As I said in a recent post, I've become pretty interested in the area of passive income lately - especially those passive income ideas that can be applied specifically to Australians. Now my last post on this was about a month ago, and I was getting right into AdSense and Affiliate Marketing. And the results? Well let's just say that they have been a little less than impressive, but it has still been exciting. I know that passive income is about building incremental income streams over a long period of time, but still I find myself wishing it would happen a little faster. So let me preface the below discussion with this - I know that this is a long game and (cueing the shampoo commercial) it won't happen overnight, but it will happen.
So let's recap:
AdSense Earnings: 80c
Chances are I won't be seeing any of this any time soon. Before Google even considers paying me, I'll need to have at least $15 and I need to make it up to A$100 before they will make a payment to me. This is the super-long game.
Affiliate Marketing: 0c
This is my own fault. I've read a stack of books since the start of this year which I'd love to write reviews about, but because of other commitments I haven't sat down and done them.
Writing Articles on Revenue Sharing Websites: 3c
This was my one article over at InfoBarrel - a relatively well known revenue sharing site. The three cents of advertising revenue was earned in the month I published the article, but nothing since. It garnered next to no interest though, so I'm pretty happy it has made anything at all.
So all in all, 83 cents - not exactly a huge windfall, especially since I won't see any of it until it builds over the relevant payment thresholds, but it's something. But while it's a start, I was keen to find other ways of making passive income and in my searching, I came across this program called Gomez Peer.
So what is Gomez Peer?
So what is Gomez Peer?
Basically it's a program that runs in the background and uses your computer's idle resources and connection to the internet to perform website testing.
Background
Gomez Inc. was acquired in 2009 by Compuware, a private IT and software development company that's been around since the 1970s, for its application performance management software. From their 2009 press release regarding the acquisition:
Security
I was initially nervous and a little skeptical about the idea of it, but I have since done my due diligence. I could find very little about security risks or issues anyone has had with using the legitimate program after considerable period of searching for information using search strings like "Gomez Peer safe", "Gomez Peer secure", "Gomez Peer security risk", "Gomez Peer scam" and so on. I did find out that there are some other malware programs that might disguise themselves as Gomez Peer, but the program itself seems safe (Source - note that this site gives a technical security rating of 54% dangerous, but this appears to be mainly due to how the program operates). Feel free to make up your own mind if you are comfortable with it, but I don't think it is too risky.
Other issues
The one thing I have noted in doing my research is that the activation process varies in length for a lot of people. After signing up for the peer program, your account status is pending. While you are pending, you are not eligible to receive payments. Thus, if you haven't been activated before the month is out, you miss out on any potential earnings. This is what I believe frustrates a lot of users and results in them uninstalling the program. According to their website:
So why do I think it's a good idea for Australians (and a number of other countries too)?
It comes down to the rates that are paid depending on your location. There are 3 payment levels, paid per minute of online processing time: 0.0249942 cents, 0.0499998 cents and 0.1000002 cents. For simplicity, let's call it 0.025 or 1/40th of a cent, 0.05 or 1/20th of a cent or 0.1 or 1/10th of a cent. I will refer to these as the low rate, middle rate, and high rate respectively. Note that these are subject to change at any time.
Most locations in the world are at the low rate, but luckily if you live in Australia, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland or the United Kingdom, you get the high rate. Those countries on the middle rate are Argentina, Austria, Canada, Colombia, Japan, Malaysia, South Africa, The United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
Let's do some quick calculations. Let's assume you are online 24 hours a day, giving you the maximum amount of opportunity to undertake online processing. This equals 1440 minutes of online time per day. We'll then multiply this by the percentage of processing time to online time (in the six weeks I've been using it, I have experienced about 25%) because that's what you get paid for. This comes to 360 minutes of processing time per day. Using this as our basis for calculation, we can come up with with following figures:
Background
Gomez Inc. was acquired in 2009 by Compuware, a private IT and software development company that's been around since the 1970s, for its application performance management software. From their 2009 press release regarding the acquisition:
The on-demand Gomez platform integrates solutions for Web load testing, Web performance management, cross-browser testing and Web performance business analysis that test and measure Web and mobile applications from the "outside-in" - across all users, browsers, devices, and geographies - using a global network of over 100,000 locations. Over 2,500 customers worldwide, ranging from small companies to large enterprises - including 12 of the top 20 most visited US Web sites - use Gomez solutions to increase revenue, build brand loyalty, and decrease costs.That global network it references are all those people running the Gomez Peer application and those customers that they mention include companies such as MTV, Audi and Domino's Pizza (Source). You can have a look at the information about it on their website here.
Security
I was initially nervous and a little skeptical about the idea of it, but I have since done my due diligence. I could find very little about security risks or issues anyone has had with using the legitimate program after considerable period of searching for information using search strings like "Gomez Peer safe", "Gomez Peer secure", "Gomez Peer security risk", "Gomez Peer scam" and so on. I did find out that there are some other malware programs that might disguise themselves as Gomez Peer, but the program itself seems safe (Source - note that this site gives a technical security rating of 54% dangerous, but this appears to be mainly due to how the program operates). Feel free to make up your own mind if you are comfortable with it, but I don't think it is too risky.
