$ 0.15
Deal: uWantSavings.com (#79)		12/7/2009		$ 0.15
Deal: I See Me (#78)		12/7/2009		$ 0.15
Deal: Wysong (#77)		12/7/2009		$ 0.15
Deal: ThingsYouNeverKnewExisted.com (#76)		12/7/2009		$ 0.15
September Search & Ad		12/2/2009		$ 0.17
Deal: How to Suppress Hunger (#74)		11/8/2009		$ 0.25
Deal: Miracle Fruit (#73)		11/8/2009		$ 0.25
Deal: Hot Home Business Opportunities (#72)		11/8/2009		$ 0.25
Deal: Home Business Opportunities (#71)		11/8/2009		$ 0.25
Deal: WinningSurveys.com (#69)		11/8/2009		$ 0.35
Deal: Foods That Help you Lose Weight (#70)		11/8/2009		$ 0.25
Deal: Restaurant.com (#67)		11/7/2009		$ 0.25
Deal: 01insurance.com (#68)		11/7/2009		$ 0.25
Deal: Black Grape (#75)		11/7/2009		$ 0.50
August Search & Ad		10/29/2009		$ 0.19
July Search & Ad		10/5/2009		$ 0.21
Deal: 30 Questions to Start Earning Money		8/5/2009		$ 1.50
Signup		7/22/2009		$ 0.03

Thanks to some of the bad seeds in our affiliate marketing world, craigslist had the following text come up on a page before allowing users in my market to view the jobs section.

craigslist SCAM ALERT

SCAM ALERT – affiliate scammers are posting bogus ads promising (nonexistent!) employment, paid research trials, or other compensation, but then notifying repliers that they’ll need to jump through a hoop first, directing them to:

* background checking services
* credit checking or reporting sites
* sites where you are instructed to enter your resume or other personal information
* sites where you are asked to sign up for a “free” trial offer
* sites offering training or education
* sites offering a “system” for making money
* survey or focus group sites
* sites designed to deliver malware or misuse your identifying information

all in hopes of earning affiliate marketing commissions or otherwise profiting at the expense of persons seeking employment.

Lots of variations on this scam, but each generally involves dangling (nonexistent!) compensation, and then directing you to a website where you are asked to sign up for something, use your credit card, or input personal information such as your email address.

Continue to job postings

FUN FACT: If you are able to determine a scammer’s “affiliate ID” and report it to their affiliate marketing program, this will often result in termination of the scammer, and confiscation of the scammer’s ill-gotten gains by the affiliate program.

I routinely visit craigslist looking for IC work in web design or SEO and found this such a shame that affiliate marketers who insist on using deceptive tactics and lies to lure in recruits have compelled craigslist to inconvenience their users in this manner.

People love to gripe and complain about the government getting too involved in our businesses, but between idiotic marketers who continually look at ways to cheat quality sites like craigslist and the myriad of outright scams that rise and fall every day on the net, more government involvement is exactly what we will eventually get.

If only people could just work their businesses honestly.

AKA, let’s watch a ponzi autosurf scam die.

Since I don’t normally peruse all of the HYIP scam promoting sites, I haven’t taken the time to pick one autosurf ponzi early in it’s life and follow it to it’s death.

I was going to do this with Alert Pay Instant at apinstant.com.  Alas, I blinked and the ponzi is now gone.

So I stumbled across Get Daily Paid.  It should suffice as an example.  I’ve never followed one too closely from inception to collapse, but I have wanted to just one time and only one time since every single one of them share the same fate — collapse or shut down by the authorities.

As of today, the site shows a mere $29,400 taken in, so we’re probably catching the ponzi autosurf pretty early.  Also, the domain name getdailypaid.com was just registered on April 15, 2009.

Depending on how well it’s run, it could last just a few days or weeks, or may get a year or two under it’s belt if the admin are really good and people spread the word.

