Why Internet Ads Will Stop Working: Part One of a Two-Part Series

The heavily favoured internet advertising, whether it be search-engine ads, banner ads, pop-up ads or link ads, are gaining in popularity every day. They're flexible, dependable and proven to improve traffic- at least for now. Google, Yahoo! and some of the biggest tech corporations in the world run on the effectiveness of these ads and the massive number of people who use them. However, this huge number is the reason why the effectiveness is slipping.
In the world today, a lot of people are trying to get your attention. There are the pesky tele-marketers, the store managers and the CEOs, each wanting to take some benefit from you, possibly leaving you worse off than before. In the old days, if somebody wanted to chat, we'd quickly grant that request with a genuine trust and friendly spirit.
But these two crucial aspects are becoming endangered. People are now more aware and don't want to fall into any traps. They won't agree to anything unless they've digested all the information coming at them carefully. Still, sometimes this is not careful enough, leading some to simply stop agreeing.
And this is not without merit. Scams, lies, corruption and deception are profuse these days with everyone taking a shot at the big market of exploitation. Identity theft, hacking and viruses are just a few of the ways that we are cheating.
After this, comes awareness campaigns enforcing that people be heedful of any of these scams. The only problem is that sometimes people are a bit too heedful. They won't give anything a chance. In fact, they won't even click on a link.
That's the important part.
So many people are attempting to trick people that nobody's trusting anyone else, which could lead to disaster for the internet world. We've defined conditions in our mind for legitimacy that filter out even pages with some degree of decency. Is this fair? No when you consider the good sites but yes when you consider what can happen.
Moreover, our time is more valuable than ever now. We aren't willing to spare a single second with something that we don't immediately deem useful, making for a bit of a dilemma.
Plus, our knowledge and demands are getting higher by the second, we direct our attention to the left column with the actual search listings on Google and totally ignore any sponsored links.
So our love of taking advantage of others and need for wariness is going to bite us one day. The countdown has started and is limited. We'll never know when we'll lose our patience and the clock will hit zero.

Stay tuned for the next part of the series: How You Can Get Through.

One Rule You Can't Afford Not to Follow: Avoid Online Get-Rich-Quick Scams

In your life of web browsing, you probably have come across many "paid online surveys", "paid surfing", "paid to test products" and "paid to complete offers" sites and so have I. I had thought that one day, one of these get-rich-quick scams would actually work. But now I know better as my email inbox is being flooded with spam from these websites to the point where I get over 100 spam messages within a week.
Plus, I've wasted hundreds of hours looking these up and then trying them out to come to nothing. In fact, I haven't earned a single cent for my efforts, each time finding out in the end that it was all a huge scam. And it's quite disappointing when you've spent a whole afternoon completing offers only to find out that nothing really happens; it can ruin your entire day.
However, I haven't gotten to the point where I'm paying for these opportunities. And trust me, I've seen my fair share of these types of sites. They're the ones with half the page in caps and highlighted in yellow. There's multi-colored text and even a few videos "proving" that the system the site is promoting works. And then of course, at the end there are a few made-up testimonials and finally they ask for the bill. But this isn't where it stops: When you've made up your mind that you don't want to throw your money out of the window, and decide that you want to close your browser, there'll be an alert that pops up and asks you if you're sure you want to leave. Perhaps, accidentally, you press cancel. Then, they'll take you to an extremely irritating robot chat window.
I know though, that if I did give my credit card information to these guys, they not only wouldn't give me anything in return, they would likely steal my identity and begin charging my credit card. I've heard the truly sad stories of this happening.
Slowly, I've trained my eye to recognize these types of pages and immediately close them when I arrive. Here are a few criteria:

1. Pictures of models holding wads of cash
2. Testimonials of any kind (they're usually fake)
3. A profuse amount of emphasis (e.g. coloured words, highlighted words, all caps, bolded words)
4. Impossibly large figures (There isn't the slightest chance that you'll make $2,000 per week taking surveys)
5. Attempts at professional-looking web design
6. Made-up terms ("Constant-profit"? Doesn't that just sound fishy?)

So whenever you see something of this sort, make sure to consult your common sense before making any decisions that could just about ruin your life.