In the past year, I have spent six months away from the Internet: However, upon my return, I discovered that there were still some very lame Web sites going.
Now, my picks for the most horrible, annoying, user-unfriendliest sites around:
https://THEMESTREAM.COM - I joined this write-for-cash site not long after it started up. They were paying something like ten cents per member who viewed my work, and I actually got a check for seventy-five bucks out of them once. However, they only paid once per quarter, and only if you had accumulated a certain amount of cash in your account. Themestream was great because I could write about ANYTHING I wanted, and people would read it. However, it was a pain in the neck to edit my work, as the Themestream site was slow and, half the time, down. Plus, after spending six months in the Army, I returned to the Internet to discover that they had shut their doors due to ’’financial difficulties.’’ In other words, they went under and I wasn’t allowed to retrieve my work, as I hadn’t been near a computer in months.
However, what irritated me the most was that 1. I couldn’t get the money that was earned in my absence and 2. Just about all the Themestream users that I talked to in its infancy said that, if they had accumulated over something like three hundred bucks, Themestream deleted their accounts and claimed that they had somehow cheated in order to get all of those page views. So long, Themestream - it’s no wonder you went bankrupt.
https://BEENZ.COM - This was a great site years ago. The idea was simple: Surf the Internet through Beenz and earn points. It was sort of like a treasure hunt, in that you really didn’t know exactly where you were going to find the pop-up icon for your Beenz. Redeem your Beenz for great prizes - everything from Beanie Babies to dishtowels to...well, just about anything, as many Beenz users had their own stores on the Internet in which you could buy their wares with your precious Beenz.
It was a lot of fun at first, but eventually I lost interest: This, combined with the fact that a lot of Beenz were no longer available due to other peoples’ lack of interest, made it difficult for me to keep doing it. It was like, ’’Wow...no Beenz here either?!’’ I was lucky to get the Beenz that were on the Beenz.com site, MUCH less find them on advertisers’ pages! I wonder how much longer this site will last.
https://INFOSTRY.COM - This was another write-for-points site, but apparently it isn’t a responsive server at this point. I really enjoyed Infostry because they made it easy for you to collect points towards anything from portable CD players to a real-life, authentic cosmonaut suit that was actually used in space training. Okay, so how did we get the points?
We could write freelance - we could type out jokes, we could write music reviews...anything that held information. We added keywords, a title, and we priced the articles. Generally I sold dumb jokes for 10 points each, but you wouldn’t believe the number of people that would buy them! (Probably because I started the joke in the ’’Description’’ field and left the punchline in the part that users couldn’t view without purchasing the whole thing.)
Or, we could answer specific requests made by other users. ’’Hey, where’s a good place to buy a TV in the Dallas area?’’ Me: ’’Oh, I can tell you several great places - for fifty points.’’ It worked out beautifully for everyone involved, as membership was free and nothing was required save for a little bit of effort.
https://ETOUR.COM - You were supposed to earn a certain number of points every day (they limited it, of course) simply by touring different Web sites through ETour.com’s site. Yes, I collected the points, and I got referral reward points, but did I ever get the gift certificates I had earned? Of course not! I requested them, a confirmation was sent to my e-mail account, but I never saw a thing in my mailbox. I double-checked all of my account info, I wrote Customer Service, and I waited.
Still nothing.
Con job, or horrible service from the Post Office? I don’t know. But it still upsets me.
https://TALKCITY.COM - This was a great place to chat - about five years ago. Since then, it’s gone downhill. At one point we could use any IRC software we wanted to chat on this server: Now you have to either use their slow-as-molasses-in-December ’’EZTalk’’ Javachat, or you have to download and install a specialized version of pIRCh. Either way, it stinks because both of these programs are slow - that, and TCpIRCh has more advertising space than actual room for chat-related content. So, I’m squinting at a chat screen that’s about an inch and a half tall, wondering where the rest of the space went.
And, of course, the fact that TalkCity has paid rent-a-cops running around on the server to punt ’’the bad guys’’ is great if you’re a thirteen year-old whose mother worries about you. But, since I’m twenty years old and do not live with my parents anymore, I think I’m responsible enough to manage my own chat conversations. I don’t really need a City Standards Advisor running into a chat room and punting a fellow chatter - or even closing the room - because said CSA didn’t like the room topic. It’s sort of like being baby-sat, in a weird way. However, it’s great if you’ve got younger children - just remember to keep your eye on them anyway, as there are still private conversations that go unmonitored.
So, all in all, TalkCity stinks too. Oh, well.
Eventually I’ll have to edit this, as I’ll surely find sites that reek even more thoroughly than the above. But, for now, these are my personal Worst of the Worst - unfortunately.