Six reasons why StudioTraffic was a Success! Make money online, HAH!

A little more than a year ago I made an entry about Studio Traffic, about how such business have no solid base and can't make no money. Today, I just found out that the website itself dissappeared and turned into something called myFileHut.com that offers free image and file hosting. How oddly obvious?

Curiosity and procrastination has brought me into Googling the latest news. Secretly laughing out loud inside repeating "Told you so". So anyway, I digged up some rather interesting news (and somewhat odd).

For those of you who doesn't know what StudioTraffic is, here are some quick links.
http://www.studiotraffic.co.uk/ - A Uk website with some pretty good coverage of the aftermaths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studiotraffic - A pretty messy explanation, loads of grammars mistake as if it was done by some pretty unstable members of Studiotraffic who had their money stolen.
http://www.answers.com/topic/studiotraffic - A very good overview of the whole StudioTraffic. You should read this if you have no idea what I'm talking about until now.

Doing a trend-region study on Google return this interesting details. It appears South East Asian countries are the worst hit.

I don't know how to say this, but really. How can anybody be so stupid? I know I've probably asked this more than a million times, but I can only think of these:

1) Making money online is so COOL. - It's easy and you don't even have to leave your house. You can even make money in your underwear.

2) The so-called "John Horan" was very CONVINCING. - Okay, I got to admit to this one because I actually took the effort to study it's business model after reading his writings. He has a way of selling himself that even my mom would buy without second thoughts.

3) They don't know how to do MATHS. - The only reason I didn't believe this "scam" has everything to do with my mathematical ability and has totally nothing to do with my common sense and/or instincts (which I'm terrible at). As mentioned in my blog entry a year ago, I calculated using complex calculations (brag) and advanced numbering series (brag) along with Euler's partial differential equation (brag) the amounts of money involved in this business structure (brag) and it's flow patterns (brag). And then I compared them to what "John Horan" has said, it didn't made any sense at all. See, Maths is for love and not hate.

4) Strong StudioTraffic SUPPORTERS all over the Internet. - this has to be one of the most fascinating thing that I've ever come across (I'm still very impressed). A big supporter / fan / cheerleader club for a SCAM website. Anybody who initially regard it as a scam would believe it's real if so many people are defending it. It goes with the saying: "If everybody believes it, it's bound to be true!" It's like religion.

That's it, its' a religion.

5) The power of WORD of MOUTH. - "John Horan" obviously played the game very well, I'm not entirely sure how but I've received many recommendations from friends and relatives. They came to me only to be dissappointed when I told them it's a scam (having to explain with graphs and diagrams (brag)). I think this says a lot about building a network-based business. See, POWER of Networking!
6) They are Young, Naive and Ambitious. - As opposed to old, lonely and seeking attention. I might be wrong here but I'm pretty sure nobody will easily believe this form of scam again.

Well, I guess the supporter (part 4) can be reasoned by people who have actually "invested" some money and really can't bare to realise that they have been cheated. It becomes a sensitive issue and they form a cult-like army.

I know whatever I say here may potentially offend many especially those who have been faithful to the programme. I can't help but feel sorry for them (and writing this entry). A little community service brought to you by me.

Tags: studiotraffic, studio traffic, scams, ponzi scheme, make money online,

Easy Money Making Scheme

The internet is a very dangerous place. Many have said that, and I agree. But after yesterday, I can't agree more than ever before.

THE INTERNET IS A VERY DANGEROUS PLACE!

Mark that into your subconcious, always use common sense when you find some new information. Double checking if your research returns a solid answer. Sometimes, even being cautious isn't enough. I've been digging some valuable resources for the past few days. When I say valuable, I mean information that is hard to find and mostly not of interest to the majority of public.

Through a link from one of the blogs around. I learned of Blog Explosion, and it's power to increase traffic and exposure of your blog. Blog Explosion serves as a Click Exchange Programme, making you surf through other blogs on the internet, and grand you with Internet traffic from other bloggers who, like you hopes for exposure and traffic for your blog. Blog Explosion seems harmless, though you might risk getting your computer infected with viruses or trojans brought in by certain anonymous blog sites that you surfed.

Initially, I thought. Who would have thought of such ridiculous yet succesful (in demand) method of gaining internet popularity? And worked it out as a form of business? Surely, it'll not survive long.

Then I came across MyBlogCafe.com, a new weblog directory websites, serves as a brand new blog community. The webmaster and I had a short email conversation, and from there, I learned of StudioTraffic. The name of the website sounds professional, and the layout seems like a reputable company. I soon learned that, this is some what similar to BlogExplosion (BE). (And I thought the webmaster of BE would be some brilliant guy.) Since we know all this is mere copy cat.

Studio Traffic (ST) brings traffic to your website, not restricted to blogs. It claims that by surfing 200 webpages per day, you'll earn 1% of what you invest in them. (means you'll need to dig out some small amount of money) So, 1% may seem to be a small amount, so small, it's pretty worthless. But if you were to put the amount in days, within 3 months, you would have earned back the amount of money you put in, and within one year, you would have 4 times the amount of money in your account.

I read through the explanation over and over again (who wouldn't when you found some easy-money-making scheme?) It didn't occur to me in the first place that this is money-making-scheme in the first place, at all. Althought I'm not desperate in cash, it does interest me. Who doesn't?

The FAQ was written in terrible English, and the method of explaning the whole process are pretty unclear and to me, very immature. It reminded me of the days when I visited some direct-selling friends. Very enthusiatic, but baseless.

Like I said, I thought that it did not occured to me as a money making scheme in the first place. I have a reason for this. As some of you may know, I have been participating in Google Adsense. Google's text advertisement, like the one above. I learned from there that, certain advertising companies, like the banner at the very top of this page, earns revenue through the number of times it's being displayed. That's how blogdrive survives, through hits. (damn phases says hits doesn't matter, though i doubt you'll be reading this, bleh)

StudioTraffic bring hits to your website, increasing the number of time your banner is displayed. It's cheating, no doubt. But it also explains where their source of revenue is coming from, and hence able to explain the 1% generousity.

Wait, it still didn't make sense to me. If you put in $10, you'll get back $40 per year for 365 days(though according to StudioTraffic, you get more, but let's not get in to that). Now, that's nearly 4 times what you invest, and all you do is, surf 200 webpages per day.

You may think that $40 is not a lot of money. Now think again, with $1000, you'll get back 1% each day, in one year, you would have recieve 4 times more money than ever. You could have paid of your internet fees, bought a new hardware upgrade and more just by doing this. Is it true that advertising companies are really paying that much to these websites for hits?

Obviously not. I run another search on google, and I found this. It explains all.

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Now that I know it's a scam, and that it isn't something that comes that easily. I thought of BlogExplosion, I thought of the forums I visited, I thought of Adsense. How do you know if any of this is another hoax? It looked so promising, and it was recommended by a (somewhat) friend.

The other thing that really scares me is, the forums. I visit many forums every now and then, including webmasterworld. And many times, forums poster appears to be the same person, with a different name and location. All with the same message. There are certain things that bring out the desire of more and better wihtout much efforts.

And they worked.

What's more alarming is that, they are based in Malaysia. With a very large community whom responce to such greed.

http://www.studioreview.dk/