I rarely browse the non-marketplace forums at DigitalPoint, but this morning I found myself looking through the business section and stumbled upon a thread titled “why do you want to make money online?” A very interesting question. It made me stop and think about what my reasons are. Before I get into my own, I’m going to post a couple of responses from the forum members.

GrAveTzT said:

“I want to make money online because I don’t like my job or working in general. The working world is tough because there are so many people that I have to watch kissing butt or manipulating their way to the top of a company while I work like crazy. Good workers do not get anything in return. It’s the cute girl or some talky person who gets ahead. Its a horrible thing but happens everywhere.”

Nickswift said:

“so i can sit at home in my underwear.”

Toytown said:

“I do not have the capital to open a brick and mortar location yet. I want to be my own boss. I want to work doing something I am very passionate about.”

Chathura said:

“I am a married person. I have one child. I am working as a document controller. But cost of living is very high. So earning are not enough. So i need to make money online.”

So I wonder what the percentage of people who make money online for a living is vs. the number of people who make money online just for supplemental purposes? It’s clear though that not everyone makes to make money online just for financial freedom or they hate work a “real” job. Some people just want a little bit of extra cash to support a family. Or maybe just fun money.

Right now, I want to make money online so I can continue to live my current lifestyle. My online earnings do not support me. I do not need this money to pay my bills and buy groceries. I use it for savings and stupid luxuries we think we need. I feel similar to toytown above. I want to open a brick and mortar store someday and do not have the capital for it. I want to make money online so it can fuel other business opportunities.

From time to time, I’m looking for some free hosting accounts. I like to test websites on them to make sure everything’s ok before I move the sites to one of my dedicateds. You don’t ever want to clog up your dedicated servers with a ton of small websites that you may not keep. So I’m glad my buddy just launched a new Free Web Host.

It’s not just free web hosting for test sites, they offer a complete package that will support some pretty big sites. Check out what you get with your free account:

• 5 GB Web Space
• 20 GB Bandwith
• MySQL Databases
• CPanel
• 1 Domain Access
• No Setup Fees
• No Adds
• 24/7 Free Support

It’s hard to find all of that on a $25/month vps plan, let alone a free web host. One of the best things about My5GB Free Hosting is that they don’t put ads all over your webpages. The catch with so many free hosts is that they litter your webpage with pop-ups and annoying ads. My5GB doesn’t do that. You won’t ever see them put an ad on your website.

My5GB.com also offers several different means of support, including: Live chat with our support department, E-mail support, Ticket system, and a Support Forum. I’ve talked to their support in a live chat a couple of times just to test them out and they’ve always been helpful and committed.

Check out what other bloggers are saying out My5GB:

“Never knew the grass from free web hosts was that green! My cows gave the most wonderful milk ever! Hooray for the My5GB Team!” - John Cow

“My5GB.com hosting exceeded my expectations. Their service, and reliability proves they are the best free hosting choice, hands down. Hats off to the My5GB.com Team!” - Nate Whitehill

For anyone looking to get started in an internet business, I recommend checking My5GB out. You don’t need to spend a ton of money on hosting when you’re just getting started. Get some free hosting and you won’t be disappointed. If you still have questions about what My5GB has to offer, they have a complete FAQs page that will answer all your questions.

As if there isn’t enough government interference with what Americans do, here comes to government again trying to get involved in our internet business practices. This news could potential hurt anyone who makes money online, owns domain names or sell advertisements.

I received this email from the DN Forum staff. It’s kind of long, but well worth the read if you’re involved in this business.

Dear DNF members,

We feel it is our duty to bring this to light and make people aware of what’s happening. As you may have heard, Senator Olympia Snow (R-ME) has very recently introduced a bill that could threaten the future of the domain name industry and internet commerce. Snowe’s bill has been introduced as the “Anti-Phishing” bill, but contains provisions that are largely unrelated to these objectives. These provisions radically and unnecessarily expand the rights of trademark owners to essentially provide them with monopoly rights on registered trademarks. This would be to the detriment of millions of individuals and businesses engaged in lawful and legitimate Internet commerce.

If the bill passed through congress, it may allow large businesses to take domain names with little to no effort. Trademark owners already prevail in 85% of all UDRP complaints and nearly 100% of all ACPA cases. Yet some apparently now wish to establish a new regime for contesting allegedly “infringing” domains that is tilted even more in their
favor by denying basic due process and substantive protections to domain name registrants – and that provides the possibility that they can use their power and influence to sway public officials to expend taxpayer dollars in defense of private Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs).