This one is just your typical surf ponzi promising 12% daily return on your investment purchase.  Ooops, it’s not really a promise according to their FAQ.  These criminals are kind enough to warn you that it’s not guaranteed and not to risk more than you can afford to lose.

To hell with the fact that if you are a U.S. citizen, you are breaking the law by playing these ponzi games.  Just do some research on the similar surf ponzi scams Ad Surf Daily or 12 Daily Pro.

Well, that’s all for now.  Let the fun begin.  Don’t blink or you might miss it.

Too funny not to share.

For those not familiar with Bernie Madoff perhaps not as funny.

At least we now know for certain that 419 scammers stay up to date on current events. LOL

Dear Friend ,

I am Mrs.Ruth Madoff, wife of bernard madoff.

I am actually going through some kind of difficult time with my family
right now, as my husband is at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New
York City.
My husband Sentencing is scheduled for June 16, 2009 and he is likely to
face a maximum sentence of 150 years in prison and $170 billion in
restitution, so there is need for me to move out a lot of my personal
funds and personal belongings around the world , particularly  from
outside America, but i need somebody to trust now, because i cannot
receive funds here in America right now.

I would need your help in acquiring some properties and keeping some large
cash amount for me. but first i would  prefer to chat with you either on
yahoo chat or Skype. if you are not comfortable with yahoo then write me
,so we can communicate via email.

This is very urgent, i would have to entrust a large amount of money into
your hands  and some personal valuables. But this would have to be very
confidential, just between me and you, because the press are after  me
and my husband name all over the headlines, because of his Wall street
business.

Anyway! don’t be scared about the risk, it is a very safe deal i can
assure you of your confidentiality.

Yours Sincerely
Mrs. Ruth Alpern Madoff
Email Contact: ruthmadoff020@live.com

If you’re wondering whether or not Wealthy Affiliate is a scam, so am I.

I’m always very leary of these types of paid membership sites and actually looked over Wealthy Affiliate last year before deciding to pass on it at that time.

This weekend, the topic of Wealthy Affiliate came up while I was chatting with an old forum friend.  He signed up for their course 3 weeks ago and liked what he saw so far, so I decided I would give it a test run myself to determine if it is worth it for me.

Wealthy Affiliate Will Not Make You Rich We will Teach you how to Make Yourself Rich.

Why did I have a change of heart?

To be completely honest, I fully believe that everything we all need to succeed is freely available on the net via newsletters, discussion forums, etc.  My decision to give Wealthy Affiliate a test run was not purely for the educational value, although they do provide significant value in the member area of the site.

If I like it and find enough value, I’ll be happy to promote it wholeheartedly.  Due to the way it is set up, I’ll ultimately have to ask myself the same question MLMers need to ask about their programs, “If there wasn’t a compensation plan attached, would I still be willing to pay for what I’m promoting?”

My main motivation for giving it a shot was to see if it truly helps me have a more structured approach to my marketing.

You see, I have plenty of knowledge rattling around in my brain.  But like most, I have rarely applied it consistently to my marketing.  So my results have been inconsistent.

Technically, I would still be considered more successful than most marketers because I have actually made money online when most never make a dime.  Nothing that I can retire on mind you, but I pull in a few bucks each month.

What I will be doing is going through their 8 Week Action plan step by step and taking advantage of the multitude of resources offered as well as the knowledge shared in the Wealthy Affiliate forums to see how it all plays out.

I’ll be posting my progress or lack thereof on my Work At Home Network site under the Affiliate Programs and Products Testing section.  I’ll be posting once or twice a week with my thoughts.

If you want to try Affiliate Wealth University along with me, feel free.  If you have some thoughts, good or bad, share them with a comment.

BTW, even if it is everything it says it is, there is never a guarantee of success for any of us.  We all have to apply ourselves and put our knowledge to work for the best chance to succeed.  This program is just a tool to help that along, not a magic pill.

Best wishes for your success.