money

This ones a no brainer, Laptops Direct will give you £5000 to have their name tattooed on your head.

The requirements are strict and may put some peope off:

• You must take a drug test and successfully complete a short psychological questionnaire to ensure you are of sound mind
• You must be over 18 years of age and have had no previous mental health problems
• You must be a tattoo virgin - It would cramp our brand if there were other competing tattoos
• You must attend an annual check-up to ensure you have not removed the tattoo, have not had any other tattoos added and are still of sound mind.

Tattoos for other parts of the body are also available if you don't fancy walking around with it on your forehead. Arms/Hands - £1000, Shoulders/Back - £500 or Legs/Feet - £100.

Of course the grand prize is clearly the forehead tattoo.

Anyone going to be getting one?

 

My Search Funds pay you 3p for every search you make online! If you can imagine how many searches you make a day then it wont take long to make a small income. They provide a replacement toolbox for IE and Firefox or you can set your search page as your home page.

Payments are made to your Paypal account or by Cheque. The service uses the Ask search engine, the results are not as good as Google but are close. You can use the service on as many computers as you want or give your friends your search page to use.

You can sign up through the following link:

I've previously looked at cash back sites in parts one and two of the incredibly popular Cash Back: How to Make Money Online series. Since then hundreds of clone cash back sites have popped up, I've largely ignored them as they offer nothing new or exciting.

This was until I was contacted by a new cash back site that offered a slightly different model, one that benefited you and your friends. The site Ei42 (E is for Everything, I is for Internet, 42 is the Answer to Life the Universe and Everything) sets you up with your own on-line store which you earn cash back through. Anyone else you get to use your on-line store will also earn you cash back.

My on-line store is : www.ei42.com/pwhite

People can also join Ei42 through your store and earn themselves cash back. As a reward you get 10% of the cash back they earn. If other people then sign up through your friends store you still earn cash back, this time 4%. As the model expands and more and more of your friends and their friends join and spend through the site you still earn money.

The store is the most impressive part of the site, the way they have integrated products from different merchants is different to any cash back site I've seen before. The themes leave a lot to be desired aesthetically but are usable and well structured.

However compared to other cash back sites such as Quidco and Rpoints Ei42 does not show you how much cash back you will get from each purchase. The creators state that they want to remove the worry involved in using a cash back site and having to work out how much you will earn from each purchase.

From the people I've shown Ei42 they think its a great idea because you can make money out of your friends however they would not use the site as they don't know how much they would be making. One person made the example that if Quidco no longer offered cash back then you would have no incentive to use Quidco and if you do not know how much you are making from each retailer how can you decide who to buy from?

I would like to see Ei42 expand on their store and provide web masters with ways to integrate the store into their own sites - so for instance I could sell products through ImAFish earning cash back. They could even provide Facebook widgets of products allowing people to buy and earn cash back that way.

Ei42 is evolutionary rather than revolutionary and I've found it hard to see it more than a cash back site. Ei42 has removed an important part of the cash back process and replaced it with a complex referral program. Your own store is impressive but needs to be taken to the next level so web masters can integrate it with their own sites and social networking profiles.

Here are a list of 30 Bingo sites that offer either £5 or £10 free sign up bonus without having to deposit anything. They have all been tried and verified to work by Benjie and myself. We have both won hundreds of pounds through playing Bingo. Most of these sites use the same service meaning that you will need to pick a different username per site, all your other details can stay the same. The added advantage of them being the same service is that you can play yourself in order to increase your chance of winnings.

One method is signing up for 4-5 sites at a time (in different browsers or computers) then all join the same bingo game (buying the maximum number of cards) this way the jackpot is higher and your chance of winnings is 4x higher. Once you win take the money out immediately, most of these sites have a minimal withdrawal of £30 so if you win £20 you will need to deposit £10 then withdraw straight away.

