THE BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE PAID AUTOSURFING

July 7, 2007

There is no doubt that the paid autosurfing became one of most popular earning programs in the Internet. But do we really know when and how this industry was created? In this article I would tell about the birth and development of the paid autosurfing from the very beginning.

It would be difficult for any person to say exactly when the autosurfing community came to be, however, we can point out that the autosurfing was born about 4 years is right. Through its relative short history, the paid autosurfing industry has had enormous number of problems.

Traffic exchanges, at least while in their infancy, would never have proven adequate for any business greater than an SME (Small-Medium Enterprise) or the affiliate marketing workforce to utilise as an effective method of marketing.

The idea of the creation of this industry was simple, namely, the idea of providing a service by which webmasters could “drive” visitors to their sites and thus help increase their search engine rankings based on quantity of visitors.

Therefore, this usually translates into a rise in sales providing the rest of ones’ website marketing strategy was working effectively because a visitor actually gets to see what your website looks and sounds like instead of just a description picked up by the engine spiders. It is a much more interactive experience providing very real exposure.

Speaking about the birth of the paid autosurfing, in the very beginning there was very much an atmosphere of reserved anticipation. It took only six months or so for one “industry-leading” traffic exchange to amass around 10,000 members.

Certainly, the spirit of free enterprise, competition and perhaps a little opportunistic greed help to open and develop the first “proven” paid traffic exchange. They were the first to take advantage of the market demand for more opportunities to earn cash for surfing and were largely responsible for giving the industry a much needed exposure boost.

However, there the first problems began. First of all, the absence of any formal regulatory or governing created a virtual cesspool of scam-like paid-to-surf webmasters. Some went into business with the full intention of collecting members’ upgrade cash and then vanishing soon after while others proved to be poorly organised, highly incompetent and completely devoid of any business management knowledge, much less experience. As a result, the webmaster would become increasingly difficult to contact, much less give his/her members the courtesy of an explanation for the silence.

The community recovered confidence when some of those legitimate webmasters neared 12 months in operation. It had to be quite a “baptism of fire” for some of the smaller sites as they became targets for hackers, extortionists and a sometimes hostile membership that usually only wanted to generate a reliable source of income.

Furthermore, webmasters began to realise the full effect of the many hidden costs incurred in operating an autosurf program. More often than not, site policies were geared towards allowing the maximum level of earning capacity for each member as possible, rather than ensuring that enough revenue was being generated and withheld in order to make monthly payout commitments.

We can say that the greatest short-coming of most autosurf programs is that they rely too heavily on new members joining with fresh upgrade cash to fund the payouts. This practice skirts dangerously close to the textbook definition of a Ponzi scheme.

Issues arising from the complexities of dealing with such a large number of autosurf programs and an ever swelling community were gradually addressed during the months following the industry’s birth. Some more innovative webmasters found ways to channel the collective opinions of the membership into targeted discussion forums and information/evaluation sites about the operational state of autosurf programs and the state of the industry in general.

Furthermore, speaking about the history of the paid autosurfing, the second year emerged disastrously with many high-profile programs folding under the weight of a highly expectant membership base (compounding terms being widely utilised to full effect) and the untimely collapse of several larger, higher percentage paying and therefore riskier HYIP’s etc that many PTS webmasters had a tendency to invest members funds into. Predictably, having a “domino effect” on the PTS industry this way caused many members pockets to become deeper.

As one might expect, a now highly anxious membership base was now more vigilant than ever with their upgrade cash, however, some adventurous surfers soon fell for the “discounted” upgrade offers made by some webmasters. Some of these “bonuses” were only a final attempt to seize some new upgrade cash before closing their doors without warning.

Now, with new leaders emerging as industry “favourites”, it seems some shine has rubbed off some of the “old guard”. There has even been a gradual move away from the traditional “1% for 365 days” autosurf program model to higher percentage paying (but lesser days of valid upgrade) sites that while on the surface may seem to carry greater risk, but are proving they really are no riskier than traditional models on a community wide basis.

With nearly 500 active programs at the time of authoring this, the Autosurf Industry by most learned accounts, would most likely be considered to be in a prosperous upward trend as popularity gains at present time.

Undoubtedly, there will be more turbulent times ahead as the community struggles desperately to gain acceptance, recognition and reputation throughout the Internet whilst working closely with each other to identify, deter and expose those would-be thieves who view the community as easy prey for their larceny.

Posted in Autosurf, Strategies & Articles