Internet Job versus Internet Business

This is a continuation of the series of articles about trying to generate a second income part time on the internet and then using this second income to repay your debts.

I have already investigated the possibility of generating a second income through Second Life. In the end I decided that it was not for me. You can read my reasons why here.

In this article I want to investigate the income generating potential of getting a part time Internet job as opposed to starting an internet business.

Internet job versus Internet Business – what’s the difference?

When I first started to investigate the possibility of generating a second income online it didn’t occur to me that I could get a job (i.e. work for someone else) that would allow me to operate from my home and in my spare time.

To me the Internet was all about trying to start your own website and generating an income by selling a product or by selling advertising.

Recently I came across a couple articles about Internet Jobs. These jobs ranged from data entry to completing surveys. To be honest when I started to read about the online jobs on offer my eyes glazed over. There was nothing much that appealed to me in terms of the work that was on offer. Boring and tedious are the two words that I’d used to describe the jobs I came across.

Part of me wanted to stop exploring the idea of getting a second job online and move on to something else. However I realized that if you are in debt and looking to earn extra income the focus should not be on finding ‘interesting’ work or work that you love rather the focus should be on finding a second job online that pays and is not a scam (more on this later).

With this in mind I began researching internet based jobs versus internet businesses. My criteria were that the hours had to be flexible, I could work from my home, the pay was reasonable and I was confident that it was not a scam i.e. the company that I would be working for was legitimate.

So far my results have been mixed with more negative results than positive.

It appears that there are a lot of scams out there – so be careful. Make sure to do your homework and to research fully any offer of an online job. When researching simply type the name of the website that is offering the job along with the word ‘review’ into Google and check the results. I found that a couple of websites that had caught my attention had been scamming people so it was a lucky escape.

I found this on Yahoo! answers. It is short but well worth reading the comments.

Is there a legal legitimate way to work at home and make good money that is not a scam?

On a more positive note I have come across some websites that seem to be genuine. I have not used these websites myself so I cannot confirm whether or not they are genuine but so far from what I’ve read they look good.

This article from msnbc.com provides some useful ideas about websites that you could potentially work for. Again do your research before you commit to anything.

Delete your commute with new internet jobs.

Searching for a legitimate online part time job is proving to be a little more difficult than I thought. In my naivety I simply thought that it would be a case of doing a Google search and I would be spoilt for choice. I thought that I could then simply do hours and hours of tedious form filling and I would be on my way to paying down my debts and financial freedom.

Unfortunately this is not the case and I have received something of a wake up call.

Getting a decent online part time job seems to be a lot more difficult than I first imagined.

Related posts:

1. Online Second Income success stories – not many
2. Second Income? Of course I’m bitter it didn’t work out.