There a quite a number of videos that have been uploaded to YouTube which for one reason or another have gone viral in a big way. The people who uploaded these videos probably didn’t expect such a response to them or any sort of compensation for them. Some people have been lucky enough to sign on to all sorts of endorsement deals. On the other hand, Google makes money by running ads at the start of some videos, during videos and/or along the side of the player. In a lot of instances, the person who uploaded the video is not be compensated for their creation.

A little while back, YouTube started a partner program through which a select few could earn a share of the revenue generated from ads displayed with the content they uploaded. This wasn’t the easiest to get into but now it looks like if your video goes viral, Google will get in touch with you about becoming a partner. If take up the offer, you are effectively entering into a revenue share agreement with them where you get paid a certain percentage (with you taking the lions share) of the generated ad revenue.

How Does YouTube Work Out Video Virality?

There are a few reports out there stating that YouTube has developed an algorithm that works out what videos are likely to become a hit. All videos uploaded to the site are monitored so every single video uploaded has an equal chance of becoming a moneymaker if it goes viral.

Some YouTube users earn thousands of dollars a year and for others this figure runs into the hundreds of thousands. Examples of the high earning videos include; Talking Twin Babies, Charlie bit my finger – again and Double Rainbow all of which you can search for on YouTube.

The Secret To Making A Viral Video

From what I have seen, there is no secret to making a viral video. A lot of the videos that have gone viral were uploaded with the intent of simply sharing them with friends and family with some of them having been recorded with mobile phones! Some have had a boost by celebrities which have accelerated the rate at which they have been shared.

Make More Money Selling Merchandise

If you are lucky enough to have a video go viral, another avenue through which users can earn money is through merchandising. The Double Rainbow Guy sells an assortment of merchandise such a t-shirts, hoodies and mugs on his Zazzle Double Rainbow Store. If you don’t like what Zazzle has to offer, another option is CafePress.com. If you are going to sell merchandise, one important thing to do is to put a link to your site at the start of the description of the video. People viewing the video will be able to easily see it without having to scroll down and they will hopefully click on it, head over to the site and if they like what they see, make a purchase.

Do you know any other ways of making money via YouTube?

There are a number of ways through which bloggers and site administrators choose to monetize their sites. Not all methods suit the one-size fits all model as what works for one site may not work for another and this can be due to varying number of reasons.

Some sites such as photo blogs are image based and if you have been looking around for a way of monetising them, in-image ads may be the way forward. I just came across GumGum, an in-image ad network that opens up a new revenue stream for publishers. Their service overlays ads on web images and publishers earn revenue on a CPM basis.

Signing up to and getting started with them is a quick and easy process. All it takes to get the ad overlays up and running is a simple HTML code install. They have a Wordress.org plugin and Blogger.com widget to make the process easy if you are concerned about tinkering with HTML.

Publisher payments are paid out via PayPal when earnings reach at least $50. I am using them on a couple of my other sites one of which is My Pictorial World (screenshot below).

I have only been running GumGum for a few days so at the moment I can’t really comment much on how well it works. I must admit that I was a little concerned that the ads could be a little intrusive. I haven’t had any complaints from readers yet so I will continue to run their ads for a little while longer to see just how effective they are as a revenue stream. If you want me to write up an update on earnings in a few weeks, leave a comment and let me know.

There are countless numbers of jobs that are continually being outsourced by individuals and organisations and posted on freelance marketplaces such as oDesk, Elance and Freelancer.com just to name a few. The good thing about a lot of these short term projects is that you can work on them from the comfort of your own home and for anyone from anywhere in the world.

So many of us have expertise and knowledge that we don’t make full use of and these can range from web design, graphic design, writing, mobile app development, marketing, social media and the list goes on and on. More often than not, these areas may be something that you have taken up as a hobby and enjoy doing and they could be turned into an income stream. The thing is, there are a lot of people out there in the world who are looking for people with certain areas of expertise to help them complete projects they are working on.

In this day in age, finding freelance work is not that difficult as you can simply go to marketplaces such as those mentioned above and search for something suitable. That may not be ideal for everyone as one marketplace may not suit your needs as well as another. DoNanza is the perfect solution for people who want to be able to search for jobs available across the web. They are in a nutshell, a site that aggregates freelance projects from marketplaces and crowdsourcing platforms across the web. This increases the chances of you finding something that suits your needs without having to visit multiple sites.

