10Bux Back

The 10Bux site is now back up and running. However, all existing payment requests were cancelled, and a new system introduced.

New payout system: the payout pages will be open whenever the administrator of the PaidClicks Network is online, for a few minutes, several times per day. This way the accounts will be audited right after that, and the payments will be sent, via PayPal or AlertPay, much quicker, usually within a few minutes after the request. All pending payouts have been refunded. This solution may not be liked by everyone, but this was the best way we found to be able to send payouts in a lightning fast time, one of the main things which turned the PaidClicks Network in a respected and well-known company in the PTC business for much time, since our beginning almost a year ago.

Can't say I really like the idea. Although prompt payment is good, the chance of being online during the few minutes that you can cash out every day could be pretty small, especially if you're in a substantially different time zone.

Quiz Me Approved

I'd been waiting for some time to get Quiz Me approved at MochiAds, but it turned out it was approved very quickly, I'd mistaken the distribution approval for ad approval. It hasn't been approved for distribution yet, due to a weird problem that means the questions don't load on some installs unless the full local path to the questions file is added in the game. I'm looking into it.

Meanwhile, as well as adding it on Kongregate, I've also added it to my Games Portal and my Flash Games Site here: Quiz Me.

If I can get this bug sorted out, I'll get it distributed more places, at some of the portals, and via the phpBB Arcade and Amod

Another Game Added to Kongregate

I added another Flash game, UFO Assault, to Kongregate. It's a game I made a while ago, and I made a couple of improvements to it before adding it. Hasn't been rated as well as Quiz Me though, only receiving a rating of 1.56 so far. Various comments, some useful like:

the turning is insanely touchy. The shooting is annoying - need to be able to shoot multiple shots. Pressing again should not cancel out your previous shot.

which gives me some ideas for improving the game. Some less than useful like "suckage" which isn't helpful at all. Still, can't get annoyed when someone who is probably pretty young posts something like that.

On the plus side, Quiz Me's rating is now up to 2.03, which means it will now be visible in the lists. Could do with being higher, just to be safe.

Kongregate Update

My Quiz Me game has been now been reviewed the necessary 75 times. Unfortunately, it only got a rating of 1.97. A rating of 2 or more is required to show up in the various lists available. The game can still be played, but it's less likely that that will happen unless its' rating improves slightly.

There have been 239 ad impressions from the games played. At 35% share that's $0. I need the game to be played more often, so I'll have to see if I can improve it, then get some more people to play and review it.

Quiz Me added to Kongregate

I've added the Quiz Me Flash game to Kongregate, a games portal that shares ad revenue with developers. The game has already been played several times, although I don't know how well it will do in the long run. Will be interesting to see what sort of revenue it makes from this site.

10Bux (hopefully) Back Soon

I visited the 10Bux website to see if it was still gone, and found this message posted there:

Hello.

We're finally coming back.
After a few days with DDoS attack problems, we had to dump our former host (Liquid Web) and find a new one, which could offer us some protection for those kind of attacks.
It wasn't an easy task, as those companies offering DDoS protection have outrageous prices, but we finally found something worth a try.
We will keep the websites shut down for a few more days, to correct some bugs and add new features which we're sure you will like.
We want to be fully operational at the moment of our return, so if you have patiently waited until now, I'm sure you don't mind waiting a few days more to see some improvements. :)
Premium members and banner advertisements will, of course, have their expiration dates extended.

Our expected return date is Sunday, September 21st. Until then, stay tuned!

Best regards, the PaidClicks Network administration.

Seems they're not permanently gone after all. For some reason, these type of sites seem to suffer from a lot of attacks against them

MochiAds for Publishers

I was looking into all the features at MochiAds and found MochiAds for publishers. This enables webmasters to add Flash games to their sites, and get paid for people playing on them.

I'm adding the games to my Flash Games Site and Games Portal to see how they perform.

Monetising Flash Games

I have previously made and distributed some simple Flash games to use as viral advertising for my games portal, mainly for use with the phpBB2 arcade and activity mods. Recently, I discovered that you can add advertising in games, such as MochiAds, and get paid for the impressions generated.

I've just submitted a game to them for approval, and I'm going to give it a try. The game is a simple trivia game, and, unfortunately, I was unable to use some of the options available due to my copy of Flash being second hand and about four years old. I also can't tell what earnings per hour this would work out at, as I never made a note of the total time spent on the game. I'll start doing so in the future, although not for the couple of games I'm working on currently.

Still, it's stuff I would have done anyway as part of my site promotion, so it's bonus money anyway. It will be interesting to see what happens.

10Bux Gone

The 10Bux site has been down for quite a while now, so it's probably gone too. I've had to resubmit my cashout requests to both Bux3 and World-Bux, presumably due to the sites being hacked. It's pretty annoying, even if it's not their fault, to have to go through the whole process of waiting several months yet again.

Yuwie August Earnings

Yuwie earnings for August are now in. Total earnings were $0.12, mostly from referrals.

AdSense Referrals Gone

Well, Google's AdSense referrals program has now been discontinued, so I've removed the gadget from the blog layout. Still unsure why they stopped it, or whether it's going to be replaced with something.

e-gold Hacked Again

I posted some time ago about my dislike for e-gold because you have no recourse if your account is hacked. Well, the first time it happened, I specifically opened an e-gold account to keep most of my money in. I don't use this account anywhere else, and it's supposed to send out a pin request if your IP address is different from the previous time you logged on.

I've just checked this account, and someone still managed to break into it and empty it, this time to the tune of $18.85. More money gone with no recourse. As a payment processor, e-gold is totally useless and unsecure. DO NOT USE IT.

myLot August Earnings

myLot earnings for August are now in. Total earnings were $4.46, below the $10 payment threshold. Hopefully, this will be passed by the end of September.