Damn. Is there any such thing as a legit online business?

I'm in the tank financially and one of the ways out I'm looking at is having more than one way to earn money. If there's anything that working in corporate America for the last 20 years has taught me, with layoffs and all, is that depending on a single paycheck is not the best solution.

So, I want to be involved in several things that earn money. I'm not afraid of working or even working long hours. I'm primarily a writer. Fine, it's fun. No, haven't published anything yet. Still hope to. But I want to have another option, possibly two, that does make money. Online would be great. It doesn't even have to be a lot. My material needs are spartan. Car paid off. House paid off. No kids.

I went to a networking meeting on Monday morning and had a lovely time meeting other ladies who have or are thinking about starting their own businesses. It was also a different social circle because these were mostly Yankee transplants. :P :D Like I said, everybody was lovely. I really enjoyed the lady who runs the event, she's a great facilitor and kept everybody on subject and on time.

At the end where you can chat privately, I connected with someone who has the same first name as me. Says she's in the "travel business," Wants me to watch a video.

It's yet another MLM scam. Beware YTB Travel. Anyone ever heard of it? I did some poking around this morning and if it isn't a pyramid, I don't know what is.

You pay a "franchise" fee. It costs $50/month for the website.

California and Illinois have both sued the company for being a pyramid.

You must recruit others into YTB.

Ugh.

I feel like telling this woman to stuff it and leave the other members of the group in peace. Meanwhile. I really would like to find something that I can run PT on the web. I'm just not seeing a lot out there at the moment.

Here's the site if you want to see for yourself

http://www.ytb.com/

Travel agent on YT a couple of years ago, talking about YTB:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sRwSinIksI

The thing to really be careful about is anything that asks you to pay money for their services. I mean, it's one thing to pay operative costs for starting up a business with things like maybe hiring a web developer, buying materials, that sort of thing, but whenever they ask you to fork over dough for an ebook or to join a website then it's almost certainly a pyramid.

Sorry to disappoint you. I was in the same boat you are in a few years ago and I looked into this as well. I never found a single good opportunity. If you're looking for something you can run PT on the web, my advice would be to develop a skill set that people need. Maybe learn some software that could be useful to some people to outsource to you. Learn how design web pages and maybe be a freelance web designer or graphical artist. Or maybe try and do some freelance writing. You might have to take a few gigs that you're wiling to do for free to establish yourself, but it might be worth it to you.

Good luck. But be very careful. 99.999% of all the work at home shit is just that, shit.

FROM:MRS. M SESE-SEKO
DEAR FRIEND,

I AM MRS. SESE-SEKO WIDOW OF LATE PRESIDENT MOBUTU SESE-SEKO OF ZAIRE? NOW KNOWN AS DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO (DRC). I AM MOVED TO WRITE YOU THIS LETTER, THIS WAS IN CONFIDENCE CONSIDERING MY PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCE AND SITUATION.

I ESCAPED ALONG WITH MY HUSBAND AND TWO OF OUR SONS JAMES KONGOLO AND BASHER NZANGA OUT OF DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO (DRC) TO ABIDJAN, COTE D'IVOIRE WHERE MY FAMILY AND I SETTLED, WHILE WE LATER MOVED TO SETTLED IN MORROCO WHERE MY HUSBAND LATER DIED OF CANCER DISEASE. HOWEVER DUE TO THIS SITUATION WE DECIDED TO CHANGED MOST OF MY HUSBAND'S BILLIONS OF DOLLARS DEPOSITED IN SWISS BANK AND OTHER COUNTRIES INTO OTHER FORMS OF MONEY CODED FOR SAFE PURPOSE BECAUSE THE NEW HEAD OF STATE OF (DR) MR LAURENT KABILA HAS MADE ARRANGEMENT WITH THE SWISS GOVERNMENT AND OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES TO FREEZE ALL MY LATE HUSBAND'S TREASURES DEPOSITED IN SOME EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.

HENCE MY CHILDREN AND I DECIDED LAYING LOW IN AFRICA TO STUDY THE SITUATION TILL WHEN THINGS GETS BETTER, LIKE NOW THAT PRESIDENT KABILA IS DEAD AND THE SON TAKING OVER (JOSEPH KABILA). ONE OF MY LATE HUSBAND'S CHATEAUX IN SOUTHERN FRANCE WAS CONFISCATED BY THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT, AND AS SUCH I HAD TO CHANGE MY IDENTITY SO THAT MY INVESTMENT WILL NOT BE TRACED AND CONFISCATED.

I HAVE DEPOSITED THE SUM OF EIHGTEEN MLLION UNITED STATE DOLLARS(US$18,000,000,00.) WITH A SECURITY COMPANY , FOR SAFEKEEPING. THE FUNDS ARE SECURITY CODED TO PREVENT THEM FROM KNOWING THE CONTENT. WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO IS TO INDICATE YOUR INTEREST THAT YOU WILL ASSIST US BY RECEIVING THE MONEY ON OUR BEHALF.ACKNOWLEDGE THIS MESSAGE, SO THAT I CAN INTRODUCE YOU TO MY SON ( KONGOLO ) WHO HAS THE OUT MODALITIES FOR THE CLAIM OF THE SAID FUNDS.

