Two blogs that I am a regular reader of are Dosh Dosh and Mike’s Money Making Mission as I find both contain useful information to help those of us interested in making money online (especially through blogging).

The reason I’m mentioning the two blogs is that they’ve been running two articles that complement each other and therefore confirming the old adage ‘Two Heads are better than One’.

Firstly, Mike is running a short three part series on Making Money with Free Blogs and describes in part 2 some of the ways to attract visitors to your blog, one way specifically being to join relevant forums. Clearly this is an essential element for someone who is looking to monetise their content. To add meat to the bones of Mike’s post Maki over at Dosh Dosh provides a well researched list of 26 Forums that anyone who wants to learn more and contribute their own knowledge would be wise to take note of.

Now you probably won’t be able to contribute to all the forums as you might have a life to live but at least a lot of the hard work in finding suitable sources has been done for you.

The reason I was able to pick up on the posts in question is because I have subscribed to the feeds on both the above blogs. If you find a source of information that you feel will be useful then I’d encourage you to seek out the feed link so that you will always be kept up to date with any new information.

Two weeks ago I mentioned that I subscribe to Early To Rise as a newsletter that provides a great deal of useful information when you are looking to improve your knowledge, health and wealth. As you can appreciate the articles that appear in the newsletter are written by many different people.

One contributor that I find submits highly pertinent content is Robert Ringer and I am now also a subscriber to his own missives. Robert’s style is to discuss a particular aspect of wealth building by referencing case studies or by using examples from his own experience. I like the way that he makes a point succinctly and leaves you with plenty of food for thought.

A good example of his work is given by a brace of articles that he wrote on investing styles that I feel shows just how different peoples lives can turn out.

Robert Ringer does have a lot of content on his site and markets heavily for the products that he has available. Personally I don’t object to this but if you are someone who is turned off by regular marketing emails then you might want to consider if subscribing to his free newsletter is worthwhile but I would recommend that you at least take a look as the article content is very good.

Like many people I have always been interested in online investing and as you will no doubt realise from reading this blog I’ve really only scratched the surface of what is out there. I’ve always thought it would be a great resource if someone could pull together the various opportunities out there and find a way to present them such that we, as potential investors, can make a more informed decision about whether to invest or not.

Online investing is not something that appeals to everyone but there is sufficient interest to attract scammers and ne’er do well’s looking for an easy buck. Recently I found a site that is designed to provide at least some information that will help both new and experienced online investors to avoid these undesirables.

Business Opportunity Review provides just such a service and I find it a highly useful resource when looking for new investments.

When you join you can read reviews from people who have tried a whole range of opportunities ranging from surveys through to betting. Examples of programs reviewed include Kleenezee, Zero Risk Arbitrage and Easy Forex to name just a very few from the long list.

So, now I have access to a whole range of information on whether something is worth pursuing. Also, you are encouraged to become a reviewer yourself so that others can learn from your experience. There is not enough space in a post like this to fully describe all of the information on the site so I would recommend that you check out Business Opportunity Review yourself.

By the way there is an offer on at the moment to join The Internet Business School which is affiliated with Business Opportunity Review for £1 for a 7-day trial. Seems good value for someone who is just starting out and needing to find out what they need to do to start an online business.

Having spent the last week on holiday I’ve had some time to reflect on just how fickle the world of online investing can be. I haven’t had full access to the internet but even so I’ve learnt that several programs I’m involved with are finding it difficult to weather many of the challenges that they are encountering. As most of them are private the only one I can really reference is Fantastic Pay as they still have a relatively public profile.

It appears that the original premise of investments are suffering from failure by one of the parties. If this is confirmed at the end of March then the investment plans will have to be re-structured. What this probably means is that returns will be reduced although the announcement on the Fantastic Pay forum did state that the period for both Plans 1 and 2 would be honoured and given the performance of the company to date I would accept this as a reasonable expectation.

