Update 12/9/10: Red Alert! Readbud IS a SCAM! It’s official - see PTC Investigations for full report.
I was excited about the prospect of Readbud as indicated in previous posts. It was fun to read the articles and I was making about $1 each day. Not a windfall by any means but worth the time it took. Payout doesn’t happen until you but $50 but I figured I’d be there in about 2 months. Then things changed. And not for the better!
A few weeks after signing up for Readbud, the articles dried up. Instead of getting 12-14 each day, I was getting less than 5. I noticed right off that the Google Adsense ads were gone. I had wondered if Readbud was violating Google’s terms of service and had even questioned them by email. It’s unclear whether they decided to discontinue Google Adsense of whether Google pulled the plug – but I strongly suspect the latter. Anyway, things haven’t been the same since. Instead of accumulating about $1 each day, I’m lucky to make a quarter. So payout is coming much more slowly!
Well, this morning the service is unavailable. Yep – a 503 error. Never a good sign. And they supposedly just moved their service to the US for more stability. I guess that didn’t work out as intended. As I recall, they’ve been down a few times before so maybe this isn’t a dire sign but it sure makes me wonder. I’ve been giving Readbud the benefit of the doubt during their lengthy transition but maybe my optimism was misplaced.
I just signed up with ReadBud in the past few days since learning of it. I've had maybe a dozen or so articles per day. There's the times when there's quite a few back to back and then none at all. I saw the 503 Error too. I don't like the inappropriateness of some of the ads, and the high payout threshold concerns me. Mechanical Turk's is only $10 and Cloud Crowd doesn't even have one. I'm wondering if I'll ever see my first $50 or any beyond that, but I do love to read and the articles are quite good.
ReplyDeleteI really like your blog and I'd love to keep up on new posts, but I don't like readers and I don't see a Subscribe Via Email widget. Maybe it's there and I'm just not seeing it. If not, could you please-please add one? Here's the directions:
ReplyDelete1. Go to http://feedburner.google.com/
2. Add your blog if it's not there and click on your blog name.
3. Click on the Publicize tab.
4. Go to Email Subscriptions in the left-hand column.
It's easy. Just go to the middle of the page and choose Blogger. It will insert the code for you. (If you want to move it to a different location on your blog, you can't move anything around from here. Just go to your Layout page in BlogSpot from the Dashboard and you'll be able to move it from there.)
If you want to see what the widget looks like, there is one on my blog.
If you have a spare moment and could drop me a line at my email in my profile or just reply to this comment and let me know that you've added it, then I can subscribe. (Oh, and I would've sent this via email to you, but I didn't see a link in your profile, so feel free to delete this comment since it is extraneous to the post.)
Well, the good news is that Readbud is back up this morning. Interesting, Victoria, that you're getting a dozen or so articles each day - lends credibility to the speculation I've seen elsewhere that they reduce the quantity over time to delay payout. I got seven today, which seems to be the max for me recently. I have noticed that some of the articles I read and rate don't seem to take and are in my history without payment credit. So after reading the last article in each session, I go to history and make sure I was credited for each and then re-rate if necessary.
ReplyDeleteAs for the ads - I really have no interest in Russian girls or supercharging my income through PTC. There was an ad for Geico today but as I'm not in the market to change insurance companies, I didn't click. It was refreshing, however, to see a real ad for a real company that provides a real service. Maybe this is a good sign of things to come?