They also have a publisher program that allows users to add a widget or project board to their site and earn money. Publishers are paid when users bid or work on projects. Publishers are also paid when employers post projects directly on their board. Payments are sent out monthly via cheque or PayPal.

Here is an example of a project board – Ninety Nine Ways Job Board

Freelancing is something that you should look into if you are out to make a little extra money or even take up full time. This is something that is open to anyone and everyone, the only requirement is that you are knowledgeable on whatever it is someone may need work on and that you can deliver!

I went to an electronics store yesterday and whilst the consultant was trying to find the answers to my questions, I had a bit of a play around with an iPad. I ended up on one of my sites and noticed that Adsense ads weren’t displaying. For some people, being one revenue stream down could be a cause for concern. Should they be concerned, I think so. Why? As time goes by, more and more people are going mobile and using mobile devices to do a lot more day to day activities including accessing the internet.

This doesn’t mean that you have to miss out on earning a bit of revenue that way if lets say for example Adsense is biggest income generator and you don’t have Adsense for mobile (or similar). Chitika have come up with a simple solution for you to earn revenue from people accessing your site via mobile devices.

They just rolled out a mobile ads program which displays targeted ads to people visiting your site via a mobile device. Ads are displayed in the same fashion as Chitika Select Ads. Instead of being displayed 100% of the time they are only displayed when there is a high chance that the ad will be clicked on.

If you are already Chitika publisher, then you do not have to do anything at all for mobile ads to start displaying. This makes this product a must have because not only will you be generating revenue from your regular traffic, you will also be generating revenue from your mobile traffic.

At the moment mobile ads are currently only being displayed on the iPhone and Android devices. More devices will be added in the near future but none the less, there are millions of devices out there already that are ready and waiting to display Chitika Mobile ads.

If you aren’t already a Chitika publisher, isn’t this a good enough reason to sign up?

I have an exam on Saturday and should really be studying for it but I just got an email from Infolinks who just told me to dream on! When I saw the subject before I opened the email I was wondering what the? But as I read the email it became apparent what it was all about and I just couldn’t pass on the opportunity. In a nutshell, they are giving a few publishers the chance to live out their wildest dreams; on them!!!

All I need to do to be in on a chance is answer two questions and here goes:

1. what about Infolinks makes you happy?

Besides them being better than other similar services, they respond to questions or requests I have in a very timely manner. That makes me very happy because there are a few services or program providers out there who you will not get to hear back from quickly or even get a reply from at all (I won’t go into details about the bad experiences I have had). An example was when I emailed them out of the blue to find out about their affiliate program which I had read about but had no idea how to join. I not only got a response (from Account Executive Jamie M) a few hours later, it included my own personal referral link. That kind of service makes a big difference in my books even more so given that I am not one of those people that makes tens of thousands of dollars a month. They take everyone and everything seriously regardless of who you are!

2. What can Infolinks do to make you happy, really happy?

This question was pretty simple to answer. Since my crazy self decided to quit my job and go back to school  (and move cities in and amongst that) I have been dreaming about getting away from life for even just a couple of  days. Why? It has been a while since my brain (which seems to have turned to mush) has had as much of a work out as it’s had over the last three months. I’ve been tired, irritable and even wanted to give up! One thing that I have dreamed about doing for the longest and even more so now is hopping onto a plane and taking a short 4 or so hour flight to Rarotonga (Cook Islands). First thing I would do when I got there is just sit on the beach for a day or two and do nothing but enjoy the weather, my wife’s company (God knows she needs a break after putting up with me especially during exam time) and go for a quick dip now and then to see what the aquatic world has to offer. After that I would take in a few sights (time permitting) before heading back to NZ. The getaway would include no laptop and I wouldn’t even bother to turn on my mobile phone when over there and completely disconnected from the world.

There you have it, a nice and simple dream that would make a world of difference! If you haven’t already done so, sign up to Infolinks (and yes, this is a referral link) and see if you will be as happy with them as I am. Back to studying now!

A few hours ago MaxBounty sent out an email announcing announcing a $1000 affiliate referral contest. At the same time they also mentioned how they hoped I had already taken a look at their new site. Truth be told, I have not been over to MaxBounty in a bit of while but I like their new interface. The site looks much better than it used to and navigating around it is a lot easier.

In a nutshell, MaxBounty is a CPA (Cost Per Action) advertising affiliate network that has more than 10,000 active publishers. With more than 500 advertisers within their network you are spoilt for choice as to what campaigns to promote. Publisher payments are made on a monthly basis via cheque, PayPal or electronic transfer.

