Sandeep Hegde

Lockerz – An Innovative Rewards Portal

// April 14th, 2010 // Comments // Cool Sites, Freebies, Making Money, Web

I recently signed up for an innovative rewards portal named as Lockerz.com I really loved this site, and the concept behind the site. Before I signed up I have almost ensured that it is not yet another scam. Here I go with the details about Lockerz :

Lockerz is an invitation-only website created to connect members through commerce, content and social networking. Once invited, you’ll be able to watch exclusive video, buy great products, discover new music, play games, and connect with friends. You’ll be able to do this all in one place, AND you’ll get rewarded for just doing the things you love. When you watch a video, play a game, or even log in, you’ll earn Pointz (or “PTZ”) Lockerz own form of currency. Turn around and redeem your PTZ for incredible merchandise, unique experiences and exclusive deals and sales.

Lockerz has partnered with thousands of the best brands and stores. Lockerz is offering you the latest and greatest in every category – electronics, designer gear, stylish accessories, sports equipment, and more. Members will soon be able to purchase digital assets such as music, videos, art, and decals.

How it works

You can earn Lockerz points in three ways:

1. Logging in each day.

2. Answering the question of the day.

3. Referring new members.

For example, in the four days only, I watched some 15 videos which yielded 2 points each.  All this for a grand total of 30pts!  What does this all mean? Well, I can already redeem many videos games such as GTA4, which is priced at 25pts!

Does Lockerz ship Internationally?

Yes. Keep in mind that you will be responsible for any incoming taxes or duties into your country if your country does not deem a free prize as a gift.

Is Lockerz.com a legitimate website?

As a testament to the legitimacy of Lockerz.com, its CEO, Kathy Savitt, used to be Vice President at Amazon.com and the CMO at American Eagle. Lockerz.com major financial contributors is Liberty Media, which owns a major part of Time Warner, which is the firm that supports Bodybuilding.com and QVC.

Currently, Lockerz is in beta and access is invitation only.

To get an invite:

1) Please subscribe to my blog!
I only get a certain number of invites per day, and want to focus on rewarding my loyal readers.

2) Follow me on Twitter.com/sandeephegde

3) Please send me an twit @sandeephegde. I’ll make sure to double check with my email subscription list to insure that you’ve subscribed to my blog.

IMPORTANT: If you submitted your email on the Official Lockerz.com website, you need to enter in a different email address here. Why? Because Lockerz will not let people invite you on the email you submitted to them.

IMPORTANT: Please check your Spam/Junk Folder because sometimes the Lockerz Invite is mistakenly put there.

As I have said Before I signed up I have almost ensured that it is not yet another scam. I believe this system will workout of many of you too. Let me know your views/comments on Lockerz.com

Make Money with Twitter using Sponsored Tweets

// March 4th, 2010 // Comments // Making Money

Sponsored Tweets is a new Twitter advertising platform that connects advertisers with Tweeters. Advertisers can create sponsored conversations on Twitter. Tweeters can earn money for spreading the word. Think of it as the Pay Per Tweet version of Pay Per Post.

Who can join?

Your Twitter account must be at least 60 days old, have at least 100 followers and 100 status updates to be visible in searches to advertisers. However, advertisers can still explicitly make you offers.

I have joined Sponsored Tweets around a month ago. After working around with many twitter monetization programs Sponsored Tweets seems to be the best ! Sponsored Tweets is the easiest way to make money from twitter.

It takes few seconds to write a tweet for a advertiser and they will pay you according to your followers and other criteria. I’m getting paid $1 for each tweet. I have earned around $18 so far.

Your tweet price is based on many factors, like number of followers, number of tweeters you’re following, the age of your account, how often you tweet, etc. Sponsored Tweets will give you a recommend price you should charge but you are not bounded by it and can set whatever price you want. I recommend you aim high and lower the price if you don’t get any bites!