Benjie has produced a spreadsheet to track your winnings (right click and select save link as).

www.mirrorbingo.com
www.dailyrecordbingo.com
www.sundaymailbingo.com
www.sundaymirrorbingo.com
www.thepeoplebingo.com
www.closerbingo.com
bingo.iccoventry.co.uk
bingo.icliverpool.co.uk
bingo.icnewcastle.co.uk
bingo.icwales.co.uk
www.icbingo.co.uk
www.foxybingo.com
bingo.icbirmingham.co.uk
www.themillionpoundgame.com (have not seen any million pound jackpots)
www.ticklebingo.com
www.puzzlerbingo.com
www.offerxbingo.co.uk
www.sundayworldbingo.com
www.totallyjewishbingo.com
www.weluvbingo.com
timeout.femalebingo.com
www.sundaylifebingo.com
www.toptenbingo.com
bingo.gazettelive.co.uk
www.femalebingo.com
www.stvbingo.tv
bingo1.nebusiness.co.uk
bingo.liverpooldailypost.co.uk

Experience has told us that playing Sunday night is not a good time to win as its peak bingo playing time. I've had good results on week nights and weekend end afternoons. Let me know how you get on and if you have done as well as us! Previously reported on this forum post.

I've decided tonight that the country needs our help, a huge burden to the British tax payer is upon us and it is up to us the good people of ImAFish to help make a difference in this time of crisis.

Therefore I'm asking for your help to help raise enough money to buy Northen Rock. The amount will be in the region of *cough* £25 Billion *cough* but I've worked out that if every visitor to ImAFish (in the past year) donates around *cough* £100,000 *cough* then we should have enough.

Clearly you will be getting something for your money in the form of shares in the company which I will be calling ImAFish Finance. I will own 51% as it was my awesome idea and the remaining 49% will be split between everyone who "donates".

I don't want to be a burden on your precious time so I've added this handy donate button with the correct amount entered. All you have to do is click the button and sign into your PayPal account.

£

Lets make a difference!

Note: If we don't reach the target there will be no refunds and I will buy something else instead in which you will have no shares.

The new year is here and its time to try some fresh ways to make money off your blog. Here are some of the ways ImAFish makes money through advertising. ImAFish got 250,000 hits in 2007, at the beginning of the year I was just using Google Adsense, by the end I had experimented with a range of other ways to monetise the site.

Google Adsense

Adsense works by delivering relevant ads based on your content. There are three different product types ImAFish uses through Adsense:

1. Text Ads - the ones you see in the navigation and scattered within content, these are pay per click.
2. Search - when someone uses the search on ImAFish then clicks on an advert.
3. Product Referals - e.g. Firefox and Google Pack, paid a set fee for installing.

Advantages:

• Good range of products.
• Quick and easy to setup.
• Adverts can be customised in a range of ways including different colour schemes and rounded corners.

Disadvantages:

• Adsense advert are very common (it seems half the internet is made for Adsense).
• You don't know what cut Google are taking from the ads.
• Sites with a high number of impressions but low number of clicks are known to be penalised.

Text Link Ads

TLA works differently to Adsense, you simply get paid for displaying your advert rather than on someone clicking on it. TLA find the advertisers for you then split anything 50/50. I've found TLA to work as well as Adsense.

Advantages

• You are paid for displaying the ads.
• They do the work in finding adverts for your site.
• Paid by PayPal.

Disadvantages

• They decide how much the adverts on your site are worth.

PayPerPost

I first experimented with PayPerPost in October 07 and until December 07 wrote a number of sponsored posts. However then Google removed the majority of my page ranks and the opportunities available to me dropped from $45/post (£22.50) to $12/post (£6). Google have been specifically targeting PPP users as a number have reported losing their page ranks. PPP said they have got around the problem with their new RealRank technology however most advertisers still use page rank to determine a blogs popularity.

If you rely on page rank for other advertising networks then I wouldn't take the risk with PPP.

Advantages

• Potentially better income than adverts.
• Paid by PayPal.

Disadvantages

• Their Real Rank technology does not have a good uptake with advertisers.
• You may be penalised by Google.

TNX

TNX is the newest advert network I've been experimenting with. They work in a similar way to TLA in that you are paid for displaying an advert rather than on a per click basis. Unfortunately TNX rely heavily on page rank as a metric to determine how popular a page is, apart from its obvious flaws I've suffered worse because of losing my page ranks from PayPerPost.

Advantages

• You are paid for displaying adverts.
• You can exchange your TNX points into money which can be paid via PayPal.

