Laugh Your Way to the Bank!

February 8th is officially "Laugh and Get Rich Day", ha ha ha...The Monetizer will be checking his bank account shortly after this post.

According to Holidays on the net:

"A day for recognizing that laughter and humor are a good for morale in the workplace and the reality that laughter has a positive effect on a business’ bottom line."

So quite possibly having a good laugh at the workplace wherever it may be for you, will bring you great fortune. And remember there is some sort of holiday for every day now...

So make sure to LAGR today!

Here's some ways you can start making money online.

Make Money Doing Tasks Computers Can't

Computers aren't all that smart really. They might be able to do a lot of complex data handling that would make our brains explode and they facilitate many other tasks we do, but when it comes to the real creative and perceptive tasks, humans do it best. And thanks to Mturk.com, you can make money off that ability.

The Monetizer found out about the MTurk program thanks to an MSNBC article about "4 Ways to Make Money at Home". MTurk stands for "Mechanical Turk" and is Amazon.com's "Artificial Artificial" Intelligence program. It will pay you to work on tasks called "HIT"s. According to the site:

What is a HIT?
HIT stands for Human Intelligence Task. These are tasks that people are willing to pay you to complete. For example a HIT might ask: "Is there a pizza parlour in this photograph?" Typically these tasks are extraordinarily difficult for computers, but simple for humans to answer.

For example, computers are pretty smart but not smart enough to figure out if a picture has a pizza parlor in it. Or smart enough to pull out more relevant data from text articles. Or smart enough to create future prediction type questions for a site like GuessNow.com. These tasks involve the human powers of perception and reading comprehension. Computers aren't so smart after all when you really think about it, but we still need them to do our taxes, blog and make money...

Now before you think this will be an easy way to pile up money, beware. The downfall of this sort of thing like most moneymaking concepts online, it's going to require your precious time and effort to get paid. I took a look at opportunities, and there were many that paid just pennies, with potential for a "bonus pay". The highest paying opportunity was $2.50 per task and requires you find links to physical maps online for locations like Gedu, Bhutan. The Monetizer previewed a few "transcription" jobs for around $1 each, but let me tell you these were no easy tasks. The HITs basically required you to listen to a 5 minute mp3 of speaking from a lecture or discussion. It was usually a person speaking quickly and sometimes noises and other interference came into play. Other times, there were other people talking but from a distance to the main speaker, making them hard to hear. Bottom line, for just $1 it seems like a complex human job to do, but there may be more skilled transcription recorders out there.

Of course, you just might find some tasks that you enjoy and are generally easy for you to perform on the mturk.com site. It could provide some additional bucks here or there, but be sure to investigate it based on your preferences. You can also create your own HITs for others to complete through the program, which may be valuable if you're looking to generate specific content for websites and blogs. I noticed one offer for people to submit a story about the worst thing they did when drunk with a bonus pay if a picture was included. So even being drunk can make you money online..

So if you're interested in outdoing your computer and getting some extra money for it, head to Mturk.com to check out the latest HIT opportunities!

Get a RealRank for Your Blog!

The following is a Sponsored Review for IZEARanks, a site recently launched by PayPerPost. The IZEARanks service provides a free and useful tool for bloggers who want to measure how well their blog "really ranks".

According to the IZEARanks site FAQ:

"IZEARanks ranks the top blogs in the blogosphere via actual site statistics, not an extrapolation of estimates".

"The data is used to define an individual blog's overall standing relative to other blogs participating in the program as well as in specific categories such as entertainment and technology."

The way IZEARanks does this is by each blogger installing a piece of Javascript code (called the IzeaToolbarKit) into their blog template. The code records traffic stats by measuring a formula of 70% on daily unique visitors, 20% by daily active inbound links and 10% by daily page views as reported by the ITK (IzeaToolbarKit). This determines your "RealRank". You can then compare how well your blog is doing by measuring it against other bloggers who are using the IZEARanks service.

The main purpose of IZEARanks is to provide you, the blogger, with a more conclusive way to measure your blog instead of Alexa Rank or Google Page Rank. RealRank is considered the first site ranking service that focuses exclusively on measuring traffic and influence of individual blogs throughout the blogosphere. The service is also very important in helping advertisers make "informed decisions for the long run" in terms of which blogs to advertise on.


IZEARank Charts your Blog's Success:

(The above chart gives comparison of the RealRank of 4 blogs over the past week. On the site you can compare your blog with other blogs based on their RealRank, page views or unique visitors).


Other important notes about the IZEARanks service:

The IZEARanks code differs from the code you install for PayPerPost. Therefore, bloggers shouldn't worry about their Google Page Rank being affected if they use IZEARanks to measure their blog.

Your IzeaRank stats can be made public or private based on your preference and settings. You can choose to display your daily traffic/unique visits, or just your RealRank.

IZEARanks launched a new service, ROIRank, or "Return on Investment Rank". This service which was released in January helps advertisers see the return on investment they can get from advertising on a particular blog.

During the next four weeks, IZEARanks is holding a contest to award $1,000 to the Top Blog on their service, in terms of ranking. The Monetizer is wondering why the mighty Problogger or John Chow have not entered this contest yet. As of a check today, ohgizmo.com was listed as the top blog in terms of IzeaRank.

This may become the next useful service to see just how your blog stands in the blogosphere, as more bloggers decide to turn to Real Rank instead of Google's Page Rank. If you'd like to use the free IZEARanks service, head over to see how your Blog Ranks!

The Art of Advertising - Superbowl 42 & GoDaddy.com

First off, a huge congratulations to the New York Giants for pulling off one of the biggest upsets in recent NFL history. They upended the New England Patriots, 17-14 and basically spoiled the Pats bid for an undefeated season. Many say this game was one of the best of all time in Superbowl history, and the New York Giants definitely had a well executed game plan. Bravo for New York sports!

This isn't a football blog, but one which talks about making money. The Superbowl of course involves money in many ways such as betting on the game, blogging about the NFL, and advertising. The most expensive way of making money is seen by advertisers spending on catchy 30 second commercials which appear throughout the broadcast. According to financial stats, the price of these ads averaged 2.7 million dollars for just one ad running for 30 seconds. This morning the favorites were announced and included the Clydesdale horse ad by Budweiser, as well as the Coke ad with Macy's balloons, and Pepsi Max ads for people being woken up by the newer beverage.

Donny Deutsche of CNBC's "The Big Idea" was part of a 2 person panel on NBC's morning show, and they discussed the ads. Deutsche applauded GoDaddy.com for its advertisement, and I'd have to agree. Go Daddy has been making controversial ads for several Superbowls, involving wardrobe mishaps and the "sex sells" idea. They did it once again this year, but used it to drive 1.5 million visitors to their website. Basically, the ad showed racing star Danica Patrick unzipping her jacket to be "exposed". The ad stopped short, saying it was Explicit and people would need to see Danica Exposed at godaddy.com. I haven't read yet how many new domains, hosting or other services sold due to this, but it definitely gets Go Daddy into people's brains. The other advertisers such as Coke, Pepsi and Budweiser are noteworthy too, as they have built very strong brands yet continue to shell out the dollars to make sure we are thinking of their products.

So one major point to take away here is to utilize any advertising opportunities you get for your blog in the smartest ways possible. Whether it's Entrecard or running a 125x125 on John Chow, make it count. And once again, sex sells, so maybe The Monetizer logo will soon feature a bikini model..

View the World's Largest Registrar - GoDaddy.com