Future file-sharing giants. Which to choose?

All the fuss around file-sharing services, cancellation of affiliate programs at most of them, made a lot of users think that it’s an apocalypse of file-sharing at all. Being upset too, I do not give up. There are still some good file-sharing services which will possibly gain success soon. There will be some, which will, of course, revive after this terrible persecution ends.

Among more or less popular file-sharing services which still exist and work are 4shared, Rapidshare, Depositfiles, Mediafire, FileTram. However, affiliate program is still working only at Depositfiles. Money making is interrupted for some time in this online field. There are, of course, many other small local services, but choosing anyone of those mentioned above, you get more opportunities for future, first and foremost in the size of databases. So what to choose?

Everything depends on your tastes. You can choose Depositfiles (if you haven’t work with it before) and start earning more or less big money at it after affiliating with it a half of a year or more. You can choose any of mentioned above file-sharing services, observe the situation with those Senate acts, and see which files are the most downloadable by users. Nice option of observation of such “hot files” has FileTram. 4shared also provides you with accurate stats, especially about the ratings of your files.

What for?

File-sharing is an activity to which almost all Internet users are used to, so sooner or earlier either old affiliate programs revive or new ones will appear. That is why, holding your hand on pulse of file-sharing news is a necessary thing.

Be on time,
Norman

File-sharing troubles. What’s now?

Could you believe last week that most file-sharing services would be closed in 7 days? Personally I would never take this as a serious and reasonable prediction. SOPA and PIPA were dangerous preconditions; however nothing which could make file-sharing world turn upside down.

MegaUpload’s shutdown caused ‘Megapanic’. FileSonic and Fileserve were first to react. If you open those websites now, you’ll see that it is possible to download only those files which you uploaded yourself. All file-sharing activities are banned. Moreover, FileSonic didn’t give back last payoffs. All possible variants to get in touch with Hish are vain. Later it was said that Uploadstation also stopped its sharing options, however I’ve checked up it today and everything worked accurately. SOPA and PIPA had been already withdrawn, when FileSonic and Fileserve decided to finish their work, so the reason for their decision is rather obscure for me.

Leaving all those sorrow events behind, we should think about the future of file-sharing. I mean when there is a demand for something, supply will always appear. So, after those file-sharing services are closed, new ones will appear. New file-sharing giants could also emerge from the existing smaller variants. At one of the biggest forums – Digitalpoint, a few members offered Oron as a solution to problem of making money online. From my personal experince, I must say that payoff ratings of this service are low and the allowed size of the files for free uploading is also small (up to 400 MB, 5 files max), so more convenient variants must appear or maybe they already exist. I once wrote about FileTram as a prosperous file-sharing project and I still think so. High payoffs which are regularly paid, huge database of files for sharing – are the main advantages of this service.

To be sure about my predictions, I wrote to FileTram support service yesterday. They answered that they didn’t have any intentions to close the service and are going to work as well as it was before. Hope, everything will be as they promise. I have just assured my files to their service.

Stay safe,
Norman

Life after MegaUpload

It seems that US authorities started a real war against Internet freedom and try to get into their claws everything from “online world”. SOPA/PIPA discussions were just the first sign of this war. Closing of one the biggest file-sharing services MegaUpload was totally non-expectable event. All the company’s bills were seized. Its founder Kim Schmitz together with two other execs was arrested. Large amount of luxury property is going to be seized too. Taking into consideration that MegaUpload has worldwide bills for $175 million, US government got a nice compensation for inhibition of SOPA/PIPA acts.

Closing of MegaUpload has opened up important issues as for regular Internet users so as for the owners of the other file-sharing services. The latter should now somehow care about their companies, so that they do not repeat MegaUpload’s case; owners will also work and think on which service can take place of MegaUpload, because one place in the niche of file-sharing giants is free now. Users should now think where to store files, where to find necessary ones and how to make money online, being sure that affiliate program in which you are participating will not be closed tomorrow.

Speaking about online money makers (this is what I’m keen on mostly) I feel really sorry for them. MegaUpload offered rather high payoffs and it is the second affiliate program with possibility to make good money online which is closed in the last half of a year (first was Wupload’s, but service decided to close it up itself, without any pressure). So, users should think now about the services which offer enough money to earn and will not be closed in the nearest future. Taking into consideration that SOPA/PIPA or similar acts could be legitimated soon, users can choose either file-sharing giants with more-or-less positive giants such as Depositfiles or Rapidshare, or middle-rating services as FileTram or Uploadstation.

This is just my personal, but, to my mind, middle-rating services are those which could be your golden share. Why? They do not get enormous income, so their bank accounts are not so attractive to authorities. They work much on their reputation and try to satisfy all users’ demands. They often offer very high rates for their affiliates as, for example, FileTram does. So, those middle-rating services could easily take empty MegaUpload’s place. But SOPA is still a sharp question. So, everybody on Internet should look up for ways how to resist it.

Stay in good mood,
Norman

About creativity and experiments in online money making

Some people say that creativity in online money making is not necessary. You just need to work hard as at any other job and make your money. However, the variety of recent online marketing start-ups shows that experimenting and originality attract people to you.

Recent Groupon activities were those events which encouraged me to write this post. The last one was a release of the “win wheel”. “Bizarre project” as one of websites called it. Yeah… I’d also say so. Groupon project itself launched in 2008 as “The Point” and in 3 years has grown up to one of the most popular. Last thing which seemed to me really creative and which I hope will get success is called “Clicky”. Clicky is kind of an online lottery – you spin the wheel in order to win. However, only 1 among 1000 can win something. This online lottery experiment, launched almost on the day of birth of lottery itself, is just one of the issues which Groupon as a project makes stadily. What’s the most important in all this story is that permanent experimenting brings success, which is approved by Groupon.