Also, the company is beginning the roll-out of Apple Pie Real Estate in Canada and the USA. Currently existing members are in pole position for the various membership levels that are being offered. It does appear that the opportunity will be opened to non-members in a few weeks.

I transgressed there slightly but I’m still confident that Fantastic Pay have a lot to offer even with the troubles they are facing. The major point for me though is that no matter how legitimate an opportunity appears to be there are still may uncertainties that come into play to knock things awry.

Another opportunity I’m invested with has suffered from increases in withdrawals over some months leading to the trader having problems in being able to operate effectively. This then starts a spiral of mistrust with members and can lead to eventual meltdown. To his credit the admin is promising to make good losses and whilst I believe his intent there is always a significant risk that disgruntled members will create an atmosphere in which whatever the trader tries to do the bad apples will have soured any potential.

I’m an optimist so I look for the positive in all my dealings. Some people may consider this foolhardy but at least I always operate on the basis of using money that is not needed for life’s essentials so I am in somewhat of an enviable position and hopefully my toughing it out will pay off…only time will tell.

Some while ago now I featured one of the daily newsletters I get, namely Early To Rise and it has reached a significant milestone so I felt that the time was right to mention it again. I originally came across it when I was looking to find a home study course I could do whilst working abroad. The course I chose was a copywriting one that is marketed by Agora Publishing with the course editor being Michael Masterson.

Why I subscribed to Early To Rise is lost in the grey mists of time but I’ve never regretted the decision. The reason they are celebrating is the fact that they are publishing their 2,000th edition imminently, an enviable record I think given the ebbs and flows of survival on the internet.

Each edition comes with well considered, well researched practical articles that are designed to make you healthier, wealthier and wise. As well as Michael Masterson there are a whole group of other contributors who provide rock-solid content to the readership.

Now, it shouldn’t be any surprise to note that each issue contains ‘opportunities’ to earn, learn and improve by just purchasing the recommended Agora Publishing product but in fairness the quality is generally good and being masters at the art of direct marketing they provide money-back guarantees with all their products. And, as this is the 2,000th edition of Early To Rise you’ll find good discounts on the products.

A sister publication is Investors Daily Edge which is again a newsletter that I would highly recommend if you are interested in how best to reap rewards on the markets.

The only slight downside with both the publications is that they are very US-centric so some of the money earning opportunities are not that relevant elsewhere. Having said that the information taken in a more general sense can be applied anywhere.

The wait still continues for issue of the first bonus pool cheques (checks) from Shop Right and reading the latest news there is not an exact date when mailing will start. Alex Jakubowski, the Shop Right founder has said that whilst this first payment is taking longer than anyone had hoped he is confident that subsequent payouts will be on the regular 60 day cycle.

Having heard Alex on some calls I’m sure he is someone of integrity and will try to make sure that his assurances are kept, only time will tell.

One thing that is providing some comfort is the fact that membership renewals ($149 per member) will not be levied until three bonus payments have been made. At least we now know that Shop Right have a vested interest in keeping their members happy as if they don’t perform (and every member will have their own perception of what performance is acceptable to them) then they don’t receive any income as members elect not to renew.

The main thrust of the program in the recent past has been encouraging people to join so that they can be in a position to afford their own house by taking advantage of the Shop Right system. I don’t have any firm data on what they take-up on this service has been so it’s somewhat difficult to gauge what the long term potential is. In theory the product is good, especially in a country where land is available to build.

One thing that the company is very active in is holding training/marketing calls to introduce the opportunity to prospective members and to help new members become better at marketing the program in general. I joined one of the spin-off services but for whatever reason the service never performed as I’d been led to believe. This may not be the case for everybody so I would still give a qualified recommendation to check out the Shop Right offering as a potential investment.

Some more news from Global Pension Plan today will put a smile on anyone 27 years or younger. The admin has announced that because premiums for those 27 and below is much less than anyone older they can adjust their payouts such that the ‘youngsters’ will now receive €110,000 (One hundred and ten thousand euros) when the membership target of 100,000 is reached.

