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| What AllAdvantage say:
Every day, AllAdvantage.com's revolutionary Viewbar™ service generates cash for our members. As of today, we're paying members in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and various US Territories to surf the Web with the Viewbar™ service, and we'll keep adding more and more countries.
How Payment Works
We pay you for the time you spend actively surfing the World Wide Web using the Viewbar™ service, as well as for the time your direct referrals (people who mention your member ID when they sign up) spend online and for the time your extended referrals (people referred to AllAdvantage.com by your direct referrals and people
referred by your direct referrals' referrals, etc.) spend online. There is no limit to the number of referrals you can get paid for.
Currently you get paid for 25 hours of active surfing a month with the Viewbar™ service. As member support for our sponsors grows, we'll be able to increase our monthly paid time: we're targeting 40 hours a month!
We mail you a check once a month—in your national currency—unless your balance at the end of the month is less than US$20, in which case the balance is rolled over to the next month. As you surf the next month, your earnings are added to the rolled-over balance.
You're paid for your referrals' surfing time with the Viewbar™ service active, up to the amount of time that you actively surf. Here's an example (using US currency for the calculation):
For the first 25 hours you're online using your Viewbar™ service:
You're credited $.50 per hour.
For the first 25 hours each direct referral spends online using their Viewbar™ service:
They're credited $.50 per hour.
You're credited $.10 per hour.
For the first 25 hours each extended referral spends online with their Viewbar™ service:
They're credited $.50 per hour.
The member who referred them is credited $.10 per hour.
You're credited $.05 per hour.
Extended referral credit expands through four levels.
| You |
Direct Referrals |
Extended Referrals (1) |
Extended Referrals (2) |
Extended Referrals (3) |
Extended Referrals (4) |
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Hourly rate you're paid when your referrals are online:
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| $.50 |
$.10 |
$.05 |
$.05 |
$.05 |
$.05 |
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UPDATE - September 2000
AllAdvantage have changed the 'rules' again and no longer pay as you surf unless you update your account details and you ask to remain in that program, or you elect to be part of the pay as you surf when you join.
Instead they will enter you into a daily draw but you are only eligible for the main prize of the draw for each day you actually surf for more than 3 minutes.
The choice is yours and you can have pay as you surf one month and be part of the draw the next month.
In brief:
- The sweepstakes (or draw) is held each day with a minimum guaranteed jackpot of $50,000. The winner wins half of the jackpot. 5 prizes of 10% of the jackpot are shared out to the eligible referrers of the winner.
- To be eligible to win the main prize you have to have been registered in the sweepstakes for that month and to have surfed for at least 3 minutes on the day of the draw (that your name has been chosen).
- To win a smaller prize (because one of your referrals won the main prize) then you need to have surfed for at least 3 minutes on the day of the draw or for a total of 15 minutes during the seven days prior to the day your referral wins the main prize. You don't have to be registered for the draw to win a referrers prize.
- The countries taking part are Australia, Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. The winner of the daily main prize would be one person from one of these countries. The odds of winning are not known and are dependent on the number of eligible people taking part.
- By the end of each month you will need to re-elect to be in the pay-as-you-surf scheme (they call it the alternative rewards program) otherwise you will be entered into the sweepstakes instead.
- Prizes that are not won (because a person was not eligible to win) are carried over sometimes to the next day and some to the monthly draw.
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UPDATE - February 2000
An upgraded Viewbar has been released together with new operating terms and conditions which existing affiliates are deemed to accept if they continue using their Viewbar. The main changes in the terms and conditions involve giving AllAdvantage.com the right to vary the rates they pay (as they now pay in different currencies according to their specified exchange rates this means that the amount you are paid per minute could vary); implementing rules that say you can not run more than one Viewbar on one computer and can not run rival Viewing Bars; and that there are varying age restrictions in certain countries (for instance if you are under 20 years old in Japan then you need your parents permission to become an affiliate of AllAdvantage.com) and that the service will not be available at all in certain countries. |
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A Case Study
- This was straight forward for us and took about half an hour to
do a final read through of all the site info and about four minutes to download the 2MB files needed. I did this on a Sunday when traffic was fairly quiet. I read in the newsgroups and other places about it taking some people a lot longer to download and for some it is impossible especially if your computer is not too powerful.
- Before signing up with this particular pay-as-you-surf affiliate program I had read a lot of users comments on various newsgroups, asked other current users what their experience was and visited the AllAdvantage.com website to read what was involved. General opinion seemed positive with the main draw back being problems with downloading. As I had already done quite a bit of homework on the subject I think that made it quicker to understand all the terms and conditions.
| How it operates on our screen |
- The AllAdvantage icon appears on your desktop and the Viewbar™ appears each time you are on-line. It is about 1" or 2.5cm deep and I initially found this to be huge on my screen - and I have a 17" monitor!
