Pallavi is a third year engineering college student. Her father is a senior clerk in a bank. Pallavi has a computer and an Internet connection at home. She said, "I would like to earn some money to meet my personal expenses working from home. My father feels sorry that he is not able to give me handsome monthly allowance even though I am happy with what I have."
"That's a fine attitude," I said. She said, "But I warn you. I don't have any creative skills or money to invest."
"I always try to give solutions that do not involve outflow of money. Of course, you will have to work hard if you want to make money through the methods I suggest. I don't believe in shortcut routes," I told her and continued, "Do you know what a forum is?"
She replied, "According to Wikipedia an Internet forum is a web application for holding discussions and posting user generated content. Internet forums are also commonly referred to as web forums, message boards, discussion boards, electronic discussion groups, discussion forums, bulletin boards, or simply forums. The terms "forum" and "board" may refer to the entire community or to a specific sub-forum dealing with a distinct topic. Messages within these sub-forums are then displayed either in chronological order or as threaded discussions."
I said, "There are tens of thousands of forums on all sorts of topics. Most people that visit these forums want to receive everything without giving back anything to the community. It is impossible for the webmasters to add content to the forums and maintain them. Besides only if people with different backgrounds make posts, discussion becomes meaningful and interesting. To encourage people to contribute to the forums and also moderate the discussions, usually webmasters allow the members to display a short message just below their names in the posts they make."
"Can you please tell me something about posts?" Pallavi asked and I explained, "A post is not a long creative story or a research article. A meaningful post is just a few helpful lines that answer questions from other members. Even if you don't know about a topic you can search the Internet and come up with a reply. If you are good in typing you can make 20 posts an hour. In a few months you will own thousands of posts and the value of your posts will be high. For example, if you make a certain number of posts and prove to be a valuable asset to the forum, you can display below your name Pallavi, a message that promotes your service, your product or your website. You can even use this space to advertise third party products and take money from them. In other words you can rent out your signature space or even sell it!"
"It's interesting. Who will buy my signature space?" Pallavi asked.
I replied, "Every businessman who wants to promote his products will buy the space. For example, you join a big forum on web hosting. Every day thousands of people that are interested in buying web hosting account visit this forum to discuss about various vendors. If you join this forum and start making meaningful posts as per the rules of the board, very soon you will be entitled to have your signature space. Because you have made many useful posts you will become a 'mini' authority on the subject and people will trust your words. Webhosting companies that want to sell their services will naturally like to make use of your reputation. They will pay you to put their logo or link just under your name and will pay for it."
"How much do they usually pay?" she asked in a low voice. I replied, "It depends on your reputation and the number of posts you have made. Generally depending on the industry you can expect anywhere from $10 to $25 per month. If you are a member of five good forums, you can earn $150 - Rs.6,000 - a month. The knowledge you gain when you interact with people will be a great asset. In addition, you will get a lot of new online friends that may offer you other types of paid work."
She said, "I love this idea. I will start working on it from today onwards,"
Pallavi informs me that she has joined six forums on mobile phones, web hosting and broadband, works for 2 hours a day and has already made 3,000 posts in less than 3 months. Even though she has not mentioned how much she is earning, Pallavi is pleased with what she is earning from selling her signature space.