Why PTCing is a sham

Consider this post not here. Nah, just kidding. This blog isn't exactly dead, but I've absolutely lost my enthusiasm for talking about PTCs, except, of course, if it involves PTC bashing. Which is what this post is about.

ebele tells me she doesn't understand how getting direct referrals is giving someone else the short end of the stick. I posted my answer to the comments section of the last post, and thought it worthy of its own post:
Simply put: Would you, if you had no direct or rented referrals, stay in the PTC you would be collecting direct referrals in? If the answer is no, then what about the people who are without direct referrals, as you get further and further down the line of direct referrals? Eventually, you'll either find someone who doesn't care, and so the whole thing unravels, or who can't get referrals, and so the whole thing unravels. Because, would you stay in if you couldn't get any referrals? If not...
This problem was quintessential with GDI (Global Domains International). It's less evident with PTCs.

How does it unravel? Well, if the person above you is in the PTC business because there are referrals clicking for her and making her money, and the person above that person is doing it for the same reasons, and the person above that person, likewise, and so on and so forth for a good number of people, if the people who are under one of them, way down the line, stops clicking out of boredom (let's just consider that to be not the case for this scenario), or stops clicking because the specific PTC has reached saturation point (everyone's heard about it and everyone's in it), then what about the person who got this last person in as a referral? The person starts losing her direct referrals, which was a good deal of the motivation for clicking (the difference between $30 per month and $1 per month), and so she stops clicking. Oh boy, and what about the person above her? And the person above her? The person above the person that's above her?

You end up with the domino effect, starting from the direct referrals that were at the end of the saturation, and leading up to the very first people who got into the PTC business with this particular PTC.

Supposedly, renting referrals helps with this (so you have more equality in the situation). And, perhaps, it is, if you get one of the packages that cost $90+. And I might try it out just to see if it makes PTCing any less of a sham. But I thought the idea was to not spend money on PTCs? Well, it's not like it would be any worse than $200+ on bux.to... *shrugs*

None.

I started this blog trying to find out if there were or are any decent PTCs. I have come to the conclusion that there aren't.
First I started with a wide berth, finding any and all PTCs that I could find.
Then, when I was taking way too much time out of my day to click ads for all of the sites, I started narrowing my search down with qualifiers.
Soon it was down to just NeoBux and a few other things. I dropped most of the other PTCs I was doing and focused on NeoBux. NeoBux has proven to be... not worth it. A steady slope downwards is what you'll find if you look at the number of clicks per referral for 3 rents each time.

So to answer my starting question, "Which PTCs Work?", None of them do. Oh sure, you can make some pittance off of them, but nothing all that great. The only way to make a decent amount of money with them would be to get lots of direct referrals, but who wants to put the duty of clicking for no reason on someone else? I certainly don't.

So, I'm sticking with Gomez, which has proven to be pretty reliable, and Swagbucks, which has one annoying feature of having to log in a shitload of times, but is otherwise alright.

Consider this blog done, unless I find a reason to revive it.

So I finally caved in...

And recycled the 3 referrals. Interestingly, the clicks of the "fresh" referrals were instantly at 4, though off and on. I find this to be curious, and it makes me wonder, if this is going to be a consistent thing, what a healthy recycle ratio might be. I.e., is there a way to assume recycling to be the case, and still, overall, be able to make a profit? At what point should recycling happen, and will that make for sustainable growth? This will be the next question I explore in relation to PTCs and NeoBux.


9/24/2010 3 2
9/25/2010 3 1
9/26/2010 3 2
9/27/2010 3 2
9/28/2010 3 2
9/29/2010 3 1
9/30/2010 3 1
10/1/2010 3 2
10/2/2010 3 2
10/3/2010 3 1
10/4/2010 3 2
10/5/2010 3 -190
10/6/2010 3 12
10/7/2010 3 8
10/8/2010 3 8
(Legend: the recurring 3 stands for the number of referrals. To get the average clicks, divide the number that follows after the 3, by 3, because it's the sum of all 3 referrals.)
(The -190 just means that I recycled the referrals, and that's the resultant number from all the build-up. Apparently the total number of clicks from them was 190.)

NeoBux Renting Rescue: The Fundamental Flaw

The problem with trying to direct referrals is that of basically being
a spambot and creating an unsustainable MLM matrix:
there's inevitably going to be a loser, if not many.

However, this problem is not eliminated with renting.
Instead, it's put off a bit down the line. Especially with
NeoBux, you're not pushing people to click. The clicking
is dependent on whether they want to get the clicks
from their referrals. All well and good.