They are a network that is worth taking a look at and to help push their new interface, they are running a $1,000 affiliate referral contest:

• $650 for generating the most referral income

• $250 for generating the most approved referrals

• $100 randomly selected from all participating

Sign up to MaxBounty and be in the running to win a $1,000 bonus.

I was just over on the Clickbooth blog and saw a super sweet contest they just announced, the “Live Like A Super Affiliate Charity Contest”. It is a contest with a difference because not only does someone get to win some really good prizes, 4 charities will also get to benefit from the contest with donations from Clickbooth and how much they get is really up to you.

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to live like a Super Affiliate? The money, the exposure, the opportunities – it all comes along with being one of the top dogs in the industry.

While it usually takes a lot of hard work and sacrifice to be in the top 2% of affiliate marketers, Clickbooth put together this contest to not only give you a taste of what it’s like to live like a Super Affiliate, but also to provide you with some great opportunities that will help you achieve that level of success quicker.

If that wasn’t enough, you will also be helping some of your favorite bloggers raise money for their charity in the process!

So here’s how the contest works:

The contest is currently being held across four well-known blogs: JohnChow.com, IanFernando.com, ZacJohnson.com and MurrayNewlands.com and each blogger has chosen a charity that they will be representing. Clickbooth will be donating $500 to each of the charities no matter what, however YOU have the power to help each of them earn an additional $1,000 for their charity.

If all of the new affiliates that sign up to the Clickbooth network through the contest can collectively reach $100,000 in revenue within the two month period, Clickbooth will donate an additional $1,000 to each charity. Simple as that.

So if you aren’t a publisher yet, sign up and do what you do best – start making some money! The better you do, the better the charities do, and you will have a HUGE edge in winning the highly sought out Live Like A Super Affiliate Prize package!

Note: When you sign up as a publisher, you MUST input the word “LiveContest” in the comments section of the sign up form. If you don’t input the code, you WILL NOT be entered in the contest and will be ineligible to win any of the prizes.

Now comes the fun part, The Ultimate Live Like A Super Affiliate Prize Package!

One lucky winner will win the following:

• Weekend Trip to Sarasota, Florida (Hang out with Clickbooth for the weekend and receive the ultimate Super Affiliate treatment!)
• 125×125 ad on JohnChow.com for 1 Month
• Guest Post or Product/Service Review on JohnChow.com
• 30 Minute Consulting Call with Super Affiliate Zac Johnson
• Guest Post on ZacJohnson.com
• 1 Ticket to Leads Con in Vegas
• 1 Platinum Pass to Affiliate Summit West
• An Interview on MurrayNewlands.com
• Product/Service Review on IanFernando.com
• Membership to Twit Sniper

So what does it take to win this awesome prize package? It all comes down to a point system:

• Most Revenue During 2 Months of Contest: 40pts
• Write a post about the contest with a link back to this post: 10pts
• Video of why you should win the live like a Super Affiliate package: 15pts
• Follow each Super Affiliate and Clickbooth on Twitter: 5pts (John Chow, Ian Fernando, Zac Johnson, Murray Newlands, Clickbooth.
• Tweet about contest using the following Tweet: 5pts

I just entered @Clickbooth’s new contest for a chance to Live Like A Super Affiliate! Check it out! http://xr.com/fstd

• Become a Facebook Fan of each blogger and Clickbooth: 5pts
• Subscribe to CB Blog: 5pts
• Stumble this post: 5pts

You will need to send an email to Eric@clickbooth.com by December 10th, stating your FULL NAME, as well as which of the above tasks you completed with a link to each (for tracking purposes). Make the subject of the email “Live Like A Super Affiliate”.

If there is a tie in points, a winner will be randomly drawn from the participants that tied. However, if you don’t send an email, your points WILL NOT be counted. Also, this contest is only open to NEW affiliates that have not signed up with Clickbooth before.

There will also be prizes given out to 2 random winners. Prizes are:

• Affiliate Theme by, Unique Blog Designs (1 winner)
• 1 Month Featured Blog or a 468×60 Ad on AffBuzz.com (1 winner)

Winners of the random prizes will be announced December 18, 2009.

So there you have it. Head over Clickbooth and sign up to  Live Like A Super Affiliate! This is a great opportunity to not only help four amazing charities, but also win a prize package that will help take your success to a new level!

