Monday, February 19, 2001		Article

Want to be rich? Surf the Net
By Rishi Jain

THE Net is a huge bank of information that allows one to access the data stored worldwide, chat with friends, make business transactions across the globe possible and perform all seemingly impossible tasks. Nevertheless, very few persons know that one can also make some money while accessing the Net.

The Net offers various sites and programs that promise quick money provided we do little work for them. Some sites pay to surf the Net. The only conditions being you allow them to stream a small bar, displaying advertisements, across the monitor. Some pay to simply click on a promotional mail sent and others for providing links to the sites. Also there are many online gambling sites that pay hefty amounts for playing on their sites.

A number of sites, including a few Indian ones, let you recover the cost you spend to surf the Net. The most popular among these are the ‘paid-to-surf’ programs. These add a little strip of window to the desktop. When the surfer signs for such program, she is required to fill in the details of her interest, so that advertisements related to her interests are displayed. All advantage.com pioneered this concept in 1996. Since then many sites, based on this concept, have come up. Another such site is www.uniquesurf.com.Hold on! If you think earning money by just installing these programs is all you have to do, then better read on.

They come with strings attached.Some of them, such as www.getpaid4.com, monitor the number of times you click on the advertisement and there are still others that require a minimum number of clicks before you can get any hard cash. Sites such as www.spedia.net say that you have to serve naturally and unless you can convince them that you are browsing the way they want you to do, you won’t earn a penny.There are some programs, which restrict the number of hours you can use these programs. Sites like www.cheecoo.com allow the usage of the ad bar for just 15 hours per month and programs such as www.desktopdollars.com offers unlimited amount of the Internet usage. These programs are useful to those who visit cyber cafes or those who are continuously connected to the Net, such as in offices or cyber cafes.Some Indian companies have also started offering such services. By using the cheecoo bar they ask the surfer to accumulate points that can be later redeemed for money. For example, 15 hours of surfing, using the cheecoo bar, fetches 1500 cheecoo seeds that is equivalent to Rs 100 in the first month. However from the second month onwards, the minimum seed requirement increases to 2900.

Another Indian site, www.elabh.com, pays Rs 5 per hours to use these ad bars.Other than these sites there are others like www.cash.over.net that make payments on the basis of referral system. That is when more persons sign up using your referral number or name you get points of revolts. It means that you get paid even when someone else is using these programs.However, it has been seen that though some companies pay yet none of the payments arrive before six months lapse.

Another drawback of such programs is that they occupy a lot of desktop space and reduce the surfing speed.There are other ways too for making money on the Web. Some sites, such as www.sendmoreinfo.com and www.moneyformail.com, pay about 25 cents for clicking on a link sent via e-mail. An Indian site, www.checkmail.com, pays once in every three months for using their e-mail service. Sites such a www.beenz.com and www.mypoint.com award points for playing games on their Web site.