Here's the problem: You can rent more than one person.
And that person can only be rented to you.
That means that that person can't be rented to anyone else.
And that means that if someone has all of the rents,
then no-one else can rent.

Let's just say everyone in the world who was on NeoBux
was rented to 10 people. What does this mean for the other
non-10 people? That means that there's no incentive to click -
whose clicks are you trying to get?

Thus, it seems, unless there's an equal distribution of who
gets the clickers, the system will implode. And even with
an insane thing like regulating NeoBux -- growth can only
come from getting more clicks, and getting more clicks
comes from getting more users. This fundamentally limits
the system. You just get the direct referral problem happening
later on, in a more dispersed and abstract way.

So - the fundamental flaw: people can only be rented to one
person at a time. Which is great for the people who got into the
system really fast. But soon, the people who are clicking to
get their referral clicks will notice a decline in the referral
clicks (because the referrals aren't getting clicks from the
people THEY rented), and accordingly, will become rather
demotivized and probably stop clicking.

And guess how that'll end up?

Even in the best-case scenario where everyone clicked 4 ads
each day, the only way to get more clicks is to invite more people
into NeoBux so you can use their clicks. And why will they
click? Who knows -- everyone's already rented to someone! (theoretically)


What's the solution?

I'll take a stab: a system that is integrated with something else,
probably a social networking site or something. Like a facebook
NeoBux or a Gmail NeoBux, or something like that. In a similar
vein as Swagbucks, where the company provides incentives to
look at otherwise-annoying ads. Now, because those ads are
being seen, you've gotten exposure to product x. And so it
would in that way be a win-win scenario.

A Dying Trend?

Well howdy. It's almost been a month.

What have I been doing? Not much. Lots of relationship stuff.

I've been doing NeoBux, mainly. I'm wanting to do other PTCs
as well, or something else at the least, but it looks like the only
reliable PTC that has a rental system is NeoBux.

Gomez, Swagbucks, and NeoBux. And frankly, the money
so far hasn't exactly been that fast. Money from Swagbucks
has helped here and there, though.

My initial guess regarding NeoBux was to do with the
following calculations:
- 4 clicks per 3 referrals (break-even standpoint)
- How long this would take to reproduce more referrals who, in turn, make me enough money to
- Rent more referrals

A Standard member in NeoBux can have 300 referrals.

My calculation was thus this:

If there is a total and overall average of 4.1 clicks per
3 rentals, then after you make enough profit to rent referrals
and get to 300, you'll make a
daily profit of $8.10, a
monthly profit of $243, and a
yearly profit of $2956.50.

And the time in total to get to this would be
142 days.

Not exactly great, but then, it's a whole lot better
than investing 6 months of excitement, anticipation,
and around $200 into a site like bux.to!

Not too shabby, but indeed based on an assumption,
and an important one:
A 1.37 click ratio.

The next step has been to see what I'd actually get,
and adjust expectations accordingly.

Unfortunately, the ratio I've been getting have been
a lot lower than what would be needed. 1.14, and trending
downward. The reason, of course, is that I'm not recycling.
At all. Mostly because I'm curious of what will happen if
I keep the rental. Will the rental become active? Stay dormant?
For how long?

Since the renew prices have changed, and more types
of renews have been added, I've revised my approach
to being a bit more indecisive as to what to do next.
I both want to have a high average - as high as possible,
and I want to observe clickers. My approach to this before,
I suspect, was to over-recycle. Or maybe it wasn't -
I don't really know.

Additionally, having referrals who don't click - and click
less - is really boring. I'm finding myself less and less interested
in continuing, so I think I've going to soon recycle them,
if not just to make it so I don't lose hope (hey, it's my blog;
I can be melodramatic if I want).

But yeah. Everything otherwise, this internet stuff is
looking pretty shitty. If nothing else, when I get another
job I'll maybe use some extra money to speed the NeoBux
process along and find out this stuff faster, but that's about
all I'd do.

Maybe there aren't any decent PTCs. Or maybe I do just
need to upgrade to Golden, and that will change things.
*shrugs*

PTC Relapse... again

Alright. So I said I was done with PTCs, right?
That's what I said however-many-years-ago
after I spent around $200 on bux.to and got
$10 back.

And I was done with PTCs... for about a year or so.
Then I came back to check them out, and found
that NeoBux had started up about 6 months
earlier.

What can I say? I'm a PTC addict. I want an
easy way to make money. It doesn't necessarily
have to be fast, but it does have to be reliable,
and preferably have a high potential. Within
reasonable limits, of course, in order to avoid
wasting an exuberant amount of time, and in
order to avoid getting scammed (Ok, really,
just to make it less likely. In the PTC world,
scam in the norm; you just move on).