If you have any feedback or questions about the contest, email Eric at anytime! For a complete list of Rules and Regulations of this contest, go here.

Good Luck!

As Twitter continues to grow, a lot of people are looking for ways to monetise their tweets and one of the ways of doing that is through a service such as Magpie or Adjix. One problem with them is that the particular tweet sent out may not be relevant to what you usually tweet about. Less people are likely to pay attention to them which in turn will mean lower earnings.

You can however send out tweets from RSS feeds that you are pretty certain your followers will be interested in and ones that could result in payouts for leads. Twitterfeed is a tool that automatically feeds your feeds through to Twitter for you. It gives you options that allow you to do things such as set the frequency at which you want updates to be sent out, a post prefix and suffix, the url shortening service you would like to use and a keyword filter.

As far as setting up a feed that could lead to you earning revenue goes, RevResponse is a very good option. For those of you that don’t already know about them, they are a pay-per-lead ad network with a range of free business resources that pays publishers whenever a user downloads their resources. The payouts range from $1.50 to $20 depending on what is downloaded.

The reason why I say they are a good option is because they offer a range of free business content and you will more than likely find something suitable to tweet about. You can find a full list of everything they have to offer here – TradePub. If you took a look at what they have to offer you may have noticed that each category has an rss feed that you can add to Twitterfeed and your in business.

In the post about my move from Blogger to WordPress I mentioned that my first stint with WordPress was at the start of the year when I decided to give phpBay Pro a go and see what it was all about.

What is phpBay Pro?

phpBay Pro is an affiliate script for building niche websites with the eBay Partner Network (ePN). It is available as a WordPress plugin or a stand alone API version. It allows users to quickly and easily place and add content to a site and lets them chose a single listing or auction or a range of auctions based on keywords to place on a site. It may have been built with eBay in mind but it is not limited to the ePN as you can also earn revenue via Pepperjam, Mediaplex, TradeDoubler and Affilinet.

When a visitor clicks on a product and places a winning bid, you receive a commission based on a percentage of the revenue generated by the winning bid. And, if someone signs up for a new eBay account via your site (active confirmed registered users (ACRUs)), you receive a bonus as well. The commission rates and ACRU compensation amounts vary from program to program.

Earnings are paid out on a monthly basis via PayPal or direct deposit (in certain countries).

My Experience With phpBay

When I first tried out phpBay, I was still using Blogger and with that being the case and me not being accustomed to WordPress I went on a hunt to see if I could trial it without having to spend too much money. I got a cheap (.info) domain name on Go Daddy and the best deal I could find for hosting was with Hostgator (I found a $0.01 1 month hosting coupon via a Google search). With all of that out of the way, I went about setting up the site with a bit of help from Ben Johnson who sent through a guide on building stores and also provided me with a theme.

When I set up the site (Hair Extension Supplies) I told myself that if it wasn’t able to cover its hosting for the following month (at the least) I wasn’t going to carry on with the experiment. Two or so weeks in was pleasently surprised to see that the site had made itself $23.59. What impressed me the most was the fact that I really didn’t do any sort of marketing before it started earning money. Since then I have started another phpBay site which I have put a bit more work into which is doing well (a tip I got before I set up the second site was to look for a niche within a niche within a niche).

Is It Worth It?

I would say that phpBay Pro is well worth the investment. It doesn’t take a long time to learn how to use it, set up new sites or intergrate it into existing sites and once all of that it done you don’t have to do a lot to the site besides a bit of maintenance now and then and of course a bit of promotion.

You really can get rich while you sleep.

Kindle Publishing for Blogs has just been opened up by Amazon. It is a platform where bloggers can upload their blogs and get paid for their content based on the number of monthly subscriptions.

Signing up doesn’t take too long and once you have put in your blog and feed details it takes 12-48 hours for it to be approved and made available on the Kindle Store. One thing that publishers do not have control over is setting subscription prices. Amazon sets the price for blogs based on what they deem as fair. Most of the blogs I’ve seen so far on the Kindle store range from $0.99 to $1.99. (Ninety Nine Ways on Amazon)

Publishers are paid royalties of 30% of subscription and single issue sales revenue per month. Revenue is paid out by cheque (once you have reached a minimum of $50 in earnings) or directly into your bank account (once you have reached a minimum of $10). Payments via cheque incur an $8 fee and electronic payments are only paid out into U.S bank accounts.

