To Text or Not To Text?

Discussion in 'Gadgets & Tech Talk' started by Mal Campbell, Feb 25, 2015.

  1. Michelle Stevens

    Michelle Stevens Veteran Member
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    I haven't been brave enough to write for sites like Textbroker where you're dependent on somebody buying the articles you write. I started out at HubPages but found the going quite slow with the few articles I published there. A little over two years ago I joined Bubblews (which was part article writing and part socialising) and initially I really enjoyed my time there. They were paying $0.01 each per view, like and comment received and little as that sounds, it added up fairly quickly. I never did as well as some, but there were members making hundreds of dollars every month. Then things started going wrong with the site (long story) so I started looking elsewhere, but I don't think that format is actually sustainable, and I doubt I'll ever earn that kind of money for that kind of writing again.

    Of the sites I've tried, the one I'd probably recommend right now is HubPages. If you write articles that won't go out of date, you can go on earning from them for years to come. I sometimes think if I'd put the same time into HubPages as I did into Bubblews, I'd have been better off in the long run, but I get lazy when it comes to writing longer articles and Bubblews only required a minimum of 400 characters. That's a lot less than this comment!
     
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  2. Pat Baker

    Pat Baker Supreme Member
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    I try not to text but the grand kids text so I need to text them back to get a message to them. Twitter is confusing to me, I don't get it at all. To me in sales and not Tweet is unthinkable. Prospecting today is so different from when I started selling, you have to be on this site and then that site, more propecting is being done online today, I can actually do all my job on the phone and computer.
     
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  3. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    No! Just......No. End of paragraph.

    I guess I can't get away with that. It looks too much like I texted the post and since I do not like to text, why on earth would I make a post look like it? IMHO I think its k 4 smby else bt not 4 me.......huh?
    Actually it's a huge waste of time! If I wanted to try to read gibberish I would pick up a copy of O'Bama's health plan so I could really get involved in foreign looking English.
    A couple of ya'll ( that's southern texting for you all) said a little about the kids today. I sympathize with them for their lack of good teachers who should be teaching kids how to be cool with a notebook. And, how can a kid get caught passing a note to his girlfriend if they just text. There has to be a piece of paper and a pencil involved, not finger tips and a keyboard. Legacies are, after all, meant to carry on and not forgotten in the wake of some technological mumbo-jumbo. I can just see a young couple at the drive in movie (if there was one any longer) now days. The windows wouldn't be fogged up from anything except the heat that comes from 2 keyboards being heated up instead of.......well.......that might be a good thing if I remember right. )

    The truth of the matter is, I hate phones to begin with. Nearly every time someone calls me it's about something other than, "Howdy Bobby. Just thinking about you and I wanted to hear about your day." It's always, "what do you think about," or "I have a problem you can help me with," or "I need to borrow.......whatever."
    Since there is a slight paranoid streak in me, texting is just another way somebody can get to me without the phone actually ringing and then I have to decipher the dern message if I answer it when it dings at me. The crypto I took in the Army 43 years ago was less difficult and faster than texting. I'm sure the Russians are kept busier trying to decipher American texts than the Japanese and Germans were with the code talkers in WWII.

    So, back to my first statement... no. I do not read texts nor do I text. I can type at 100 or so words a minute, talk a thousand words a minute and text 1 word per minute. Hmmmmmm.....is there really a choice here?
     
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  4. Mal Campbell

    Mal Campbell Supreme Member
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    Thanks for the recommendation, I'll have to check them out. If you have a referral code, let me know, I'd be happy to use it. I'm not sure if I'm cut out to write, but would love to give it a try.
     
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  5. Michelle Stevens

    Michelle Stevens Veteran Member
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    I do have a referral code, but I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to use it here. I'd hate to break this forum's rules.
     
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  6. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Send it by private conversation.
     
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  7. Michelle Stevens

    Michelle Stevens Veteran Member
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    Thanks Ken. That's a big help.
     
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  8. Richard Paradon

    Richard Paradon Supreme Member
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    What I was told a long time ago was that if people could write articles themselves, they would not be buying them! Give it a shot and you may just surprise your self!
     
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  9. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    That's not true, though. I know others, like me, who writes content for others as well as buying it. I have a blog about the web directory industry and, while I write most of the articles for it myself, it is sometimes hard to think of something new that relates to the industry, yet I want to have a new article published at least once every three or four days. I frequently buy content and, although I usually have to rewrite it before I have something that I want to publish, it gets me past the slump and allows me to have several articles in the hopper so I'm not left having to come up with something at the last minute. Buying content also allows for another perspective.
     
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  10. Richard Paradon

    Richard Paradon Supreme Member
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    Thanks, Ken! I never considered that!
     
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  11. Mal Campbell

    Mal Campbell Supreme Member
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    Thanks @Michelle Stevens. I went to the website and it's kind of confusing. If you have the time, could you tell me how it works? You mentioned article size, what length are they looking for? How do you get paid and how often, do they use paypal? It sounds interesting. Any info you can give would be much appreciated.
     
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  12. Michelle Stevens

    Michelle Stevens Veteran Member
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    I suppose the most important things is that you need an AdSense account to earn anything at HubPages. That's despite the fact that they have their own earnings program too, which is a bit strange. I think they pay out once a month using PayPal, but only to those members whose balance is over $50. I don't often reach $50 because I've got very few articles published there, but some members get paid every month.

    These pages should help answer some of your questions:
    According to one answer in their FAQ, a good article is at least 1150 words, but I've published a lot shorter than that.

    If you've got any other questions that those links don't answer, please ask and I'll try to answer them.

    Oh, and if you don't have an AdSense account but want one, I can give you an easy way to get it too.
     
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  13. Teresita Campaner

    Teresita Campaner Veteran Member
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    I'm a late user of cell phone, i only started using one regularly starting last year. I bought twice but because i rarely use the unit, it ended to my children and i let them use them until last year when i was travelling and got lost. That incident made me see how important to have one if only to communicate to your family.
     
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  14. Mal Campbell

    Mal Campbell Supreme Member
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    Thanks @Michelle Stevens for all the good information. I'm not really sure what an AdSense account is, I've seen it mentioned other places, but I'm really in the dark about it. What is it and does it cost anything? Any information you can give me would be much appreciated.

    I did join the Textbroker that you recommended - I wrote a sample yesterday and submitted it, now I have to wait and see if it's accepted. They said it would take a week or so to hear back from them. I've never done anything like this before, so it's pretty scary. It would be really cool to earn a few extra bucks by writing - it's something I've always wanted to do.
     
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  15. Michelle Stevens

    Michelle Stevens Veteran Member
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    AdSense is a form of advertising. Once you have an account you can use it to place ads on your own blog, if you have one. There are also various sites, including HubPages, which will place AdSense ads on your behalf, and you can earn a little money if anyone clicks on those. It costs nothing to get an account, but Google don't give them out until you've got some content to prove that you deserve one, which is why I said I'd have to tell you about the easiest way I know to get one if you decide you need it.

    I wasn't the one who recommended Textbroker as I've never had the courage to try it. I wish you luck there. Please let me know how that works out as I might like to try something like it in future. I'm not sure whether they accept South Africans or not, but there are sites of the type that do, so I might have to look around if I ever pluck up the courage to try selling my articles.
     
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