- The Viewbar™ can sit either at the top or bottom of your screen and sits outside your browser window on your desktop. The default is for the bottom but I found it much easier to cope with at the top of my screen. Within a short period of time, under an hour, I got used to the size and it didn't seem so big after all.
- The Viewbar™ can be minimized but if you do you will not be earning any money.
- As a surfer who rarely gets diverted by banner advertising or clicks on any banner links I actually clicked on three very interesting links within the first hour! From the advertisers view it certainly works - it got my attention.
 | The new View Bar with menu visible |
 | The new View Bar with menu closed |
 | The old View Bar |
Click on any of the above images to show the actual size of the Viewbar™ as it appears on a 17" monitor.
Yes, there is a curious grey chunk on the end which takes up space and is not used. This means that the View Bar has not been 'undocked'. Leaving the View Bar docked means that your other windows do not disappear up underneath the View Bar, which sometimes involves some fiddling to get at the menu bar of other windows.
The above image is half actual size and shows how the Viewbar™ appears on a 17" monitor in relation to the whole screen.
Updated 26 August 2000
- We joined on 26 December 1999 and earned $4.20 in December. In the first full month, January 2000, we earned the maximum payable by just surfing ~ $12.50 which gives a grand total of $16.70 which is rolled over to February as the amount was not enough for a minimum cheque ($20).
- During this period no-one signed up using our banner so there were no earnings from referrals.
- Since joining, AllAdvantage now pay in local currency to certain countries (see their website) including the UK. The income so far earned was converted into UK £.
- By the end of March we had 3 direct referrals and 6 extended referrals, although we have not earned any income from the extended referrals. Thank you to everyone who has signed up through Homeworking.com and thereby helped to provide some support to this free website.
- In early April we received a cheque for £18.31 representing earnings from 26 December 1999 through to about 15 March 2000.
- It is now August 2000 and we have just received a cheque for £21.23 based on our own surfing and 7 Direct Referrals and 7 extended referrals and we are still not receiving anything from the extended referrals. About 2 months ago we received a cheque for just over £20.
- We will keep updating this page to let you know how much is earned, when and how it is paid.
A copy of the March Statement
- To be fair - they do not hide this information, but I wonder if everyone bothers to read ALL the information provided.
- Having the Viewbar™ on your system means they monitor your surfing habits, where you surf and for how long. From this they can build up data about your interests, which they say they will use to direct relevant banner ads to your Viewbar™.
- Using this information they also say they may send relevant promotional emails. However, they also stress they will not pass the information on to any third party.
- You have to earn $20 before you are paid, but the amount is rolled over each month until you reach $20. If you do not do much surfing and do not live in the US you may never earn enough to get paid and may lose up to half your cheque in bank fees. Update 20 February 2000 - AllAdvantage.com now pay in the currency of your country if you are in Australia, Canada, UK, France, Germany and NZ and give the exchange rates which are comparable.
- At the other end they will only pay you for the first 25 hours you surf each month. Update 26 August 2000 - In the UK it went up to the first 28 hours and has now come right down to the first 18 hours. The UK hourly payment rate is slightly higher bringing it back to a comparable rate with the US. [End] They pay you 50 cents per hour x 25 hours = $12.50. That means surfing alone will not earn you a monthly cheque! You will need to recruit others.
- If you don't do much surfing yourself, say 5 hours per month, but manage to recruit many others who each surf 25 hours per month, you will only be paid commission on the same number of hours that you surf. In this case, 5 hours per month worth of commission for each person recruited and so on.
Updated 10 Feb 2000
- A homeworking colleague in the States has written to tell us about their experience in September last year "sometimes the banner would not show up when I was site-jumping. At other times, it would be there one minute and gone the next. Not one "red cent" was ever forwarded to me for having the thing turned on when I was on-line. I contacted them and was told that they were still working out the kinks in the system and, although I had their welcome letter from my eMail, they had no record of any account with me (or the two referrals who had signed up under me). I hope things have improved drastically." Not surprisingly they did not persist with a pay-as-you-surf scheme.
- AllAdvantage.com have a strong anti-spam policy and will cancel the membership of anyone found spamming. This means that any member found posting blatant ads in newsgroups and sending out unsolicited emails encouraging people to join will not be tolerated.
- At any time you can check how much you have earned and keeps track of the number of members you have signed up. As part of its privacy committment, they will not tell you WHO has signed up, merely the number.
- Each minute you spend on-line with your Viewbar™ operating is calculated towards your monthly total.
- The AllAdvantage.com website provides useful resources such as template emails, business cards or posters you can give to friends and associates. But you are warned not to spam.
If, after reading all this, you want to become a member of AllAdvantage.com then please click on the banner below. If you decide to join up and do it through our banner then you will be helping to sponsor Homeworking.com ~ thank you for your support.
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