As a reader point of view:-

The design of the website is very simple and clean. The page loading is very fast as it minimizes the usage of graphics throughout the website. It emphasizes on the contents rather than creating a fancy, complicated website.

All reviews are very specific to the reviewers’ experience and comments. Therefore, this is not a review site for you if you are looking for the descriptions or functions of a product/item, which you even won’t be able to find any photo in all of the reviews. All reviews are merely ‘reviews’ with a simple rating.

As a reviewer point of view:-

You can earn money by doing the following tasks:-

1. Writing review
Current Regular rate: US$2.00 (subject to change)
Bulk rate: 1/5 of Current Rate (US$0.40 varies according to the Regular rate)
Minimum Payout: US$50.00
Payment Method: Paypal

2. By referring others to write for ReviewStream
1% of Regular rate for each published review

3. Votes on each of your review
US$0.10 for each vote.
Minimum payout per review: US$5.00 (separate from the amount earned through reviews and referrals)

Frankly, it’s not that easy to earn through the 2nd and 3rd tasks as stated above.
• 2nd task: 1% of Regular rate = USD0.02. 100 published reviews from referrals = US$2.00
• 3rd task: You need to have 50 votes for each review in order to get paid. So far, I have never seen a review that has more than 25 votes.

Personally, I think that this is good source of money making opportunity for those that love to write and comment. You don’t have to care much on the grammar and quality of your review – just simply express your likes / dislikes and experiences. Furthermore, the categories of reviews that you can write are unlimited – your friend, your neighbor, your pet are acceptable.

I ever wrote for Review Stream for few weeks and got paid. You may wonder why few weeks – as I want to reach the minimum payout to test if it pays. Finally, it did paid and the payment processing took less than 2 hours. My experience with Review Stream is good You may need to understand their criteria and rules in order to continue to write, which are not being mentioned in the website FAQ. Otherwise, I guarantee that you will have many complaints and dissatisfaction.

1. Regular rate vs Bulk rate. Most of you may complain why most of your reviews are being paid in bulk rate (which is 1/5 of Regular rate) and you are pretty confident that the reviews are in good quality. So do I. I ever wrote a long, quality review on a game but got paid in bulk rate. Honestly, I felt very upset at that time and wrote to ReviewStream for clarification.

The following are the responses from Review Stream on the criteria for regular rate payment:

The criteria are variable and absolutely individual in every case. They depend (but not limited to) on the item by itself, the item location, current market conditions etc etc etc …

We’re interested in truly and, as specific as possible, reviews. Some items like food, books, movies, recipes etc. will be rated at a bulk rate in most cases. And the items like travel, hotels, electronics, computers etc. will be rated at a regular rate in most cases. The site by itself is not a money-making machine for the writers; it’s the place where people can share their experience.

In short, other than writing good reviews to get paid in regular rate, it’s affected by the type of items or/and category of your reviews you are writing. I personally have no objection on such arrangements as it allows reviews on anything not limited to the items/products available in the website. For example, you can write reviews on all movies that you have watched, no matter if they were being watched 10-15 years ago. It’s fair enough to get paid in bulk rate and $0.40 is not that bad.

2. Rejected reviews. You may even experience that your review is not rejected (not being reviewed) upon your submission of review. Please make sure that your review is at least 200 words.

Other than that, they will reject your reviews if they are not specific enough, means that there are more description of the products/items rather than your experience. One of my reviews about amusement centre was being rejected. Then, I revised it and resubmitted. It was being accepted and paid in regular rate.

3. Review Processing Time. I’m a bit frustrated to wait up to 72 working hours to identify the status of my review, especially when the review is re-submitted (another up to 72 working hours).

4. Original reviews. All reviews must be original, which has not being posted or published in other websites.

In summary, ReviewStream is a legitimate get paid to review website that PAYS its reviewers consistently.

You may click here to try to write your first review to ReviewStream.

Farm Town in Facebook, I could not tell how popular is this application but I can tell you that more than 90% of my Facebook friends are joining this game. It becomes one of the topics to be discussed daily:-

• What level are you in now?
• Oh my god! My crops have gone bad!
• Hey, I hire you to harvest in my farm tonight.
• What plants do you grow?
• Your farm is very nice.

Personally, I do not join this application. Why? Let me tell you the reason. Currently, I only have one computer at home and my husband spend most of his night daily in this game. Yes, he is addicted to the game. I have not started, thus unable to feel the addictive of this game. He even often calls his friends and asked “You have not online yet? I want to hire you to harvest in my farm; I cannot click you to hire you, please walk to the right a bit.“ Find it interesting - some friends that we seldom communicate each other but will contact each other either through phone or in the farm itself to talk about “farms”.