For example, the payout has to take less than
something like 60 days - otherwise paypal
won't refund it. I heard that from somewhere.
Makes sense.

Early on I realized that getting direct referrals 
for PTCs was not the way to go. Why?
Because it results in a pyramid scheme.
How? Think of it:
You're trying to get direct referrals so you
can make money. Which means that you're
not making money as it stands. Why would
your direct referrals want to join unless they
could make money? And how would they
make money? Through getting direct referrals.
And how would those referrals make money?
By getting direct referrals.

What a piece of shit. No wonder it's hard
to get direct referrals.

(I got a comment from Cameron on one of
my older posts - the one about NeoBux's
autopay, where he said that he linked the
post to his Top3-Pay-to-Click blog - which
he did. On that same page was the traditional
spreadsheet of direct referral earnings:
... and, my apologies. I mis-saw what
was there. Anyway, I can skim it off of
bux.to's website anyway:

"Earnings Example
» You click 10 ads per day = $0.10
» 20 referrals click 10 ads per day = $2.00
» Your daily earnings = $2.10
» Your weekly earnings = $14.70
» Your monthly earnings = $63.00"

And how does bux.to accomplish this feat?
By using bots: (from PTC-I)
http://img16.imageshack.us/f/bots30547516jq3.jpg/

I'll revisit this in a moment.)

Hence the allure of NeoBux: you rent refs. 
Not buy them, as with bux.to. Not convince
family, friends, and make business cards for
random people you might meet (yes, I did do
that - I got bux.to business cards from Vista
Prints. Wow, right?). But just pay a certain
amount as per which way you decided to
pay (30 days, 60 days, 90 days, autopay...).

The question then becomes: is renting refs profitable?
The answer? I don't know. That's what I'm trying to
figure out. And the answer might be thus:
After two years, with consistent reinvestment to
get more refs until you hit the standard limit of 300,
it won't be profitable. Two years sounds like a long-shot
to me. But seeing as I've spent that much time trying
to find a decent PTC anyway, it just might be something
to consider.

I mean, it's not like I won't still be looking out of curiosity,
even after I've sworn that I've stopped doing PTCs for
here now and forever, so I might as well do NeoBux on
the side. If nothing else, I could spend two years investing
nothing into NeoBux, manage the referrals, and come back
with the report.

So it looks like the key to having a successful referral system
would be to rent referrals. If this can be profitable for those
doing the renting, then the system basically sells itself, and the
direct referrals that would occur from people sharing wouldn't
be people trying to make money off their friends, but money on
top of their intended means of making it.

And that's why I only consider either PTCs that have a ton
of ads to click (at a decent rate, which means at the very
least about $0.0003 per ad), or to have a rental system.
Otherwise it's simply not worth the hassle of weeding through
the 90-99% of PTCs that go bad. Other people can do that,
and then you can search for which PTCs rise to the top,
and maybe include those in your base. Or not. *shrugs*

One thing I really liked about paidtoclick.in was the automated
payments. All I had to do was click, daily, on the ads. It was -
for the most part - a steady stream of income. Yes, it was about
$0.02 per every 3 days, or something like that, but it was reliable.
It was certainly better than $0 per day for looking for more PTCs
that didn't work.

So another method that I employ is that of finding low amounts
in a short period of time. Here, again, is a system where you
could find some direct referrals who might be interested in joining.
And then that could be incremental.

Overall, what have I found so far?
NeoBux, Swagbucks, Gomezpeer, and YouData.
Only one of those is a traditional PTC. I say "traditional"
because technically YouData is a PTC, but its style is
much different from what a PTCer would expect.


So, the second part: What's the problem with renting? 
Accusations of NeoBux using bots usually become posts
that are deleted. Perhaps understandably, since the reaction
to this would be, probably, panic. Things like, "Has NeoBux
finally gone scam" might come up. Then again, perhaps the
admin actually IS using bots, and that's why the posts are deleted.

The problem with renting is that the average tends - or has tended -
to be very low. I guess it doesn't really make sense that the users
are bots, in that way, since, with sites like bux.to, you were pretty much
guaranteed to have a high click rate - but ah, until the ref reaches
around 300 clicks. Then it's a dead fish.

