CREAMaid Update

Undeterred by my previous failure to cash-in on the CREAMaid bandwagon, I recently posted about my "strongest competitive video game memory". This time I received the following congratulatory response:

Congratulations!

Your post "Glory Days!"

has been invited to appear on the Conversation:
"TeamCompete asks: "What is your Strongest Competitve Video Game memory?""
Your post will be syndicated to the widgets included
inside each of the participating posts.

I received this and a follow-up e-mail regarding the status of my royalty payment the same day. Having checked my Paypal account, I can now confirm the legitimacy of the CREAMaid service. Blog on.

Glory Days!

I love video games. My favorite would have to be Sid Meier's classic, Civilization. In college my friends and I would play Civ III in multi-player mode in marathon sessions, some lasting more that 36 hours. It was insane. Fortunately for me, though, the tales of how these games transpired mattered more than who actually won.
Since graduation, our gaming group has spread out across three continents but we still manage game or two each year, albeit only for only a few hours nowadays. So, what has gaming taught me: Don't live to game. Game to live.

DigitalJournal Update 2

So, after one month as a digitaljournal contributor, I've managed seven posts, and a handful of comments, earning $0.54 out of a $1,500 pot. Seeing as I need to accrue at least $10.00 to even be remunerated, I better start participating more vigorously.

Performancing

As if the stylish sidebar ad was insufficient, I have today enrolled in Performancing Partners. I first learned of Performancing whilst searching for must have add-ons for Firefox. The ability to Blog within my browser while surfing the internet or previewing a site proved irresistible, especially since an integrated spell checker was introduced into Firefox 2.0. What I didn't realize at the time was that Performancing.com also offered free metric services and affiliate program. I'm now a member of both. I blog in greater detail once I have more experience with the services.

DigitalJournal Update

Just a quick update on my experiences with DigitalJournal. I've been using the service now for about two weeks now and I have to date generated $0.47 having posted 5 blogs, 4 comments, and 6 votes. In case you've already forgotten, Digital Journal pays bloggers based on their participation within the community and as you can painfully see I have been less than active. Nevertheless, I'll continue persevering until the end of the month. Wish me luck!

CREAMaid Update

Bellow is an e-mail I just received from CREAMaid in regards to my review of Newgie:

Dear TheBlatantAdvertiser,

We're sorry to notify you that your post "Introducing Newgie" has not been selected to appear on the Conversation "Try Newgie, the news gathering service"

Here are what the Conversation starter suggested as the possible reasons for not selecting your post :

* Not regularly kept blog

However, you can still earn $2 referral fee each time a visitor of your site participates through your post's widget and gets selected.

Thank you for using CREAMaid, and please try again later.

Regards,

CREAMaid

Although I'm disappointed that my post failed to make the grade, I rest comfortably knowing that I did my best.

The e-mail also begs two questions: first, who and what are the responsibilities of the "Conversation starter"; and, second, what constitiutes a "regularly kept blog". Should I ever discover the answers to these queries you shall be first to know.

DigitalJournal

I came across DigitalJournal whilst catching up on my Digg feed this morning via an article in Journalism.co.uk. This re-launched site aims to become "the strongest user-powered news site on the internet, and provide tools for users to exchange comments and ideas on news that matters to them," according to editor-in-chief Chris Hogg. In order to accomplish this grand achievement, DigitalJournal has embraced a revenue-sharing business model where members earn money by posting, rating, and commenting on original and linked stories. As I've just joined, I'm hoping to post further thoughts on the service in the near future.

CREAMaid

Dave Taylor shares his experience with CREAMaid, another paid blogging service, which compensates bloggers for participating in "Conversations" about sponsored products. Unfortunately, the number of available Conversations has not grown in some time, leaving me to wonder just how successful these blogging for dollars start-ups will be.

The "Simple" Process

According to the PayPerPost site, blogging for dollars is a "simple" process: blogger wants money, PPP wants blogger-submitted reviews, blogger posts based on "opportunity requirements", PPP "reviews and approves" post, and blogger is remunerated via PayPal.

While the outlined steps certainly qualify as simple, the cryptic sounding "opportunity requirements" and as yet undefined approval process have certainly caught my eye. I'm curious as to whether or not these gray areas will be more thoroughly described after creating an account.

Just before registering via the "Get Started Here" link I noticed a little section described as "Requirements of Note". Everything was going well until I reached the fourth requirement: a 90-day-old blog. Seeing as I just started this blog last week in order to get rich quick with PPP, I had hit my first obstacle.

Note: all screen captures were taken today directly from PPP's blogger page.

Raison d'etre

The impetus for this site, my first foray into the bloggoshpere, was a TechCrunch piece describing payperpost.com, a service which pays bloggers to review products and services. Being a financially-challenged geek-in-training, I thought this an opportune time to (a) create a blog, (b) detail my experiences with payperpost.com, (c) review both solicited and unsolicited products and services, and (d) allow my readership to evaluate the impartiality of posted reviews and musings. Let the blogging begin!