The other creative project, which I mentioned as really cool and interesting is the “Information is beautiful”. They visualize different stats, create popular info graphics. The first thing I’ve seen was Rosling’s “Gapminder”. However, these creative projects are still less profitable than Groupon, for example.

As for the creative project in file-sharing money-making I’d name filetram.com. Why?
It is just at the dawn of its development, but has already presents itself very catchy and its team does not afraid to experiment with unusual ideas.

First of all, being creative and innovative is the main purpose of FileTram. This service is officially called file-sharing search engine and you can search for files at different file-sharing services. So, it could be called – “Google” of file-sharing!

Moreover, you can not only search for files with FileTram, but also upload them to it. So, it preserves the file-sharing option.

Secondly, it has profitable affiliate program, which is rather experimental to my mind, ‘cause provides users with payoffs which, to my mind, are among the highest ones.

So, creativity can inspire to make interesting experiments. And the best ending of this post is a quote by T.J. Watson – “While to find good ideas you should produce a lot of ideas, to find success you should do a lot of experiments”.

Stay experimental,
Norman

GoDaddy vs SOPA and wishes for 2012!

It seems that it’s a topic of the last days - does GoDaddy support SOPA or not? Yesterday it was stated that GoDaddy officially removed from the House’s list of SOPA supporters. And even more…

GoDaddy is a company which manages over 45 million names and its support of such contradictory act made a real fuss among Internet services. I’ve already written about that. Now GoDaddy is out. So, what? Is this an end of SOPA activity? Totally, not. VISA, ESPN left in that list.

GoDaddy refused to support SOPA just a week ago and now even opposes it. But how does it happen? Simply, domains started transferring out and GoDaddy understood how much they can loose. So, this company stays on radically opposite positions now.

Such changeable opinions of GoDaddy could be a good lesson for other companies who are still in that list. Either they cooperate with Internet community or they will be banned, ignored and as a result will loose their incomes. This is also a good result for those companies which are fighting against SOPA – if you’re active, you can reach something in your life.

As it’s the last post of this year, I think it can be as an inspiration for the next one (irrespectively of the Mayan Calendar prophecy). Hope, 2012 will be more successful than 2011, especially in working with online affiliate programs.

See you in 2012,
Norman

Tips to know about Amazon.com Affiliate Program

Amazon.com is one of that affiliates which allow earning much for users with different interests. You specify just which products you want to promote and then take their affiliate links from Amazon. Many bloggers become Amazon affiliates or vice versus, because promotion products from Amazon on your blog not only gives opportunity to earn good money, but also gain new traffic. So, everything depends on your ability to promote. However, I found out that there are some interesting tips and facts about Amazon Affiliate Program. So, check what I found and tell me what you think about that.

1. Check whether your state doesn’t have any restrictions for online purchases
Once affiliates from Connecticut and Illinois had problems because of new sales taxes which started working in those states. So, Amazon closed its Affiliate Programs there. So, as far as you decided to start working as an Amazon Affiliate – take a look through the laws at your state or country. It’s also important to check news on this topic to know the nearest purposes of your local administration, ‘cause the problem of some associates at Connecticut and Illinois (and even such famous as Roger Ebert) was also that they just started working and promoting as tax got to power.

2. Be sure you put your links correctly
There was an issue with one writer who put her Amazon Affiliate link into the review of her book. Frankly speaking, many authors do that. Some people think that it was a moral issue, however incorrect or irritating placing of links can lead that people will omit your blogs or reviews. So, be attentive while putting your links.

3. Wide reviews are better then banners
Nice and full article that reviews the product which you’re going to promote is much better then huge banners. In the contrary, banners distract attention and users start omitting your blog or website. Nice content and attractive images can do much work than banners.

4. Affiliate links added to the images
Images not only make your website look fresh and nifty, but are very useful for making money as Amazon associate. How? You can put affiliate links directly to photos. So, when visitor clicks on the photo it goes directly to Amazon where he/she can buy that product!

5. Autoblogging never brings good results
The most horrible thing you can do for your blog and success with Amazon Affiliate Program is to start autoblogging. Do you like to read mechanical articles? Of course, no! So think about your visitors too! The more creative and interesting content you give, the more traffic you gain and, of course, the more money you can earn as an affiliate!

Stay creative,
Norman

SOPA - death for profitable online money making?!

Recently, it was that crazy American Censorship Day and so many people wrote about SOPA since then, so that I decided to look how it will influence online money making. What will it bring to Internet community at all?

So, what is SOPA?

SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act. Everything started as US musicians and film makers started arguing that government should defend their intellectual property. However, this Act is harmful for all Internet industry and such Internet giants as Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter and many others cooperate against this it.

If SOPA (together with its “fellow” Protect-IP Act) get power, search engines, Internet providing companies or regular websites, but which have partly relationship to sources with infringing content stop working at all. Internet providing companies have a right to block whole domains; because of some of their content have content which infringes copyright. It doesn’t matter that site contains much other legitimate and important stuff.

Internet companies say that such strict measures will hardly stuck all innovations. This will cause strong decrease in online money making as much of it is combined with media and entertainment files. All great file-sharing websites as Rapidshare, FileSonic, 4shared and others will be totally banned. This sorrow destiny will be scenario for development even of such influential search engines as Google and Yahoo and of less famous, but not less useful as FileTram.

Finally, making money with file-sharing will be totally impossible, and all of you understand why. What should we do?
All who are active online, who work and have rest here should cooperate and stay for our game rules, to which we are used to. Personally I understand that film makers and musicians need to have money from their work, but not with the price of Internet setback.