Which is why the craziness of some refs is troubling. It seems,
sometimes, that a referral would be active for a few weeks,
and then the average would just drop, or become non-existent.
This has been what has been behind the almost Tessa-like
declaration from people trying of "Well, you've either got it or you don't."
(Tessa has a scheme where you can take three steps and join a
bunch of stuff and he'll promise you $125. When you complete the
steps, if you don't read the fine print, you realize that you need $200
to cashout. And in order to get that you need to do some heavy
marketing... or... something. Hence, it's a friggin' pain in the ass,
and almost guaranteed to not work if you don't know what you're
doing. I didn't. Lost a few bucks on that...
Reminds me a little of GDI, and GDI reminds me a little of FHTM.
GDI stands for Global Domains International.
FHTM stands for Financial Hi-Tech Marketing.
Both have great referral schemes, but if you don't like the product
(and the products for each isn't so great), then the whole
program falls apart.)

So, I think that'll be my homework to myself (which I'll probably
do out of sheer PTC-addiction), to figure out this renting
referral thing, and how I can make it profitable for myself
and others. Numbers are one thing. Behavior is another animal
entirely. I got about $1.50 built up before I rented 3 refs;
a little lower than is recommended to start, but I sort of just
want to observe the 3 referrals more than anything else.
I was getting bored with just clicking 4 ads per day.

So. There you have it. I'm addicted. :-( :-P
Not to say that I'm not still looking into other
methods. This post is specifically about PTCs
and NeoBux.

PTCs during my spare time...

Alright. So, since I don't exactly have a job right now and I have plenty of free time, I figured I'd get back into PTCs for a while, since it doesn't take much time to click 'em per day, and it's better to make money while doing other stuff (and perhaps eventually have it pile up (neobux)) than to just be watching videos and discussing philosophical issues all day.

Accordingly, I'm going to want to get a bang for my buck (as I imagine y'all also want). So,
first is gathering PTCs to evaluate (the really easy part). The
second, is to weed through the ones that totally suck (like bux.to).
Third, is to evaluate whether they'd bring in income fast enough (the heuristic that I gravitate toward is being able to reach cashout at or within 30 days).
Fourth, which is the spot that I'm just starting to get to, is how many clicks per day you want to do. This part will vary - some of us can only tolerate 5 minutes of clicking a day, while others can go a-clicking for nearly 12 hours. I'd imagine that the 12-hour people are rather rare, but I'm thinking spending 1 to 2 hours a day wouldn't be unreasonable for a heavy PTCer. And some days, 30 minutes would do. Thus, prioritization of PTCs is to take place, putting the ones that have both the fewest clicks and the fastest payout, at top.
Fifth, would be the waiting time. A waiting time of 30 days is not so great. A 7 day waiting period is alright. The best, of course, would be instant.
Sixth thing to consider would be the money amount, but considering this in relation to all the other factors, it's not that important, especially considering that the higher paying PTCs tend to be the ones that are scams.

I'm putting together a spreadsheet with my evaluations of the PTCs. I'm not sure how I'll post it. I might just put it in its full form as another blog post. Also, I want to recommend YouData - I had dismissed it because, at the time (about a year ago) it didn't support Sprint, which tends to be the service I use. Now it does. And it looks like the pay is pretty darn decent.

New Horizons: The Stock Market?

As all 8 of you are aware (assuming that all 8 of you actually read this blog, which is presumptuous of me), I haven't posted a blog update... for a really, really long time. Not as long as a year, but I'm not exactly posting every month.

I'm not sure what to do about the title of this blog - "Which PTCs Work" - since, as it's turning out, (unless of course I'm just not managing them well, which is entirely possibly and plausible), it's possible that none of them work. At least, not in the way I was planning.

The plan was to gather up a bunch of little PTCs (sites with lower amounts per ad and so also lower payouts), and collect those until I had a substantial profit going. There were two problems with this. One problem was... the lower you go, the less worth the while it is. You can only go so far until you're clicking an ad for $0.0000000001. And I'll bet you my two eye teeth (whatever that phrase means, which I don't know why I thought of, but whatever), that ads like that exist. How many of those ads do you need to make a cent? Yeah, exactly.

The equilibrium of this was to aim in the range of $0.002 and $0.01 (anything above that reeks of scam). Paidtoclick.in was a good one. NeoBux was a good one. DollarClickOrSignUp was a good one. Then I got a job at Subway. That changed my perspective a little. So, clicking on $0.002 ads didn't seem as worth it anymore, and because sites like DCOS eventually went from $0.01 per click to $0.002 per click, and there aren't and weren't that many of them, collecting these sites wasn't exactly that easy, nor profitable. One huge advantage, however, of DCOS, has been that I got 2 referrals who have made me a decent amount of residual income. Just the other day I cashed in $3 for doing... nothing (100% referral earnings). Not too bad. But not too good, either. And as to why they're clicking on those pathetic ads, I have no ideas, but hay, fellas, ty for monae.

