Netizens for free money

It pays to pay a visit to newspaper website. I often get to read some interesting stories and then a new subject for this blog. Recently I read a good story and it really shook me from my roots. It was just my reflection and showed me clearly how I am one of the millions of netizens who are working hard for that decimal dollar figures.

The story was about how corporates are luring netizens by offering gadgets, lottery or prizes which are even sometimes worth crores of rupees. The most interesting part of the story was how netizens don't mind to give it a try.

Web2Corp’s ByIndia.com, India’s fastest growing search engine and social networking site, is now offering a free entry to a $ 5 million dollar sweepstake to new registrants to any of its properties. Indians in the country or UK, who sign up for a free account with ByIndia.com, will receive a virtual sweepstakes ticket. Another example a contest called "The Great Indian Blogger Hunt" by ibibo.com. This will search for India’s 100 finest bloggers, who will collectively get an opportunity to win Rs 1.5 crore. The only glitch here is that they have to blog only on Ibibo.

Netizensdo not mind using such sites to try their luck at winning something, as it just takes a couple of extra minutes on the Net, which isn’t too hard for any tech savy. Any ways internet is virtually free for techies and who doesn't like a break from routine office work. I recall a chain email saying microsoft & google are paying revenue share to forward a mail. The email used to include claims by techies from Infosys, Patni, TCS and similar big IT companies saying they received millions of dollars in their account by just forwarding the mail. and I used to think what's wrong in giving it a try. Anyways, I don't have anything to lose and it's good if it works. But fortunately I always cared about my friends' inbox & time and never spamed them with these mails. and wished if everyone would have thought about it.

The story shook me because I some where could relate myself with the mentality that was shared by some netizens in the article. Just to give it a try, we often register oursleves with the website. But I wonder, What these companies might be getting out of it? Well .. I believe ... Publicity ...marketing ...unique visitors... high monthly page views ...high rankings in Alexa or similar ratings...advertisers !! Sounds like a fortune.

With Google Adsense and YPN around, we can clearly see the number of web enterprenuers have increased tremendously. Each one of us want to pull a traffic .. get people click on the ads and earn some income. I am one of you .. but whom are we helping ... ourselves ??? Definately NO !! well ... no offense meant... because even I don't have an answer why we shouldn't be doing it. Someone please help !!!

- Mumbaikar