Learning To Work Helium.com

I'm always on the lookout for sites that pay a person for their writings. I've found several, but not all of them are as wonderful as their made out to be. One of them is a site called Helium.com. I remember when this site first hit the Internet a few years back, and it had a lot of potential. It was designed so that people could post debates and answer questions.

Now, however, Helium.com is another news article site. You can still create debates and post on existing ideas, but the pay scale isn't all that great. It used to be that you were paid a set amount for your articles, but now you're only paid for incoming traffic. In the four months that I've been trying to make this site work for me, I've made a total of $0.04. Yep, that's right, 4 cents.

I do have to be honest here and say that I would probably have made more if I had added more articles. I've only done 7 articles to date, but I don't want to be one of those people who post simply for the act of posting. I don't know a lot about many of the topics, and the topics I do have knowledge about, already have a ton of posts on them.

I am giving Helium.com a real shot though. I can't say they suck without really giving the site a chance. I can say that I'm not impressed, but I still have to at least try to make the site work. Who knows, maybe I can figure out the formula and make a real go of it.

Joined a new social netowrk

I'm becoming totally addicted to social sites. Not sites like StumbleUpon or Digg, but sites where others can come together and hang out. Now, some sites are nothing more than glorified dating services, and that's not for me. I've joined a couple sites over the past week that I ended up opting out of less than 2 hours after joining. Why? Because every weirdo on the planet decided to come say "HI". Even when I posted that I was a happily married woman, they still kept coming. 15 of them in just over an hour. Screw that.

However, I've just joined a site called Gather.com, that is really a neat site. It's a really neat place for writers to get together and hang out. It's a place to publish your work, make new writing friends, join in writing groups, and a lot more. So far, I'm very happy about this place. I'm hoping it brings in some traffic to a couple of my sites, but even if it doesn't, it's going to be a nice place to get some writing ideas.

Come check out my page on Gather.com. So far, I've only added one story. But, I'm hoping to use the site to further my writing abilities. It's time I stopped pretending and got off my keester and did something for real. The only person I've got to blame for me not making any money with my writings is me.

TalkWhatever Recipe Contest

Hey ya'll. Just wanted to tell everyone about the really cool contest going on at my favorite forum, TalkWhatever. The site has just changed owners, and the new administrators are holding a recipe contest for people of all ages.

This contest will officially start next week and will run for 6 full weeks. There will be several categories, including recipes for Diabetics, low carb recipes, and things of that sort. Each week, the members of the forum will get to vote on that week's best recipe. In the end, winners from each week will face off for a paid family dinner worth up to $100.

As a member of TalkWhatever, I'm really excited about this contest, and others that will be coming in the future. I love a good contest, as I've said here many times, and the new admins for TalkWhatever are looking to bring some great contest ideas to the forum.

New ways of networking

I'm always looking for new ways of getting my name out there in the blogosphere. I've joined a few blogging directories, a couple social networks, and the occasional meet-and-great. I've had some success with a few of these places, but I'm still not famous. LOL

I've joined Twitter, and it's a ok place, but there are a lot of bugs and it seems that they spend more time down, than online. But, I still check them out, leave my little notes of non-interest, and read the stuff of others. But now I'm gonna try a new place I've been hearing about called FriendFeed.

I've only been using FriendFeed for a couple of days, so I can't really say whether it's worth the hype or not. But, it's free and that always grabs my attention. LOL. The thing I do like about the site is that I can upload all the feeds from all my blogs. Plus I can add my stumbleupon id, my digg id, and any others that I have, so my subscribers can see everything I'm doing.

I'm hoping that it brings in some new readers. I guess we'll see. LOL. If you've got either twitter or friendfeed, add me to your list. You can find me as sapheyerblu at twitter, and ChristineSenter at FriendFeed.