So, PTCs are out of the mix for me. Why? Because I want a type of income that I can pass on, one that isn't reliant on getting more people into the game as a means to make money. Low PTCs are one of those, since most of them are scams, and the rest of them ain't worth the effort. However, that doesn't mean that I'll ignore all PTCs. My NeoBux account was suspended because I wasn't using it. The other day, I signed up again. I have no idea if it'll pay off, but I think it's worth playing around with. And it's certainly (if I can get it to work) a PTC that I think would be worth passing on (even though anyone who knows anything about PTCs has already joined it).

Now, what have I moved onto? Just because one version of internet revenue isn't working for me, does that mean that I'll accordingly just eschew the internet altogether? Hell no! I'm too obsessed with this medium to do that! And besides... I'm lazy. I don't like the idea of getting a job and being reliant on that, I don't like hard work, and I'm 20. Whoa. Sound odd? Yeah, I'm odd (although, I guess, who isn't?). The only reason I can conceive of for having a job is one or two of the following:
1. Money to use for what I'll actually do. (i.e. Startup; foot in door; learning capital).
2. Rubbing shoulders with businessmen and learning psychology (i.e. Watching people, interacting with people, as this helps me figure people out, which is one of my goals).

Also, I recently went to a Get Motivated! seminar, and then after that, a financial seminar about Tax Liens, Credit Spreads, and various other stuff. They also talked about Options and, basically, the Stock Market.

Do you remember seeing those Forex and eToro ads in NeoBux, assuming that you've done some NeoBux? Yeah, I'm trying a demo of the stock market on eToro, and reading up on the stock market. Later, I'll probably put some play money in. Right now, I'm doing the demo, where you start out with $2,000 (play money).

So, what am I currently doing?
NeoBux - just started, $0;
GomezPeer - started around 8th month of '09 - So far $12.77. I've made. Make note - I've been having internet connection problems and have been using a rather slow internet.
Swagbucks - started a bit before the 11th month of '09 - $15, and I have requested $5 more last week.

Is this a lot of money? No. Is this money that you could be making with pretty much no effort on your part? Yes. So, essentially, if you're not using these two programs, you've lost, possibly, $27, over about an 8 month period (might be different, might not. I just chose a number so I could work with something). I know, so impressive. That's why I'm trying to figure out more stuff to do on top of those. And $27 for 8 months is, sometimes, a lot more to show for what you've done than what you might get for a year of PTCing. Sheesh - I spent around $200 on bux.to! How's that for stupid! Shoulda spent it on NeoBux... Anyway, I'm trying to figure out more stuff to do, how I can help more people, et cetera. And I probably will spend that $90 on NeoBux, because it looks a heck of a lot more stable than bux.to ever was.

The next question, accordingly, is How can you help others*, without putting a crank in your neck by doing all the dirty work that would seem to be required of a business? How can you help others*, and still just click buttons on your computer, and make a killing, and help others make a killing?
I have no idea. Yet. 


Stocks look like a definite possibility. Funded by getting a job and getting some leeway started. Definitely will want to consider more stuff, though. Don't like the looks of a job. I'd rather do odd jobs here and there... but could I do those through the internet? Maybe Odesk...


*Focusing on helping others gets you money, and giving it away, means you keep the money. This is what the guy from the financial seminar said. Internal focus means you'll never keep the money; outward focus gets you money like there's no tomorrow. The problem that I'm having with that is this: 
"Ok, so I want money. So, how can I help you, because I want your money?" It seems a little... contradictory. Also, another focus is that of competency.

PTC Investigations Moved

From the new site:
"Blog Deleted by Google

Google blogger deleted us due to running a blog about ptc sites. They consider it now as spam. We did receive a review from blogger months ago and past inspection.  They approved us and unlocked our blog, even though the bot had marked us as spam. Not too sure if they will unlock it this time due to recent reports we have received from other bloggers who were unsuccessful in unlocking theirs. 

So we got good news and bad news. The good news is that we have our work saved on file up to April 14th. Just a little over 2 weeks of work is lost. Bad news, it will take time for us to upload all the info onto this site/domain. I have to do it by hand. So give us time to get things going again. If I don't respond to email, you know why. I am busy. So requests to review sites will be on hold till we get all the info uploaded again.

I had a feeling this was going to happen, but dreaded having to move everything here. We already had this domain for several months. Just getting around to moving everything was a hassle. Looks like Google forced us into getting it done. We still love blogger, even though they no longer love us. We will still carry on. Just have to work harder to get everything going again.

For those who were sponsored in rotators, it will take time for the search engines to find us again. So you wont see the results as you did before. That is if you were lucky to gain referrals from our banners.

