BIZ-BANANA.COM

For some people who were in from the beginning, it ended up as a complete nightmare. One of the Net's 'in' phrases is 'Viral Marketing' - where something catches on and spreads like wildfire. I'm not sure who coined the term (perhaps some of you can set me straight on that score), but just about everybody with a website got bitten by the bug...

... Me, too!

I never had any more than a couple of hundred sign-ups, but it paid for my time online and helped to subsidise the site. Some people, however, were making their fortunes and had upwards of 20,000 signed up and in the end they were the real losers.

The ins and outs of what exactly happened for the demise are already well documented on the Web, but we'll leave the original article as a cautionary tale.

Founded in February 1999, AllAdvantage.com have completely revolutionised online advertising in just a few months.

'The rules have changed,' they boldly pronounce, having re-written them from scratch.

Imagine walking into a bar and ordering a drink. The barperson hands over your beer (or whatever your tipple) and says: "Thank you, and here's your fee for choosing Blodgitt's Booze." A pub that pays you to drink? That'll be the day.

Or how about once a year, instead of forking out for your annual contribution to the BBC - the TV licence - they sent you some money with a 'thank-you-for-watching' message!

Never happen in a million years, you say. Well, hold onto your hat... because it's happening right now! Okay, not exactly the free booze and telly licence (boo-hoo) - but pretty close to it.

To become a part of it all, what you do is visit the AllAdvantage website, complete a brief online registration form, download a proprietary piece of software they call a Viewbar and you are all set. Once installed (a simple process) the Viewbar appears on the lower half of your monitor screen every time you boot, taking up about an inch in height. It's all relatively painless, completely free to join and you can quit anytime.

When you next go online the Viewbar becomes active showing a series of advertisements, presumably in the hope that users will click on them and subsequently purchase goods.

A big attraction of the scheme ( to us users) is that, whether you buy anything or not ( and there is absolutely no obligation to even click on any of the ads ), you will be paid for the time you are online with the Viewbar active - up to a prescribed limit. At the time of writing the current limit is 25 hours a month, for which you are paid the U.K. equivalent of 50 cents an hour. There are plans, apparently, to increase this to 40 hours - 'soon'.

If you get fed up looking at the Viewbar - or have used up your allotted quota - you can minimise, or even remove it altogether.

And there's more...

Not only do you get paid for the time you surf, you get a fee for everybody you refer to the scheme: 10 cents an hour for your first line referrals; 5 cents an hour for their referrals - down to the fourth level.

Yes, I know what you're thinking; it's Multi-level marketing in a new suit. And you are perfectly correct in surmising that it uses an adaptation of the MLM principle.

But in this case there are:

• no sign-on fees
• no business kits to buy - start-up or promotional
• no products to buy - either for your own use or resale
• no motivational meetings to attend
• no obligations whatsoever!

You have nothing to lose but your telephone bill!

Make Money With Your Computer
back to contents

© Biz-Banana.com 1999-2006 - All Rights Reserved.

BIZ-BANANA.COM - DON'T SLIP UP!