Other issues
The one thing I have noted in doing my research is that the activation process varies in length for a lot of people. After signing up for the peer program, your account status is pending. While you are pending, you are not eligible to receive payments. Thus, if you haven't been activated before the month is out, you miss out on any potential earnings. This is what I believe frustrates a lot of users and results in them uninstalling the program. According to their website:
Account activation depends on how well your system characteristics (connection type, location, etc) match our current testing needs. We would encourage you to be patient with the program but we cannot guarantee that you will be activated. All pending PEER accounts are reviewed for activation approximately every 2 weeks; continue to run the PEER application to remain eligible for account activation. For updates on our latest testing and activation needs be sure to check our News Page and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.Currently, I've been running the application for about six weeks and am still yet to be activated, despite having a considerably high ratio of processing time to online time. One would think this would mean that testing is in demand in the location, but perhaps there is something else preventing me. I saw various comments on websites that stated they were activated within a few days, or a few weeks, and some who were not activated after several months. I would be interested to hear from others using the application as to how long it took them to be activated.
So why do I think it's a good idea for Australians (and a number of other countries too)?
It comes down to the rates that are paid depending on your location. There are 3 payment levels, paid per minute of online processing time: 0.0249942 cents, 0.0499998 cents and 0.1000002 cents. For simplicity, let's call it 0.025 or 1/40th of a cent, 0.05 or 1/20th of a cent or 0.1 or 1/10th of a cent. I will refer to these as the low rate, middle rate, and high rate respectively. Note that these are subject to change at any time.
Most locations in the world are at the low rate, but luckily if you live in Australia, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland or the United Kingdom, you get the high rate. Those countries on the middle rate are Argentina, Austria, Canada, Colombia, Japan, Malaysia, South Africa, The United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
Let's do some quick calculations. Let's assume you are online 24 hours a day, giving you the maximum amount of opportunity to undertake online processing. This equals 1440 minutes of online time per day. We'll then multiply this by the percentage of processing time to online time (in the six weeks I've been using it, I have experienced about 25%) because that's what you get paid for. This comes to 360 minutes of processing time per day. Using this as our basis for calculation, we can come up with with following figures:
- Low rate earns about 9c per day, totalling $2.70 after 30 days or $32.84 per year
- Middle rate earns about 18c per day, totalling $5.40 after 30 days or $65.70 per year
- High rate earns 36c per day, totalling $10.80 after 30 days or $131.40 per year.
If you want to have a look at what you could earn if you changed some of these variables, I have put together a simple Excel workbook that compares earnings between the different payment levels, which you can download here. However, note that (at the time of writing) Gomez Peer caps the maximum monthly earning amount at $45, though my calculations show that this is pretty much impossible - you would have to be online 24 hours a day, with 100% of those minutes as processing time and be paid the high rate in a 31 day month for that to come into effect. I believe my calculations are a lot closer to what you could reasonably expect. That being said, my experience may differ completely from yours.
Referral Program
You can earn additional money for referring others to use Gomez Peer. The pay rate is $1 for each user that uses your referral link to apply for the peer program, and then their account has to become active before you are paid. It seems like a relatively small bonus, so I haven't considered it much.
Donation Program
One thing that I thought was quite neat is that you can donate your earnings to the Make A Wish foundation if you're feeling generous. As far as I can see, you have the ability to swap between your earnings going to your PayPal account and to be donated in your preferences once you are signed up. A small token, but a nice option all the same.
Donation Program
One thing that I thought was quite neat is that you can donate your earnings to the Make A Wish foundation if you're feeling generous. As far as I can see, you have the ability to swap between your earnings going to your PayPal account and to be donated in your preferences once you are signed up. A small token, but a nice option all the same.
Cost Benefit Analysis
Coming to a good estimate of how much it costs to power your computer depends on a hell of a lot of variables including your provider, location, usage and so on. This website suggested a computer uses about 600 kWh per year, so if you've got a recent energy bill lying around, you could do the math for your own situation. This government website suggests that running a computer can cost 9 to 15 cents per hour. Assuming you're running your computer 24 hours per day, this could cost up to $3.60/day - ten times the amount you could feasibly earn from running Gomez Peer. This doesn't even include how much you're paying to be connected to the internet.
So let's just say that, at best, running this program will offset some of your costs from running your computer. However, if your computer doesn't need to be on, you'd be making more money (and helping the environment) by turning it off.
Summary
Gomez Peer seems like it's a pretty legitimate passive income stream. The pay rates are only (relatively) good for a small handful of countries, which thankfully Australia is included in. However, at best, it will only very partially offset your running costs for your computer's electricity usage and internet. You'd be better off just turning it off when it's not needed.
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I'd be interested to hear about other user's experiences - let me know in the comments. Otherwise, I'll do a post to update if and when I'm activated (to give you and idea of the timeframe) and a proof of payment.
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