Disadvantages

• Puts too high a value on Page Rank in determining advert value.

Better than Banners/Bucks for Banners/ The Ad Network

This is one of those services that you never know if its going to be around from one month to the next. With its third name change in 18 months The Ad Network have different sign up bonus's every month, when I signed up it was £5/month for displaying 3 adverts on every site you add, currently it is £10 for signing up. I get very little else through the service

Advantages

• Easy income for displaying a small number of adverts.
• Paid by Paypal or Amazon vouchers.

Disadvantages

• Adverts bring in very little or no other income.
• Service will likely change again.

Chikita

Chikita was one of my biggest gambles that didn't really pay off. The service displays relevant products that pays when someone buys the product. I trailed Chikita for about four months but removed the service after poor results.

Advantages

• Great for sites which are product orientated.

Disadvantages

• Not so good for the average blog.
• Only paid once a user purchases a product.

Conclusion

Each of the various advert networks ImAFish has trialled has advantages and disadvantages. At this point in time I would recommend Adsense and TLA as they have been consistent money earners.

Yesterday iTunes in the UK finally got TV shows available for purchase. Individual episodes cost £1.89 which with the exchange rate as it is at the moment makes it twice as expensive as in the US. However based on how much the episodes cost against DVD box sets they are very competitive.

Series such as Lost, Ugly Betty, Greys Anatomy and Desperate Housewives all cost £32.99 in iTunes, the respective DVD's online cost:

Title	Amazon	Choices UK	HMV	Play.com
Lost Series 1	£32.97	£29.99	£34.99	£33.99
Lost Series 2	£29.98	£32.99	£64.99	£26.99
Lost Series 3	£44.98	£44.99	£44.99	£44.99
Ugly Betty Series 1	£29.98	£29.99	£29.99	£29.99
Greys Anatomy Series 1	£20.97	£17.49	£29.99	£22.99
Greys Anatomy Series 2	£33.98	£33.96	£34.99	£33.99
Desperate Housewives Series 1	£25.48	£17.99	£21.99	£24.99
Desperate Housewives Series 2	£17.97	£24.99	£21.99	£34.99
Desperate Housewives Series 3	£33.74	£37.49	-	£33.99

Correct as of 8:30am 30/08/07.

As you can see there is a difference within the UK DVD market however in general by shopping around you can get the earlier series such as Desperate Housewives series 1 at a considerable cheaper price than on iTunes however newer series such as Lost Series 3 are considerably cheaper through iTunes.

In the music store Apple set a universal price of 79p for individual tracks (99p for iTunes Plus), albums are slightly different but usually hover around the £7.99 mark which is very competitive and often cheaper than physical CD's. In the table above we have demonstrated that Apple don't have that competitive edge of being universally cheaper in the video market unless they were to lower the price of older series.

That said Apple have opened up a market not previously available in the UK - being able to buy individual episodes. This will benefit shows such as South Park that have no continuous story line however a show such as Lost needs all episodes to be watched in the correct order. Therefore people may use iTunes as a catch up service for shows they have missed or buy the newer series with the cost saving.

What I think will be key to the success of the video store will be how quickly videos get added after being aired. For UK shows this will be relatively simple however with US shows this could be harder as often the show is aired in the states months before it airs over here. It is unlikely that Apple will be allowed to add the show to iTunes before it airs on UK TV though it could be a very lucrative market especially if Apple managed to bid for a TV show before any UK network takes interest in it.

Apple have been getting a lot of bad press over the past 24 hours about the price of the TV shows in iTunes but if you look at them against the DVD market it doesn't seem so bad. It could be argued that the DVD market in the UK is too expensive anyway but that is hardly Apple's fault for basing their product at a competitive price point. In some ways this could help force down the cost of new DVD sets. These normally have an RRP of around £65 however it is very rare to see a DVD box set on sale for that amount (let alone anyone actually buying it).

In comparison to the download market in the UK iTunes is slightly more expensive than the competition. Channel five offers CSI episodes for£1.49 each (or £29.99 for the series) and Greys Anatomy episodes for 99p each. Channel 4 currently only allows the renting of videos for 99p each (after an initial free 7 day catch up).

