myLot: A Discussion Community That Pays

A little background here on what the frack I am talking about. myLot is an online community that pays you for starting discussions, posting responses or comments to current discussions, or referring friends. These discussions can range from the utterly spaced-out “Do you eat in front of the computer?” to the somewhat interesting “Should marriage contracts have expiry dates?” Okay, so both questions were started by me and I am self-promoting, so what? This is, after all, my site. Bleh. So what I am implying here is that you can talk about anything under the sun. Unless of course it’s against the discussion guidelines, which can be found here.

As to the referral earnings, you will receive 25% of your referral’s (referrals’, if you have a lot of them) discussion and image earnings. Image earnings?! Yes. You earn something for each relevant image that you post with a discussion, provided that the image is not copyrighted. Now as for the earnings algorithm, myLot says that they “are calculated based on a proprietary model that rewards quality responses, relevant discussions and images”. They say that they do not publicly reveal how they compute them to avoid people trying to game the system. In fact, they have a discussion guideline that specifically prohibits community users from inaccurately explaining the myLot earnings algorithm. That’s fine by me.

They pay you after your earnings reach $10, but you can choose to increase your minimum payout to $25, $50 or even $100. But seriously, who will do that? I set mine at $10, so I get payout every month. They pay through Paypal, so it’s very convenient. I think they used to have another payment option, but it’s gone now, and anyway, I can’t remember what the other option was. Figures. I can’t remember much of anything else either. Anyways, I started there I think the first week of September last year, and participated steadily for three months, and then stopped completely because I had so much going on I didn’t really have extra time to go to myLot anymore.

I have earned $50.88 in the three months that I have been there (too lazy to post a screenshot. I’d post it if you request for it, though) and I am planning to go back. In fact, I think I will start myLotting later when Svet is sleeping, because this alert from several days ago from the site (some sort of a “welcome back” message to me. as if I’m special. huh.) convinced me to go back. They call this the “Stimulus Package” (makes me feel like it’s some sort of viagra or something):

Hey myLot members – feeling down about the present economic situation? Looking for a new way to bring in some extra dough? myLot is ready to help! Coming soon to myLot is a whole new way for you to increase your earnings AND have fun doing it. We’re just adding the finishing touches so keep your eyes peeled and get your typing fingers ready – new features are just around the corner.

Maybe myLot was feeling that people were becoming less interested in the site because of what’s happening in the global economy. After all, you really have to spend an ample amount of time in the site to earn (at an average) $15 a month. That’s not a lot when you think of the prices of commodities shooting up like fireworks on the eve of New Year’s Day. Admittedly, that’s what made me inactive in the site for very long. But this news is an upper. I guess I will give it a go once again, see how I fare this time.