I WANT YOU TO ASSIST IN INVESTING THIS MONEY, BUT I WILL NOT WANT MY IDENTITY REVEALED. I WILL ALSO WANT TO BUY PROPERTIES AND STOCK IN MULTI-NATIONAL COMPANIES AND TO ENGAGE IN OTHER SAFE AND NON-SPECULATIVE INVESTMENTS. MAY I AT THIS POINT EMPHASISE THE HIGH LEVEL OF CONFIDENTIALITY, WHICH THIS BUSINESS DEMANDS, AND HOPE YOU WILL NOT BETRAY THE TRUST AND CONFIDENCE, WHICH I REPOSE IN YOU. IN CONCLUSION, IF YOU WANT TO ASSIST US , MY SON SHALL PUT YOU IN THE PICTURE OF THE BUSINESS, TELL YOU WHERE THE FUNDS ARE CURRENTLY BEING MAINTAINED AND ALSO DISCUSS OTHER MODALITIES INCLUDING REMUNERATION FOR YOUR SERVICES.

FOR THIS REASON KINDLY FURNISH US YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION, THAT IS YOUR PERSONAL TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBER FOR CONFIDENTIAL PURPOSE AND ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT OF THIS MAIL USING THE ABOVE EMAIL ADDRESS.

BEST REGARDS,

MRS M. SESE SEKO


BTW: :sarcasm:

I wish I had a DEAR FRIEND like that!

In recent correspondences, she has shown a desire to marry me for all the help I've provided. I just need to send her a little more money for the legal fees to get her immigration papers prepared.

And still :sarcasm:

i've gotten a couple calls from MLMs trying to get me to come in for an interview. and they don't disclose that they are MLMs.

i'm not against a business making money. but if they are offering out of work people false hope of a real job, they should be seized and liquidated.

And when we looked at it - you provide your link to all your friends and family to click through to make their travel arrangements then you get a percentage of the money from the bookings - it appeared to be a MLM so we said no thank you.

Are you a web designer? Can you learn to be? One of the artistic daughters of a friend started a website for a particular interest group and related businesses pay her to accept links to their sites. It has really taken off and she is able to stay home with her son and is making quite a good little chunk of money each month.

You could write about politics, but then again you may be able to find more interesting things to write about and gain a larger audience (political blogs get pretty predictable). It takes time to acquire readers but if you post regularly they tend to follow.

Also, look on craigslist for writing jobs, you can sometimes get regular gigs writing blog copy for other people o rewriting theses and so forth.

...and found a blog where someone had posted real work on the Internet that pays real money. A lot of it involved writing content. Some of the sites want "expert" articles on any manner of things, and pay you by the amount of hits your article gets.

The blogger who had done the work of gathering this info said that making money off the Net can be done but it won't be a lot of money quickly. http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/homebasedbusiness/a/makemoneyonline.htm

Now, I must say that there is a whole new field of employment that is arising, some of which can be done at home, and it is going to be well paid work and interesting. It's the hottest thing at trade shows, magazines, and conversations of many industries. It is a form of marketing called "social networking" and involves (1) promoting and (2) monitoring the interests of a company or non-profit or entity on the social web sites such as facebook, twitter, linkedin, etc. Many corporations are hiring right now, and paying a lot of money to Social Networking Managers. The lower level of this work is called "social networking strategist" and the pay for this is probably about $12-$15 per hour. If you do some googling, you will see how dynamic this new field of work is. I don't know where you live, but there might be some opportunities in your locality.

A new hire for social networking strategist would probably work both at home and at a location, would need to become fully integrated into the goals and marketing plan of the employer, and be able to communicate very well.

I actually am a partner in a new LLC that is in phase two of startup as a social marketing service. We hope to employ twenty people by years end, and we have been told by a business advisor from the SCORE program to plan for faster growth than that.

It really is the future of advertising and marketing. There's plenty of literature available in business publications and trade magazines describing the phenomenon.

Some research and a lot of luck is required. It's still possible to find items that you can make a good profit from.
I sold a toy train log car on Ebay for $350.00 that I picked up at a yard sale with other train cars for $5.00. I didn't know what I had until the bidding started going up. It was a Hafnir pre-war car that I was told was rare. Bad thing was I was offered $600.00 for it after it sold.
I purchased some radio test equipment at an estate sale for $280.00. I sold one piece, a radio transmitter test unit for $1000.00. Etc.
One drawback is my basement is now full of junk and I can hardly get around in it. Some stuff just won't sell, and I'm a pack rat.

If you have a passion about something look into converting that into a small enterprise. I would think your chances for success would be much better than trying to do something online. Maybe writing copy for local stores, etc..
You may be pleasantly surprised.

and I assume you already know not to waste your itme on ANY "internet wealth" nonsense you see on TV.