Hopefully with the launch of the iTunes UK video store it will encourage studios to start putting more content online at a competitive price but I'm pretty sure the £1.89 price will set a benchmark just as 79p did for music.

Zopa is a social lending and borrowing website that allows you to exchange with other people in the community. The site was founded through consumer research showing people were fed up with borrowing money from banks who make huge profits and that certain people found it hard to get credit.

The community aspect of Zopa is that the people lending the money are you and me, in fact anyone can sign up and start lending their own money to other members. You get the control to set your own interest rates and to set the market you lend to. When signing up to borrow money you have to be credit checked, the outcome of this then puts you into one of four markets - A*, A, B or C. The better the market you are in, the lower the interest rate you will be able to borrow money at.

Zopa stands for 'Zone of Possible Agreement' and states that the average interest rate is about 6.75% however usually for an A* market this is lower at about 5.5%. This is great for borrowers in this market as the interest is much better than what you would find on the high street. This isn't so good for lenders as after Zopa fees and tax you would be better off putting your money in a savings account.The B and C markets are where lenders are more likely to make a better return, however the risk of lending money is significantly increased. Zopa lets you set how much you are willing to lend each person and they recommend around £10. (Incidentally when borrowing money Zopa will automatically spread the amount you want to borrow over a number of people with your desired interest rate so you don't have to find 1500 people with £10 to borrow £15,000).In each market you have the option of lending over 12, 24, 36, 48 or 60 months, for each you can set the interest rate. Lower interest rates will generally lend your money out quicker however the potential for higher return is there.

I signed up to Zopa back in November 2006, the trial at the time offered £30 free credit, along with that I added in £10 bringing me to the grand total of £40 to lend out. To start with I was over ambitious with my lending interest rates, setting a range between 7% for A* - 15% for C. At the time I didn't think it was worth going much lower as you could get up to 6% on savings accounts and that was risk free.

After two months of my money not being lent out I adjusted the rates slightly, I removed the A* rates as there simply wasn't anything in it for me and I decreased the A (7%), B(8.5%) and C(9.9%) rates to try to get my money lent out quicker. I left my money for three months this time. After having to reset my rates I was a bit put off that I wouldn't make any real gain through Zopa (if there was any real money to be made from a £40 investment that is).

Zopa's weekly emails did not fill me with confidence so I decided it was time to remove my money from Zopa. I logged in to find that half my investment (£20) had been lent out! Making me a grand total of 76p in earnings. This reignited my interest in the website so I set myself the challenge of altering my interest rates to get the rest of the money lent out. I lowered my interest rates to bring them more in line with other lenders. Within 48 hours another £10 of my money was being processed to be lent. A few more tweaks on the interest rates and the final £10 was being processed in a matter of minutes.

Above is a view of my Zopa account. The 1p difference between my Zopa total and my earnings plus my original investment is for Zopa fees (which stand at 0.5%). You can only lend out a minimum of £10 which is why there is £1.56 in not offered funds.

My final lending interest rates looked as follows:

For future lending I am going to consider removing the A market (or increasing the interest) and sticking to the B and C markets. This will increase the risk significantly however will give a better return on investment. I will also allow my money to be lent out for longer periods of time.

Whilst trialling the site I didn't want to lend my money over a longer period of time as I wasn't sure how successful it would be or whether Zopa would be around in 5 years time. However Zopa's CEO James Alexander says that there is risk with any new financial service, however given that Zopa has been around for two years now, is ever increasing its membership base, has recently gained another £30 million in investment funding, that it was in a good stable position.

Zopa is looking to launch in the US this year after having a team based there for the past year. To start with the system will operate separate to the UK however a long term goal is to allow lenders and borrowers to operate in both countries. Zopa's CEO James Alexander states that there are a lot of legal hurdles to overcome especially with financial markets being regulated nationally but with fluctuating currency and interest rates, international lending and borrowing could become very attractive.

It is clear that Zopa has proved that that social lending works and the fact that a new rival starts business every month shows how big this could be in the future. Zopa has a hard balance to strike, it has to entice lenders with the prospect of a good rate of return but also has to show borrowers it is cheaper to borrow from them rather than a high street bank. With two thirds of their 150,000 members being lenders perhaps the balance is not quite right.