For those, like me, who whilst feeling 21 are biologically much older the payout will remain at €55,000 (fifty five thousand euros), still a healthy return on an investment of $39.

Membership is now at 41,224 which means that the psychologically important figure of 50,000 is only weeks away given that over 1,000 new members are joining every week.

The reason that Global Pension Plan have been able to revise the payout sums is due to the fact that they are getting many younger people signed up than they originally imagined there would be. It seems like whole families are joining (as mine are) to take full advantage of this opportunity.

For a full explanation of how Global Pension Plan works I recommend you take a look at the website, for an initial outlay of just $39 it must be one of the most affordable opportunities currently out there.

On most of the blogs that you read you will probably find a reference somewhere to PayPerPost as a way of making your blog pay for it’s way. The idea behind the venture is simply to bring together companies who wish to advertise online with the hordes of blog users that are out there. By offering a financial incentive PayPerPost and their advertisers create a lot of exposure for the particular product or service.

Now, the site is looking at further ways to help advertisers with online advertising but as yet aren’t telling us how they will achieve it. So why don’t I speculate and see what they might come up with.

Firstly, the thing that springs to mind is video posts, rather than just write about something why not get bloggers to put their heads in the frame (sic) by creating a short video (as they say pictures are worth a 1000 words).

Perhaps that’s too obvious as others are doing it and I don’t think PayPerPost can be accused of following the herd. So what else might they do?

What about running the next US election via PayPerPost such that the future of the developed world is dependent on the blogging community? Sounds good to me. How would it work? Well clearly each of the major parties would have to pay bloggers mucho dosh for saying how great they would be at running the country. The voters would then be asked on which blog they read the post that swayed them to vote the way they did.

One thing they might do is give some help to those blogs that are struggling to get a decent page rank rating in Google and Alexa. So they could be planning to start their own ranking service based on blogs alone rather than taking into account every other website out there.

Whatever the answer I’m certain PayPerPost won’t disappoint us!

If you read the Latest News section for last week you’ll see that Colon End Parenthesis (CEP) acquired 4NewbiesMarketing recently. Subsequently there was an announcement that they are also acquiring DesertSkyMarketing as once again they see potential for expansion and believe the site admin is someone that they can work with for the future.

Now, of course there are questions raised by such a move on behalf of Colon End Parenthesis (CEP). Whilst it seems an accepted way to increase exposure and increased membership it does mean that anyone seeking true diversification would now have less choice.

On a fairly subjective level it seemed to me that DesertSkyMarketing was visible in the Market Place and therefore probably attracting members still. I’m sure the Colon End Parenthesis (CEP) admin has good intentions as from everything I’ve seen the company has honoured all of their commitments. Let’s hope the integrations go well and that the reduction in diversification opportunities can be offset in other ways

In the last day or so I received an email from GoldClaim advising me that I could now gain access to their member forum. As I’d applied for access some time ago I hurried on over to see what I’d been missing. Unfortunately the first post I read was not encouraging.

Some members were posting that they were expecting some of their investments to mature imminently but when they checked on the site their maturity dates had been extended by 120 days and there was no explanation as to why.

Returning to the forum again this morning I was pleased to see a post from the GoldClaim admin with a program update as I hoped this would provide some information on what the current situation is.

It appears that the program is having problems with banks taking extended periods to deal with online currency providers, hence delaying transactions considerably. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts it doesn’t matter how honest any particular admin is there are forces outside of their control that can adversely effect their operations and this seems to be a classic example.

So, the GoldClaim admin has made the decision to shutdown operations for 120 days so that alternative funding options can be investigated. Updates will be provided each month and it is hoped that a resolution can be found within the 120 day period. As an investor all we can do is wait and see what happens. I have to admit online investing carries a whole lot of challenges with it and it is not for the faint hearted.