By looking at the application itself, I could not explain why this Farm Town is so popular. Why you join Farm Town? What make you still participate in this game after few months? To compete for level? To compete whose farm is the prettiest? Here‘re the answers from some of my friends:-

1. Don‘t know. My friend asked me to join. I told him I don‘t know how to play. Then, he taught me how to play this game. I just continue to play and interact with all friends that join this game.
2. My friends keep asking me to join。 That‘s how I join. When I have joined, I could not stop. Friends will call to remind me to log in to the farm and be hired to harvest their farms.
3. I want to be in the highest level among all of my friends.

Other than the farm town creator forum site, there are many other websites that are created specifically to discuss on Farm Town:-

• Farm Town User Guide
• Farm Town Hero - Cheats, Hacks, Tips and More
• Facebook: Farmtown Tips/Tutorial
• Farm Town - How-To Videos
• Farm Town Guide - All the latest Farm Town tips, guides, cheats, hints and news

Even one interesting to note is for those that are trying to be creative. In other words, are they get bored on the game and try to entertain themselves with a purpose?

• 3D Farm - a simple yet creative farm. I love it.

• Farm that is created for Michael Jackson. Looks not that nice but with a purpose. LOL.

Comments:

I cannot deny that this Farm Town (Beta) application is very successful; are they going to charge to use the application - we need to wait and see. Addictive - I don‘t think this is good for the users. They are spending their time in something that does not bring any benefit to them. They may debate that the time are being spent wisely in terms of relaxation and having fun with friends. As a wife of one of the Farm Town addicted users, I personally feel that my husband has neglected the communication with someone that are very close to him. My friends - please spend your time wisely. Otherwise, it‘s a great game. Enjoy your time in Farm Town.

Conflict of interests: It involves a lot of time, effort and investment to produce an album. It�s an entertainment business and what will happen if everyone stops to buy original music CD but download from Internet instead. Will this type of entertainment business survive in a long run? I believe that some of us will still buy the original music CD in order to support the singer and due to its good quality if compare to the downloaded format. In other point of view, most of us may question the reason to buy the original CD, which we can get it for free no matter on the quality issue?

Personal take: I don‘t think that the illegal downloads will stop until there’re no more sites that offer such downloads. I have one question regarding to the publishing of new music to be shared publicly - specifically for the first person that shares the file. What‘s the purpose for you to share the files to the public? You may need to perform any other conversion (if necessary) and upload the files in order for them to be available for download. Time spent - what do you get for this?

Here‘re the list of the websites that do offer Chinese songs download.

1. Coool - requires login.

2  Qihoo

3. Sogou

4.  Baidu

5. HaoTing

Some people commented that a blog is to be used if you always have fresh news with consistent updates because the posts in a blog are arranged by date. Otherwise, the posts will become “old newspaper” with no readers. You can search through the posts through Categories but they will be organized by date as well. I may agree and disagree on such statement but there’s no wrong or correct on any comments or recommendations. It highly depends on individual’s preference and the type of contents he/she would like to publish.

In my point of view as a reader, no matter if it’s a blog or website, my intention is to look for the information I’m seeking for. As usual, I’ll search through the most popular search engine, Google. I may sometimes browse through more than 10 pages of the Google results. When I open the specific website/blog from the search results, I’ll read through the contents and notice on the date (if any) if the information is case sensitive. The contents that are being posted today do not mean that they are current information but some information will not outdated by time. If you are visiting an outdated website with static information without disclosure of date, you do not even know if the information is current or outdated.

When I feel that the contents for the website/blog I visited are in a good and original quality, I’ll continue to look for other information in the specific site/blog. You may question on the word �original�. Sometimes, I get tired to browse for contents that are similar to each other. What a copy and paste. However, it’s somewhat difficult to look for some information in a blog with many categories. In such event, people recommend to use website for easy navigation with its theme-based contents. It may not the case as such issue can be solved by the Search option and an advanced sitemap. Just take a book as an example; you will never see a book without a complete Table of Contents and Index. Why? How can a reader look for perhaps a section of interest in a more than 1000 pages of a book? Just bear in mind that you may have limitation to incorporate this function if you are creating a blog under a free blog websites, unless you create your own blog website that you have full control on the design of the website.

Then come to a final stage of a discussion. What’s the purpose for you to have a website/blog with quality contents? So that everyone in the World knows that you are SOMEONE that has a useful and quality content website/blog? No, I bet more than 90% of them hope to turn them to a money making tool. However, how many of us really can write or produce high quality, original contents or information, except for those business websites?

•  
  • Do you have a website / blog?
  • What’s the URL?
  • What’s the purpose of your website / blog?
  • Any future plan?