As a new way to micro manage your spare income Zopa does present the chance to make money and with a 0.02% failure rate and no fraud Zopa looks like a safe bet.

More on ImAFish Money.

Last April we looked at how you can use the website Quidco to make cash back on many of your on-line services and how to exploit free gambling offers. This second article looks at the website Rpoints (affiliate link) and how you exploit it in a similar way to Quidco.

Like Qudico, Rpoints offers a cash back mechanism for your purchases. An example being I want to buy a DVD, I find website under Rpoints with the highest cash back then I buy the DVD through this site. If the cash back is 2.5% on a £10 DVD I can expect to get 25p back. Multiply that by all the purchases you do over a year and it soon mounts up especially with a few big purchases like TV's, game consoles, computers, insurance or holidays.

With Rpoints as the name suggests you collect points, each point is worth 1p, so 100 points is £1 and 1000 points is £10. Points soon mount up and there are a number of daily free points that can be collected.

Rpoints offers 500points (£5) bonus just for signing up, claimable once you have made 2500 points. Rpoints also has a nice affiliate scheme so if you get your friends to sign up through your link to can get more 500 points bonuses. Rpoints doesn't take £5/year like Quidco does however the cash back amount is not always as good as Quidco so its important to weigh the two sites up before purchasing an item.

On the Qudico article we discussed how to make money through signing up with gambling offers, spending the bare minimum to make the most back in Cashback. We showed how it wasn't hard to make at least £200 and have a lot of fun in the process gambling. The process it very similar with Rpoints however they have nicely put together a page with all the gambling links and how many points they are worth.

Even if you have completed most of the gambling links through Quidco there may still be some on Rpoints that you havn't done. I recently signed up for the National Lottery gaining 200points for just buying a lottery ticket. Many of the gambling offers are a lot higher - upto 4000 points (£40) though its important to look at what the requirements of the offer are. Some of them are not specific and it is best to stick to the offers that state the exact requirements e.g. "Earn 1000 points when you deposit and play through at least £10".With many of these offers your not actually gambling with your own money as the cash back amount is the same if not more as your initial stake, if you manage to win off this free bet then all the better, I've certainly done well out of some free bets.Remember not to get carried away gambling on-line, the chances of winning on most of these sites is very slim so in order to make the most out of your cash back simply wager the minimum to make the offer.I've noticed that since signing up for certain sites (BetFair being one) that they will occasionally call you and offer you cash incentives to gamble some more of your money. If you are asked why you havn't been gambling with them mention that you are waiting for a specific sport season to start (or in BetFairs case their site doesn't work in Safari).Where Rpoints gets really interesting in on the forum, here members post offers they have found on-line or in shops, often items that have been miss-priced on website are on here at fractions of what they retail at. Recently the Rpoints forum was the first place I found out about Asda's £7 Casino Royale offer.

In order to access the forum you need to be a member however membership is free plus you get a 500 points bonus for joining.

Post below any questions of your experiences with Rpoints.

Update 10/04/07: Rpoints will match any other cash back sites with their Highest Cashback Claim, so if you do happen to find a site that offers better cash back then you can claim the difference through Rpoints.

Our article on Quidco has been one of the most popular on ImAFish getting tens of thousands of hits since being published back in April. A month ago we got featured on the Quidco site in a shout out!

Beletor even got a mention so it looks like our spoof cult is starting to make its way round the net. Society may have accepted the flying spaghetti monster as the creator and sole god however scientists may now start looking into the reality of the world actually being created through hunger and its leader Beletor.

The Quidco blog post has some interesting comments and I especially like the idea of an affiliate scheme (I could have been rich by now if there was one already!). I've still been using Quidco a fair amount and intend to get cash back on the majority of my Christmas shopping (it's ashame Amazon isn't on there).

Our article has attracted a few negative comments about a so called "Quidco fraud" however I or any of my friends have never had any issues and the majority of people online seem happy to get money off their products. Besides its not like Quidco is costing you extra by buying through there.

On a final note it would be very cool if there was a Firefox extension for Quidco that would automatically tell you if a site was in Quidco and how much cash back it could earn you. Any developers out there?