Well let me get to it...see you guys soon ...

~ PTC Investigations ~

 This page was last modified on May 03, 2010"

The old site (which won't give you anything now): http://ptc-investgations.blogspot.com/
The new site: http://ptc-investigation.com/default.aspx

:-) Looks like the name changed for the better, though that's a very small reason to be glad.

Not Really Enthused.

I've finally decided to say it: I've become rather disinterested in
PTCs as of late. The earnings simply aren't enough. And it's
really tedious. I've lost interest in them. So the "lots of little
ones that add up to a lot" doesn't really work out - there
aren't enough, and the pay is too low.

There's also the problem of Why I'm doing them. I'm doing
them to get paid, and you know what? That's why the PTC
rate always gets lower after a while. You see a new PTC up
with $0.01 per click? A few months later it's at $0.005, and
soon it's at $0.0001? Yeah, and guess why. It's cause the
eyeballs going to the ads aren't worth much more than that,
and the expectations are adjusted accordingly.

A few of the other things I've been doing have been working
out alright, and I'll definitely be sticking with them, and hopefully
trying to find more of them. There are two of them, so far.

One is Swagbucks (yes, that's a referral link).


The other is Gomez (yes, another referral link).

(annnnnnd, the picture isn't working... it's a pretty one, too!)

These two are the main survivors of that PTC test that
I've been trying to figure out. With Gomez, you're providing
value to website testers, and they pay you accordingly.
With Swagbucks, it's more of a paying-you-for-what-you're-
already doing type. Really, that's what both of them are like -
having your computer being turned on and on the internet,
and getting paid for that is pretty much getting paid for what
you were already doing.

work-online.org.uk was another promising site, but it
has two important downfalls. One of them is that the
keywords are hella-annoying to incorporate, and sometimes
even, understand. The other is that there isn't a consistent
amount of work available. And the kicker is that you don't
exactly know how the writing is being used, except that it's
for "research". Much be rather shoddy research...

So, there are two things that I'm focusing on right now.
One is that of being paid for what I already do
(searches, chatting, whatever), and trying to find
two more methods of earning money, one of which
is that of setting up little things here and there that would
make me a little cash, and can be automated. Then
I could just make a lot of those, and it would eventually
accumulate.

The other thought I have is doing odd jobs here and
there, such as helping out older people figure out how to
use computers. Apparently there's a demand for that.

I'm not sure if I'll change the blog name or whatnot,
but things are going to start changing a bit. One thing
I don't want to end up doing is that of referral hogging
(which is when you're competing for referrals because
only you and not other people benefit from that).
Instead, I'd rather have something that I could use myself,
and then share it with others if it's even worth having.
Such as Swagbucks and Gomez. Perhaps it could
be a community sort of process, where everyone ends
up sharing their money-making methods, till eventually
we're all rich. :-) Now there's a thought!

You might be wondering, if I'm trying to avoid
referral-hogging, why I posted up my referral links
instead of the main links. Well, because for those
who would see the links and just sign up haphazardly...
why not? If you see it and want to share it with someone
with the main link or your referral link, go for it!
But you do know that the way these things spread
is through incentivising people recruiting each other?
and so that's partially what I'm doing. It's just that
if you end up taking that part too seriously,
and put the dependence of your livelihood on it,
that's when it becomes referral-hogging, and
that's the part that I'm trying to avoid.

Decent PTC? review: ClixSense (ongoing / semi-decent)

Number of ads: 3-15 (varies) (without the upgrade)
Pay per ad: $0.01 to $0.02
Cashout: $10

$10 / (3*$0.01) or (15 * $0.02) = 333 days or 30 days.

This will be investigated further.

"5-10"
http://www.workathomenoscams.com/2009/07/21/is-clixsense-com-a-scam/

"4-5" (india), "20" (upgraded), "2-4" (india)
http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/1285984.aspx

"lots of ads after premium, and then 1-5", "2"
http://ptc-investgations.blogspot.com/2009/06/clixsense-clixsensecom-legit.html

Will track number of ads daily to find overall average:
3-2-10: "5 clix found" "Only displaying listings matching your profile settings." (I have everything checked)

Decent PTC? review: OleBux (not decent)

Number of ads: 6
Pay per ad: 6 ($0.005) = $0.03
Cashout: $2 or 50 clicks

$2 / $0.03 = 67 days.