Over the years I came across these, and I'm sure there must be more, that seem to have some real work mixed in with the medical transcription and phony mystery shopper drek:

http://www.hbwm.com/

http://www.genuinejobs.com/

http://www.homeworkersnet.com/

http://www.sohojobs.org/

http://www.tjobs.com/jobopps.shtml

http://www.virtualassistantjobs.com/

And, of course, your local Craigslist.

A large problem is that with so many people being shuffled around now, there just isn't that much good work out there, and the few jobs are filled pretty quickly unless there's a skill that's tough to find.

Not sure if you can do it online, but I have several friends that supplement their income with it. Just a suggestion....

www.demandstudios.com/

I'm a copy editor, so I have considered checking out the copy-editing jobs for a little extra money. You can work from home.

Especially if you're not desperate at this point, investing in your writing through one of these paths -- or both -- sounds like a good way to go.

After I get one project out the door in a few weeks, I'm going to focus on building my own social entrepreneurial blog network, consisting of those writing with the intent for their blog to become a book. Grassroots philanthropy will be key in the marketing approach as well.

I've worked in traditional and self-publishing, and simply can't encourage people to pursue the traditional route nowadays unless they're already rich and famous.

Best of luck to you and everyone. Interesting times.....

Go find a site that you like to use, think of ways it can be improved, and go create a similar site including the improvements you've made.

One example of this is Ebay. I know that millions of people still use Ebay but there are a growing number of us who don't use it nearly as often as we used to because it's become more and more difficult to list things for sale and find good deals on stuff without looking through pages and pages of stuff you aren't looking for or that is new from some ebay store rather than used to get a good deal.

Set up a new online auction site that is just like Ebay was 10 years ago and you'll be set.

Disclaimer - this isn't going to happen FAST, it takes awhile but it's true that there are no "Get Rich Quick" online ideas. There are plenty of ideas out there that will pay off very, very well with work and patience.

Start a political blog writing a short blurb about something and giving a link to the real story (kind of like Perezhilton.com does for entertainment). He just write a short paragraph or two about some stupid celebrity and puts a picture online from one of the photo services and he makes much $$$$ (I would guess he makes over $1 Million per year). Add a place for comments.

Yeah, start Perezhilton.com for politics, calling out politicians and protesters and stuff. There you go - it's Gold Jerry, Gold

I need to write a book... will you buy it if no one else does?

LOL

well, other than my mom... but I'm sure she'd expect a free copy... damn. ha

...are all over the place. You are wise to avoid them!

The most successful strictly-Internet businesses seem to be the ones where they tell everyone else how to make money on the Internet. Sigh.

However, there are some things you could try for an online income stream:

1 - EBay for selling all those odds and ends

2 - Clickbank, you can either produce an information product and sell it there, or become an affiliate and sell other people's stuff

3 - Start and "monetize" a blog. Basically, blog about an area of interest, then add Google AdSense ads. You get a few cents for every click on one of the ads -- you would need to create a good following before this amounted to much. However, note: you can also include your affiliate ads here, from #2, assuming your blog relates.

4 - Do you do crafts? If so, open up a shop on Etsy (www.etsy.com) or some similar site.

The thing is, it all takes work and knowing where to put your efforts. Hence the success of all those people telling you how to do it.

Good luck!

decent amount above what they charged, so they took away the ability to set our own comission on our designs on their products (shirts, hats, buttons, calendars, etc) so they forced a 10% commission on us - which is peanuts... I get a 25-40 check now a month when I used to get a LOT more...

still angry at them, and stopped ordering hundreds a year in products from them because of it.

I wish I knew of something you could do, besides scour flea markets for deals - learn a specific area like antique toys, or glass, or old furniture or electronics...

good luck and God bless us.

Was looking into e-commerce recently and reading about the various alternatives available. This company cropped up as the best viable alternative to CafePress.

http://www.printfection.com/

Good luck!

and make income from my online business. Contact me and I will give you real places. I know of 4, now you can make about ten bucks to 14 and hour but you work when you want and pick your hours. In fact I have to go to work in a few hours tonight.
Let me know if I can help.

even ebay...you are competing w. people who steal product/postage from their full-time work so you end up making pennies on the dollar...that's why i quit...the person doing all the work (me) was getting squeezed out by sharply declining bids, the endless fees, and of course sharply increased postage cost

you're also competing w. professional teams of thieves, how do you think someone ends up with 10 $500 gift cards to sell every month? hell, maybe you saw abt the team of old geezers who shoplifted supermarkets in florida for millions and re-sold on ebay -- you can't compete w. people get product for fucking FREE and these guys were only busted after 10 years...

writing for most people is of course not a job but a hobby, when 20% of the population say they are writers, then your ability to make real money for writing is simply crushed

i guess there's offering yr sexual services on nite flirt but i'm hearing business is really really shitty there right now (business is shitty all over the sex industry, it ain't just them)