If you are already not a member of Sponsered Tweets than it a try

Adbrite – Best Adsense Alternative

// February 16th, 2010 // Comments // Making Money

Adbrite powers the world’s most trusted and transparent marketplace for digital advertising. Serving over 253 million impressions a day on over 116,097 sites, AdBrite is The Internet’s Ad Marketplace®. AdBrite has created a completely transparent and effective advertising exchange focused on maximizing ROI for advertisers and publisher yield through best in class targeting and optimization technology. AdBrite’s auction-driven pricing, real-time bidding and API functionality, combined with a self-service account management interface, gives our customers unparalleled access to campaign information and total control.

With my experience, I would say Adbrite is the best alternative to Google Adsense. Also Google Adsense and Adbrite can both go hand in hand to yield you better profits. The key differentiation of Google Adsense and Adbrite are as follows :

1. Registration

Google Adsense has an stringent approval system to begin with.You need at least 7 days or more to get approved. Adbrite, approves your account instantly! You can signup for Adbrite and start displaying the ads on your site within few minutes.

2. Customer Support

No doubt, Adbrite have a better costumer support than Google Adsense. Google Adsense is based on community support, which is not as efficient and user friendly as of dedicated support staff of Adbrite.

3. Ads

Google Adsense is more contextual. The quality of Google Adsense goes unmatched. While Adbrite is also quite good enough(may not be as contextual as Google Adsense). Adbrite is not contextual like Adsense, so the click through rate is a bit low.

4. Flexibility

With Google adsense you can not sell Ad space in your site, but with Adbrite you can create your own Price and Packages. With Adbrite you have more flexibility over your ad. With Adbrite the seller has a great advantage showing what the site provides. As unique visitors, Page views, Origin of traffic, Average cost per click (eCPC), Site Category, Alexa rank, Repurchase rate, Conversion Score, AdBrite since, What CPC can I expect?, Ad zone description, and much more.

5. Payment

Google Adsense has the minimum payout amount of 100$ while Adbrite has a low minimum payout amount of  5$. Google Adsense pays in has option to pay in various currencies (like Indian Rupees) and pays out every month.  AdBrite issues payments in US Dollars, two months (net-60) after you accrue them.

6. Popularity

Google Adsense wins hands on. Adbrite is surely next to it.

7. Ads Format

Google Adsense have a lot of ads format. In addition to text and banner ads, AdBrite offers advanced options like Full Page Ad, BritePic, and Inline ads. These formats will allow you to show high-value ads without losing site real estate—and the multimedia formats let you take advantage of the photos and video clips on your site. Bottom line, you’ll earn more than with the standard options provided by most ad networks.. Adbrite also allows you to display ads of other networks(say Google Adsense) beating a specified cpm.

8. Performance

Google Adsense is much better when it comes to performance. Initially Google will start displaying the ads in not more than 10 minutes while Adbrite takes more than 24hours.The load times of Google Adsense are found to be better.

9. ToS

Google Adsense is known for its strict TOS. Google Adsense, the great disadvantage can be some publisher are banned without real reason.  On the other hand Adbrite is not that strict about its TOS.  I have not heard an event of account banned by Adbrite till date.

10. Other

• Google Adsense will not allow to modify the ad code to suit your needs. While adbrite you can play around with the ad code as you wish !

• You can use Google Adsense and Adbrite both together, on the same site without any problem.

So, to start with here are a few steps to maximize your Adbrite earnings.

1. Un-check the auto-approve of ads, and don’t approve ads below 10 cents.
2. Give a nice description of your website, remember most of the advertisers you will catch from the Adbrite market place.
3. Get the big rectangles, as that is the best performing ads for any network.
4. Put up as many tags as you can, in the keywords field. Use the dictionary if you run out of keywords.
5. Make the color of the ads text and background same as rest of your website.
6. If the ads are a banner, only approve the really high CPC ads, like 50 cents or more, and for CPM ads banner, choose max you can.

These basic steps will improve your earnings a lot. Let comment your opinions/views about Adbrite.