The things that I like about Varolo

1.  Varolo is free to join.  You never pay them any money.  EVER!  But they pay you money.  I think it's a great working relationship.

2.  There is no selling involved.  And no convincing other people they need to sell something.  Other than the concept of the company.  Considering #1 above, this should not be difficult.

3.  Even while your village is minuscule, you are still earning something.  Sure, the points aren't worth a huge amount, but they are worth something.  I'm up to 1500 points right now.  It grows rather quickly when you are actually watching all your ads every week.

4.  There's a sweepstakes!  And the amount keeps getting larger.  This week the jackpot is $475.  I have more than 140 entries.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  Not only would it be awesome to win the jackpot, but being able to say that I did will help with the village recruitment.

4a.  Splash up.  The concept makes me happy.  If someone in my village wins the jackpot, I win as well!  This week, for instance, if one of my two active recruits wins, I get $47.50.  I know that isn't a lot of money.  I don't care.  I can buy groceries for two weeks with that.  And someday when the jackpot is $10,000 (like it is in the presentation) I would win $1000.  Who can't use a bit of extra cash?

5.  Everybody has to do the exact same thing to get their earnings.  Those guys with 15,000 people in their villages (15,000?  Really?) have to watch their 10 minutes of ads every day just like I do.  Somehow I find that satisfying.

6.  The variety of ads keeps things interesting.  I LOVE the trailers.  More points, more jackpot entries, and who doesn't love a good movie?  I'm looking forward to seeing more companies join Varolo.  I think that being able to say that Nike and Calvin Klein use Varolo for advertising helps with recruiting.

What do YOU like about Varolo?

Day 26 update

It's been close to a month now.  There hasn't been a whole lot going on with my Varolo, but here's the update:  My village is now 7/1 (meaning I've got 7 people in my first tier and 1 in my second tier).  I will actually be claiming earnings this week for the first time.  It's about ten cents.  But it is earnings.  I'm almost excited about that dime.  Recruiting has obviously not been going well.  Traffic exchanges do not work.  I have a theory about paid-to-click sites, since those people are doing it for a pittance of money.  BUT.  You'll remember I've decided not to spend any money on Varolo that I haven't made through Varolo.  It's likely I'll try that in the future, but not now.  Most of my newer recruits have come from Yahoo Answers, where I seem to be the only person answering questions with more than a 'join my village'.  I'll keep doing that, but I need to find some alternative recruiting sources.

I also probably need to start keeping up my blog better and using SEO.  A lot of people research before they join programs.  I'd like this to become a top-ranked site so people can find it when they google Varolo.

Day 16: In research mode...

I'm looking for ebooks about referral marketing.  Most of them have something to do with selling a product.  I'm not really trying to do that.  I'm trying to get others to take advantage of this opportunity I've stumbled upon.  I haven't made a lot of progress yet.  But I still think the system is a good one.  I get it.  I can see how it should work.  The one thing I haven't figured out yet is how to effectively share it with others.

One thing I've started doing is answering yahoo questions about Varolo every day.  There's usually at least one new question where someone needs something explained.  This gives me a chance to answer and to get my link out there.  I think I've had a sign up from it actually.  Although from what I can tell, she's not done anything with it yet.  Maybe.  There is always hope.

I'm still watching my ads.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that Disney has started advertising on Varolo.  The movie trailers I've been watching are great fun, and they are more valuable in terms of points and jackpot entries.

I've still got 5.5 months to go before I make my decision on Varolo.  We'll see how it goes.

Day 7: Not a whole lot of progress

I've gained one more village member through craiglist.  Yeah.  I didn't delete the ad and no one has complained about it yet.  So it's still there.   However.  I'm pretty sure he watched one ad and then decided that he was done.

My attempts with a traffic exchange have done nothing.  I have a few more credits and am going to try another splash page.  I'm thinking that the one I have is not right yet.

So.  I'll try something else.  It's only been a week.  And I have 23 more to go.

Day 3: I have this idea...

I posted an ad on Craigslist.  I think I told you.  I've received one sign up from that ad thus far.  And she hasn't actually done anything.  I have the option to message her via Varolo, but I'm not quite sure what I would say.  On the one hand... maybe she doesn't want to do anything.  On the other, something I've heard time and time again is that you should always keep in touch with your downline, no matter what the project.

I'm betting the real deal is that her welcome email went to her spam folder and she hasn't thought to check for it yet.  That's where mine ended up.

