Most professional artists are not normally rolling in money. And people who do art as a hobby spend their money on supplies, books and things that will be helpful in making art.
So we as a group are often the targets of people who want to sell us stuff or sign us up for something that will - you guessed it - bring in some extra dollars.
When it's someone selling us a blogging platform or a workshop designed to help us in some way that's one thing.
And though you likely won't get rich quick at least it's honest cash; and you don't have to keep changing your email address or blog URL to stay one step ahead of Interpol.
And writing content or uploading image content to Gather can add to the pot. Selling your cards on Zazzle or your Art adorned Tiles or Totes at Cafepress can work.
But when someone tries to sell us an "amazing program" that allows us to make money while doing nothing or next to nothing - that's something else.
There are lots of these 'programs' out there, and most of them are full of holes.
One of these is Alientrust where you can become an "ad viewer."
You are served up a series of web ads and you then click on each website - and must stay on the site for a certain period of time which varies from program to program. To make money with Alientrust, you must view 25 websites a day.
That makes you a whopping 50 cents, or $182 if done every day without fail for a year. Be still my beating heart.
Then there's "AdBlaster" which promises:
"Submit To 2,500,000+ Sites & Get 5,000 Hits Per Hour" Now that really sounds great to have our creations viewed by five thousand people an hour!
But what it really does is add spam (1) comments to blogs. Symantec even lists it as a security threat to computers.
One of the most boggling may be a whole package that should be worth hundreds of dollars (alarm bells!!! alarm bells!!!) being offered for $7.95.
The catch is that you need to provide a credit card number so she can sign you up for an amazing bargain on Direct TV.
I mean is this person even possibly serious? S/he apparently opens and closes Blogger.com blogs so the offer can come from a different blog every month or so. (No wonder blogger/blogsopt blogging addresses are often given zero credibility)
A few truths are evident:
- With internet-based "amazing" programs your potential for profit is small while your risk is large.
- Be careful. Find someone who you trust who will say that this has worked for them.
- Don't lay out money for something that sounds too good to be true.
- Free programs or free platforms have downsides too - very often you get what you pay for - which in some cases is zero.
- Blog blaster and all its cousins = spam.
- You could lose your broadband connection for using automated traffic generators.
- Using these programs could easily get your sites/blogs banned by Google.
- You could lose your hosting and your domain.
- Some webspam is based on the use of zombies (2) - which is criminal.
If you do decide to go ahead with one of these things be sure to let me know first. I've got this land in southern Louisiana I'd like to sell you.
We hope you like this and mark us here 
(1) Lots more about AdBlaster at Capital Region People
(2) A zombie is a computer attached to the Internet that has been compromised by a security cracker, a computer virus, or a trojan horse. Generally, a compromised machine is only one of many in a "botnet", and will be used to perform malicious tasks of one sort or another under remote direction. Most owners of zombie computers are unaware that their system is being used in this way.
Zombies have been used extensively to send e-mail spam; between 50% and 80% of all spam worldwide is now sent by zombie computers.For similar reasons zombies are also used to commit click fraud against sites displaying pay per click advertising.
Zombies have also conducted distributed denial of service attacks, such as the attack upon the SPEWS service in 2003.
Hello Susan-
The whole BIAM thing is very intriguing- and extremely frustrating! Can't seem to login to any information. What's the secret? Another vein that is somewhat related is the exchange of places to visit in exchange for whatever. Has anyone heard of "couch-surfing"? My recently college-graduate went through Europe, is going to San Diego & Boston staying at couch-surfers & in turn offers a place to stay for other surfers at her place. I assume an under-30 venue. But what about "studio-surfing"? Artists open up their studios & an extra bedroom to other artists in exchange for same? Whaddaya think? Anybody out there interested? I know I am!
Posted by: Pat K. Thomas | June 28, 2006 at 09:22 PM