I think it is a bit of a long shot trying to make money from your blog via this channel but hey, you might have a blog that is that good and one which a lot of people are willing to pay a monthly fee to read on their Amazon Kindle.

Do you think it is worth your while?

Not promoting RevResponse content may have been an oversight on my part because looking back at my report to see when I earned the $28.16 commission, it was all earned in one day from 6 leads which equates to $4.69 per qualified form submitted.

It took 6 qualified leads to earn that amount of money so if I had really put in a good amount of work at promoting their content who knows how much I could have earned by now. So, if you were like me and had forgotten about RevResponse or may not have heard of it yet, it may be worth your while promoting their free content. Whilst you are at it, take a look at the Top 10 Ways To Make Money with RevResponse.

Terms

• Enter the code CBReferral – Gerri in the comments section of your Clickbooth application.
• Meet the $1000 minimum tier to be guaranteed a prize.
• Winners may swap their prizes for a PayPal payment of equal value before the prize is sent.
• Current Clickbooth publisher will receive appropriate prize level award for first month and then 2% of lifetime earnings for referred pubs every month after that.- For international publishers (residing outside of the US), in the event that we cannot find a company that ships your prize internationally to your country, Clickbooth will compensate by sending a PayPal payment or bank wire payment (depending on the prize value) for the value of the prize.
• Any publisher caught doing illegal measures such as fraud or being in violation of the affiliate network’s Terms of Service will not be eligible for a prize.

So go on, get going, sign up to Clickbooth, make yourself some money and win something whilst you are at it.

Click here for Free Sales & Marketing Resources!

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Flash Widget:

In the middle of last year I applied for Chitika eMiniMalls and the application was declined very quickly. I thought to myself that I would apply again after my blog had been up and running for while. At the beginning of the week I went through the process of reapplying and when I hit the submit button after entering all my information I was taken to a screen that told me my application had been declined right there and then. The message also included a note stating that their system had detected that I had put in a previous application that was declined.

When I checked my mail this morning I had received the following from them:

Hi Gerald,

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. Welcome to Chitika!

Shopzilla, one of the leading comparison shopping services enables shoppers to find, compare and buy just about anything online through their merchant partners. Earlier in the year they launched an affiliate program which is currently in beta release.

The Shopzilla Publisher Network is an affiliate program that allows you to earn revenue by displaying sponsored shopping content on your site. Publishers earn revenue on a pay-per-click basis through redirects which is when traffic sent to Shopzilla links out to one of their merchants. In other words you are paid when visitors’ click through to the Shopzilla site and from there click through onto one of their merchants on that page and you get paid. That easy!

They offer an array of ad units which include banners, search boxes, text links, full page ads and so on (examples on the right and the bottom of the post).

Earnings are paid out on a monthly basis with payments for each month being sent out at the end of the following month with the minimum payout amount being $50. Payments within the US are sent out via cheque and for publishers outside North America via PayPal.

They are inviting publishers to register for the beta release of the Publisher Program. At present they are only accepting shopping websites with a pre-existing North American user base. Hopefully this will change soon to allow for other types of sites. A program like this would work well on a site such as a shopping blog and product review site, just to name a few.

The Associates Program allows you place links for Amazon products on your site. As an associate you can earn up to 10% of the revenue generated from your referrals. The percentage you earn is dependant on whether or not you are on the Performance Fee Structure or the Classic Fee Structure with the Performance Fee Structure with a referral rate of 4% to 10%.

There have been some recent developments to their program which include Amazon MP3 and Context Links. Amazon MP3 offers the largest selection of DRM free MP3 downloads which means they can be played on any device. This is something that is sure to go down well with a lot of consumers. I see them giving iTunes a run for their money. Most of the songs are priced from 89 cents to 99 cents. Up until 31 December 2007 Associates are eligible to earn 20% on all MP3 referrals. From 1 January 2008 the referral fees will be 10%. (Note: Amazon MP3 is currently only available to US customers)
Context Links Beta identifies and automatically links relevant phrases within your content to Amazon products.

Payments are sent out monthly with Amazon offering three payment options:
1. Amazon.com gift certificate/card ($10.00 minimum earnings)
2. Direct deposit ($10.00 minimum earnings)
3. Cheque ($100.00 minimum earnings. Note a $15 processing fee will be applied to all Associates with US addresses when choosing this option.)

A number of sites out there are already displaying Associate links. If you have not yet signed up it might be worth a try.