The proposal unfairly targets domain name registrants for a widespread Internet practice  if it’s aim is to halt the advertising monetization of brand names and typographical variations thereof when consumers engage in direct Internet navigation or in web searches it utterly fails in that endeavor, as this activity is also engaged in systematically
by search engines, web browsers and ISPs.

We need to do as much as possible to make sure the bill is revised to serve it’s purpose of preventing phishing scams and not to bury domain name owners. Please sign the petition at http://www.SnoweBill.com to help in the fight and to review all portions of the bill.

Thank you for your time and attention in this matter. There are several big discussions taking place right now at http://www.DNForum.com - please visit the site and perform a search for “Snowe” to view the threads.

A great way to market niche sites is through Yahoo Groups. Yahoo defines Groups as:

It’s where people with a shared interest meet, get to know each other, and stay informed. Your group gives you instant access to:

• Shared message archives
• Photos and photo albums
• Group event calendars
• Member polls and shared links

Best of all, Yahoo Groups are free.  So how can Yahoo Groups be beneficial for your websites? Two ways: Traffic and Links.

Most Yahoo Groups will have a place for members to add their links. Adding your link to the Groups directory is free. It may not drive a lot of traffic, but it will give you an important relevant backlink to your site.

You can drive traffic to your website by posting messages in the Yahoo Group. Every time you post a message it will send out an email to all the members in the group. If you have an attractive sales pitch in the email, people will click your link and visit your website. Some Yahoo Groups have thousands of members, so you can imagine how much traffic a quality email can drive.

I’ve used this method to promote proxies sites in the past. I don’t own proxies anymore, but at one time I did, and was making a couple bucks a day with them. What I did was joined the top 10 biggest proxy Yahoo Groups and then submitted my link to them all and posted daily messages on the message board. People in these groups wanted access to working proxies, so by constructing an email targeted to them and their needs (fast, anonymous proxies), I was able to drive traffic to my site daily. If the group is big enough, you can post messages several times a day.

Yahoo Groups can be used for all types of sites. Automotive, financial, blogs, forums and more. Be creative and you will benefit from them.

As I write this email, I’m still awaiting my 1099-MISCs from 3 different ad companies. I’m not sure if the federal law states that we need to get them by January 31, or if they need to be post-marked by January 31. But it’s now February and I’m still waiting. It’s not like I’m dying to pay my taxes, but I just want all my tax papers so I can be organized and get it over with. Based on estimations, I’m looking to owe a couple thousand dollars in taxes because of what I made online. It’s not going to be fun paying that!

So far, I’ve received my 1099 from Google, Azoogle, and ValueClick Media. Google was the first to get it to me, and that was probably 10-14 days ago. Azoogle came a day or two later, followed by VCM on the 30th. I am still waiting for a 1099 from Yahoo and Adbrite. I’ve double checked my information with both companies, and my address is correct. Hopefully the mailman didn’t lose them!

I’m not sure if I’m going to file my taxes right away so I can get it over with, or if I should let my money sit in my high interest savings account for another 2 months and collect interest. Knowing me, I’ll do it right away just so it’s done and I can move on.

Anyone else still waiting for their tax forms?

A lot of webmasters use pictures on their websites. And a lot of the time they get copyrighted photos from Google Images or MSN Images. Most photos you find on the internet are not legally allowed to be copied and used on your website without the permission of the photographer. This is especially true for pictures of celebrities. Sure everyone uses pictures without permission, but that doesn’t mean it’s right.

There are places you can find legal pictures to use. Flickr is one of my favorites. They have millions of photos that a perfectly legal to use on a commercial website. Here’s how you find them:

• From the Flickr home page, enter your keyword into the search
• After you click ‘Search’ your results will come up
• From there click ‘Advanced Search’
• Next click ‘Only search Creative Commons-licensed photos’
• Then click ‘find content to use commercially’

Then all the results that come up after that search are able to be used on your website. The box you click that says ‘use commercially’ means that it can be used on a website with ads on it.

Another really cool website you can use to find Creative Commons photos is called Yotophoto.

So next time you’re looking for cool pictures for a website or wallpapers, check out the legal Creative Commons photos first. You may surprise yourself with all the high quality pics on Flickr that you can find.