*****

Anyway.  I have this idea.  People who might be interested in this program are people who are willing to do boring internet things for long periods of time.  Namely Paid-to-Click and Paid-to-Surf people.  How can that be more appealing than watching a few ads?  At the very least, they'll be about on the same level.  I should know.  I've done both before.

I've created a landing page on my blog that is simply titled 'Better than Paid-to-Surf'.  I'll start submitting it to traffic exchanges first.  I've decided that I will not push any money into this venture until I've made some money.  And that may or may not happen.  But I've got most of the next six months to figure it out, right?

I'm also researching Paid-to-Surf companies... looking for the ones that will give you free impressions just for signing up, and the ones that don't allow auto-surfing.  Maybe I'll have some luck with this.  Who knows?

Day 2: I watch more ads

I discovered something today... There were always more ads for me to watch.  I didn't run out.  There are a few companies that have logos on the ad picker menu.  And a whole bunch of companies that don't.  So the little blocks that say 'Click here to Play your next ad' ... actually will play your next ad.  In my defense, yesterday I clicked on one and it didn't ever do anything.

My little brother is still the only village member I have.  And we still haven't figured out why Varolo won't work on his computer.  I think tonight we'll try him on a different internet browser.

My recruiting efforts thus far entail a single ad on my local craigslist.  Although after I posted the ad I realized that these types of money-making ventures are not allowed.  Which I find amusing, because craigslist is where I heard about Varolo.  I'm looking into some other marketing avenues.  Mostly I want to target people who want to make a few easy bucks.  That's why I'm here.

I would think that a reason a lot of people get disillusioned with Varolo is that people are marketing it as 'Paid to Watch Ads'.  That is not true.  My idea is to set up three completely different marketing plans.  The first will focus on watching ads for prizes and sweepstakes entries.  The second will focus on making money, although I need to figure out how to make it not sound like a pyramid scheme.  (I think the 'no cost ever' thing will help there.)  And the third will combine the two.

I have an idea of where to market Varolo.  About six years ago I was desperate to earn a little bit of extra money and I started doodling around with 'Paid to Surf' and things like that.  I think this would be an appealing opportunity for a lot of those people.  I guess that we will see.

Day 1: My first village member.

I signed up for Varolo. It wasn't really all that painful. Name. City and State. Email. I picked a village name. Once I had submitted that information and then confirmed my membership via the email they sent, I was taken to the 'Channel Guide' where I clicked on various things (grocery, toys and hobbies, beauty, etc.) that I was interested in. As soon as I had done that, I immediately was able to start watching ads.

They are the same ads you see on television. And they are for big brands that we're all used to... Geico, Dr. Pepper, Doritos, Calvin Klein... After watching each ad, I was taken to a page to rate it. 1-5 stars. A couple of them also had a question the advertiser wanted answered. For instance, T-Mobile asked if I had a 4g phone. You only have 15 seconds or so to submit your rating. This is to assure the advertisers that you are actually watching the ads, as opposed to starting them and then running off to brush your teeth. Which I suppose you could do if you could brush your teeth in 30 seconds.

I was able to watch 9 ads before there were no more in my queue. This is not enough... you have to watch 140 per week, or 20 per day in order to claim all of your village earnings. It's not a big deal yet, since I don't really have a village. But I was concerned nonetheless.

Since I had nothing else to do, I started poking around the site. I ended up on the Varolo facebook page where I learned that they are still in a beta testing phase. That explains the lack of ads. There are a few advertisers on the site now, but they are getting discount rates. Which means even if I had a village, I wouldn't be earning very much. I also learned that the official launch will be happening two weeks from now on April 17, 2011. So... I suppose I'd better get my butt in gear recruiting villagers!

*****

I wanted to recruit a test subject. My little brother is the obvious candidate. He likes me, so will do strange things when I ask him to. I had him sign up, using my email, of course. I walked him through the sign up process, which, again, is not that difficult. He got through all right. And then... It may be his computer, but he isn't able to watch any of the ads. It was getting late and I have work in the morning. Troubleshooting will have to happen later. But it was very frustrating to have that happen with my first recruit. We'll try to figure out the issue and I'll report here when/if we do.

I did get an email a few minutes after I left that told me I had a new village member. So at least I know my villagers won't be getting lost on their way.

*****

I pulled up the Varolo website when I got home just to see what had happened to my home page since I had a recruit now. And low and behold! There were more ads for me to watch! So I spent another 10ish minutes watching. I'm up to 28 ads now. More than the 20/day needed to reach my weekly goal.