May 12, 2008
The secrets behind NeoBux - interview
Visit
NeoBux website
Over
a week later of its launch, we catch up with Fernando, NeoBux’s
administrator to interview him about his PTC site. We discuss with him
all the hype in & about NeoBux to get an insight on what really is
happening.
UOB: So Fernando, tell us about
NeoBux's history.
Fernando: It was developed in 3 weeks and
presented in pre-registration about 7 weeks ago. It all started because
I felt that it was lacking many professionalism in terms of development
in other PTC sites. Too many clones but few offered anything else more
than the traditional click and earn process. So, I decided to create
NeoBux as a "proof-of-concept" application. Soon I came to realize that
many saw it as an innovation with all the features they needed on their
everyday usage of PTC. And then, NeoBux finally came to public.
UOB: 3 weeks? That's wonderful
considering the site as it stands today. Talk about the man-power and
the efforts that have gone into this site.
Fernando: The man-power is exclusively
mine. I began developing NeoBux everyday at night as a hobby. 3 weeks
later it was pretty much what you see today. I'm an application
developer for more than 12 years. I know how to think in application
terms and I have all those years of experience in my favour. The only
thing bought was the chat system and the live support. Everything else
is totally original
UOB: Talk about the new
demographics feature for the advertisers on the site.
Fernando: Every advertiser can have as
many advertisements stored in our database as he/she wants to. For each
advertisement, the advertiser can have a demographic filter or not. If
the advertiser chooses not to filter an advertisement demographically,
then it will be shown to all members.
UOB: Yes, you have thought about
the advertisers well. How did it come to you to have such a filter?
Fernando: The idea is pretty simple
actually. I live in Portugal which is a small country. So, if I had a
business only here and I advertised to the entire world, I would only
get a tiny percentage of possible clients on that advertisement. With
the demographic filter, I can be sure that everyone that visits my
advertisement page is likely to become a future client. And, with the
option of filtering up to 20 countries, I can expand to Europe, for
example. So, it's quite an advantage for the small advertiser.
UOB: Some members do not like the
idea of 'viewing ads by country' since they miss out on many ads. What
do you have to say about that?
Fernando: The only thing I can really say
is that this business lives off advertisements. And, right now, we have
half of the advertisements without a demographic filter.
UOB: Tell me about the other
innovations in brief.
Fernando: We have statistics. While the
online stats are just for information purposes, the referral statistics
show the referrer lots of information (and more to come) that are really
helpful. Also, I've made everything integrated. The login you make is
for the whole site, the chat and the forum. Also, the forum
configurations help with the chat integration.
The
anti-hacker system is also a (hidden) innovation. It differs from many
other techniques mostly due to the fact that if a hacker is caught in
any of the 47 security barriers implemented, he/she will get his/her
account credited but we won't take that click from the advertiser's
account. Also, and speaking in terms of security, we also have the login
pages and the user's account pages protected with an 256-bit SSL
encryption with more pages to come.
UOB: So you have taken care of the
cheaters very well.
Fernando: Yes, the cheaters are not
welcome here.
UOB: How are you able to accept
all countries as compared to other sites that just ban the entire
nation?
Fernando: We cannot start a racial or
international war here. I know the reasons others do so. But, I have
trust in the system and I do believe that others can overcome this with
more effort.
UOB: Now let's talk about the main
innovation, as far as the members are concerned, the Instant Payouts.
How did this idea come into being and how do you exactly manage this?
Fernando: The idea is to mimic how things
work nowadays. Everyone expects a clean and fast service. It's not a
question of managing... it's quite easy to do but very few others want
to do it like this. In terms of reputation it is good but it's also
great because I don't have to sit for hours doing manual payments and so
I can focus on developing
UOB: I see you're still working
out a scheme for selling, or rather renting, referrals.
Fernando: Yes, I am. Any user can rent a
referral. Basically, the user is only limited by his/her current
membership and the number of referral he/she currently has. The renting
is paid once per month. But, the user will be able to rent more
referrals as they become available at any time of the month just paying
for the difference in days until the due date. All inactive referrals
will be automatically replaced if inactive for more than 14 days. At the
end of the month, the user can choose the referrals to keep and re-send
the others into the waiting line again. The number of referrals
available will be divided through all the members according to their
member status. This way I will avoid chaos on the renting process and
give everyone their fair share. If any user doesn't want to rent their
share (or only a part of it), the process repeats itself after 24 hours.
UOB: Explain to me the formula
that you have devised to calculate the earnings from your referrals and
the story behind it.
Fernando: That was part of my experience
as a user in other PTCs. I always felt that many referrals just didn't
click as they should because they also had referrals clicking for them.
Then, I saw in many conversation forums that users wanted to click if
they're referrals did the same. So, I implemented a 50% "click-safe"
formula and everyone agreed to be a good idea. Imagine you as the
referrer. Yesterday you clicked 5 ads and you have 10 referrals. Today,
those 10 referrals will each click an amount of ads. On each click they
make, the system checks how many clicks all you referrals made today,
and it knows how many you did yesterday. So, your 5 clicks x 2 = 10
clicks for each referral x 10 referrals = 100 max clicks from referrals.
If your 10 referrals click, let’s say, 7 ads each, it gives a total of
70 clicks which is below the 100 you can have. So, you'll get them all.
If they made 101 clicks in the example, the last one wouldn't be
credited to you nor would the following ones. Basically, if you click
today at least half of the ads each referral clicks tomorrow you'll be
safe.
UOB: What are some of the main
hurdles that you have come across so far?
Fernando: Besides the fuss on the opening
hour which made me upgrade the server, there have been no hurdles. So,
for now, all my concerns fall into developing all the features in my
"to-do" list.
UOB: How does the site stand
today, and where do you see NeoBux in the future?
Fernando: Today, the site is doing great.
We have around 1200 new registrations per day and always more than 1000
users (members and visitors) online in a 5 minutes time-frame; sometimes
over 2000. The Alexa chart shows our growth pretty well. I see NeoBux in
the future as a project that always needs something new. There are lots
of new features to come, so, this is a never-ending progress. And, all
of our members them being users and/or advertisers, will take advantage
of every new feature. It's all about everyone feeling great on using a
PTC site. Not just making money out of it but also enjoying doing so.
UOB: Can you tell us some of the
other new features that you plan to bring?
Fernando: I love to make surprises :)
UOB: What do you think about
UrOnlineBiz?
Fernando: I don't really think... I know
that UrOnlineBiz is like my morning newspaper for 2 months. I just love
the reviews.
UOB: Any final words?
Fernando: I would like to say that NeoBux
isn't here to compete. It's just for users who want more innovation.
We
would like to thank the owner of NeoBux.com for this interview. This
interview shows that with some effort, even new things can be developed
in the same old traditional PTC model and that it can benefit all the
users involved alike.