Decent PTC? review: SkyperPTC (not decent)

Number of ads: 5
Pay per ad: 2 ($0.001), 3 ($0.0005) = $0.0035
Cashout: $1

$1 / $0.0035 = 285 days

Decent PTC? review: AdPTC (not decent)

Number of ads: 10
Pay per ad: 10 ($0.002) = $0.02
Cashout: (from PTC-Invt) $1

$1 / $0.02 = 50 days

Decent PTC? review: EarnEasyCash (decent)

Number of ads: 84
Pay per ad: bulk of 3; ($0.002), ($0.0353), ($0.025) = $0.038
Cashout: $0.90

$0.90 / $0.038 = 23.5 days.

Decent PTC? review: ClickOrSignup (unknown)

Number of ads: ?
Pay per ad: $0.02+
Cashout: $1

The daily clicks sometimes are not there.

Decent PTC? review: PTCInnovation (not decent)

Number of ads: 20
Pay per ad: 4 ($0.002), 8 ($0.0015), 8 ($0.001) = $0.028
Cashout: $2

$2 / $0.028 = 71 days.

Decent PTC? review: MagicalClix (not decent)

Number of ads: 39
Pay per ad: 4 ($0.007), 4 ($0.0035), 4 ($0.0025), 24 ($0.0015), 1 ($0.0014), 2 ($0.0001) = $0.0666
Cashout: (from PTC-Investigations) $10

$10 / $0.0666 = 150 days.
Also, to get cashout, becoming a
premium member is required.

Decent PTC? review: Indoclix (decent)

Number of ads: 38
Pay per ad: 1 ($0.001), 37 ($0.0005) = $0.0195
Cashout: $0.10

$0.10 / $0.0195 = 5 days.
Looks good!

Decent PTC? review: DealBarbiePays (not decent)

Number of ads: 4
Pay per ad: 1 ($0.01), 1 ($0.0025), 2 ($.0015) = $0.014
Cashout: $10

$10 / $0.014 = 714 days.

Decent PTC? review: HalfPennyClicks (semi-decent)

Number of ads: 7,
Pay per ad: 7 ($0.025), 4 (paid to read $0.025) = $0.0275
Cashout: $1

$1 / $0.0275 = 36 days

Off by 6 days. This one's sort of a toss-up to me,
since I do like it; though I didn't like it when the
pay was decreased from half a penny to half of
a half of a penny.

Decent PTC? review: Neobux (not decent)

Number of ads: 4
Pay per: $0.01
Cashout: $2, 3, 4... 10

$2 / $0.04 = 50 days
One of the better ones, but still
no enchilada. It's not "decent" in
the sense that I'm using the word...
still one of my favs though.
Instand payout, popularity, and
all that jazz. But no, it's not decent,
unfortunately.

Decent PTC? review: CashSwing (decent)

Number of ads: 113
Pay per ad: 5 ($0.001), 2 (paid to read ad $0.0025), 5 ($0.0075), 1 ($0.005), 112 ($0.00025) = $0.0805
Cashout: $1

$1 / $0.0805 = 12.5 days

Although, there's that little catch of 112 ads at $0.00025.
However, since they're all concentrated at one spot, and
since we might end up clicking at a lot of ads at other
places.... I'm considering it!

Hm... without those 112, it is....?
Pay per ad: 5 ($0.001), 2 (paid to read ad $0.0025), 5 ($0.0075), 1 ($0.005) = $0.0525
$1 / $0.0525 = 19 days
Not bad!

Decent PTC? review: incentria (not decent)

Number of ads: 15
Pay per ad: $0.001
Cashout: $1

$1 / $0.015 = 67 days.
If you had a friend or two to
join you, this would probably be
a decent PTC. However, the focus of
these reviews is to have referrals
be unnecessary.

(ad post test)

Can the burst suggest an orchestral microprocessor?

Decent PTC? review: PTC Sky (not decent)

Number of ads: 12
Pay per: 1 ($0.00125), 3 ($0.001), 8 ($0.0005) = $0.00825
Time per: 1 (20 sec), 11 (10) = 130 seconds
Cashout: $1

$1 / $0.00825 = 121 days

1st Decent PTC? review: TheClixWorld (not decent)

Since I was on TheClixWorld, I thought I'd start with
that one.

Number of ads: 16
-Checked over a period of time? No.
Pay per: 14 ($0.00125), 2 ($0.0001) = $0.0177
-Checked over a period of time? No.
Time per ad: 12 (10 sec), 1 (20 sec), 1 (15 sec), 1 (7 sec), 1 (0 sec) = 162 seconds
Cashout: (paypal) $3.49

$3.49 / $0.0177 = 197 days

Also: The website loads really slow for me, which is annoying...

Conclusion: This is not a decent PTC. It has the markings of one - number
of ads, pay per ad, and time spent, but the cashout is its vice. $3,49 put it
at a 197 day wait, which simply isn't decent.

(Please note: As things change over time, this post will change over
time to reflect the status of this PTC; for example, if it goes scam.)

What makes a PTC "decent"?

1. The setup of the daily ads and the cashout 
makes it possible to cashout in 10-30 days.
2. The ads are worth at least and preferrably 
more than $0.0001.
3. Time spent on the ad being not more than 
40 seconds, although this one is more optional, 
depending on the quality of 1 and 2.


The idea is to gather up a lot of PTCs 
instead of focusing on one, so that 
you get a lot of little cashouts quick. 
What would you prefer, a PTC that has 
4 ads per day at $0.01, with a $2.00 
cashout that will eventually go to $10 
(Neobux), 
or a lot of little PTCs that you can cashout 
in 10-30 days?


Also:

I've already been through this before, so to start with 

I'm going to go through PTC-Investigation's Legit PTCs 

list and find the PTCs that are decent. After that I'll be 

searching for PTCs as well as taking suggestions.

Rethinking PTCs

About 2-3 months ago I had planned on shutting down this blog (which I did by not posting on it), and perhaps even deleting the contents. Two things kept me from doing the second - I hate it when I lose data (because it's really annoying and it screws up figuring out what happened in the past), and I kept using the PTCs now and then, though mainly NeoBux. I've been doing a lot of thinking about a lot of stuff lately, and I also got a job about a month back. Getting a job (at Subway) changed my perspective on the scale of things. Getting a $100 check after a week is a lot different than, say, putting in 1 year at bux.to (I know, I know, that's a tad unfair to PTCs) and getting $10.

So I've rethought PTCs, why we do them, why advertisers do them, and it seems kind of weird to me how the two approaches are almost mutually exclusive. There are the PTCers (you and I, if you're doing PTCs) who are after money primarily, and then there are the advertisers, who are looking to get their content promoted. The main appeal of this approach - PTC - is that it seems easy for both sides. The advertisers can pay for their ad to be seen by ad clickers (the workers), and the PTCers can click through the ads like workers. It's win-win for both sides, with minimal effort.

Or is it?

One thing that I noticed about new start-ups, such as DollarClickOrSignUp, is that the site starts with a high-pay -- $0.02 or $0.01 -- and then over time, that amount slowly declines, until it's at about $0.005 for all of the ads, instead of the few at the end. And now it's at $0.005 in the front and $0.0025 for the rest of the pages. It's at this point that it's, at least for me, "no longer worth it," which is the point of this blog - 'a search for decent PTCs.'

There are a few questions that I've come to about this, because if this isn't working, and it hasn't been working for a long time, why the hell is it taking so long for it to work? This being internet-based and all, it would make, perhaps, more sense for there to be a quick adjustment. Here, then, are what I think are the essential questions to ask:
1. Why are you PTCing?
2. Why are advertisers using PTCs as a means of advertising?
3. Is there a gap between PTC users and PTC advertisers - is there an expectation on one side that is impossible to meet?

Imagine that you're an advertiser, and you want your stuff to be seen. Are you going to want the casual PTC user to just combine your ad with a whole bunch of other sites?* No, you're going to want that user to actually look at the friggin' ad. Why the hell are you paying him if he or she isn't going to look?! 
And so you adjust your prices to pay him/her accordingly...
*(This is a technique used to get the maximum amount of money for a minimum amount of work, and it usually involves tabs and keeping PTC sites in a favorites folder)

The majority of people who are coming to this blog would be PTCers like myself - there's not really a need to say, "Imagine that you're a PTCer." Instead, there's the question - why are you PTCing? The answer tends to fall along the lines of "easy money", with serious PTCers ... kind of online addicts. (Ahem... me.) I have been looking for a way to make money online, partially because I didn't want to get "a real job". That's one reason out of a vast majority of reasons, of why various people PTC. However, if the most common reason, why the vast majority of people PTC can be answered, then a revision of PTCs can be made.

The big problem with the disconnect between PTCers and advertisers is pretty much that PTCers want to have their cake and eat it too. This has been referred to as "there is no such thing as a free lunch." This is a touchy subject for me. But it needs to be dealt with.

One solution to the problem of people not paying attention to ads was suggested to me by a site that utilized it - the site only counted down when you were looking at it. Possibly, the reason why it didn't stick around was
that it didn't address the basic want, so people stopped using it. Or was it Palmbux? I forget. However, before we get to solutions, it would be a good idea to address the basic philosophy this is all built on. After this has been done, PTCs, or perhaps the user, or perhaps the advertiser -- or perhaps all three, can be improved and innovated.