Well it has been too long I admit. As we get close to the end of the year it is very easy to be lazy and relax. Instead with some of the opportunities available to us that is the last thing we should be doing. Unless you are already very successful in your own right this is not the time to sit back and hope that growth will magically begin happening in your business.

Sometimes everything works against you. I have had a huge amount of computer problems in the past few months which has really made things difficult. But we have to work though the hard times.

For some people 2011 has been a great year, for others it will have been a disappointment. Whichever way it was for you there is always the chance to improve it next year. Set your goals and work toward them. Even now you should be thinking of what you want to achieve in 2012.

But 2011 is not over yet and there is still time for a last push towards financial freedom. So many companies have grown well in 2011 and are promising big things for 2012. So here is a wrap up of some of the new and ongoing companies that have been notable in 2011, and some not so notable. Click on the headings to go to the sites.

JSS –Just Been Paid

Ok I admit I steered clear of this for awhile and I still have my reasons to not rate this as a safe option. There is no denying the facts though and JBP has really taken off. The lure of money for nothing is so strong that people have thrown large amounts of money into it. This has meant that some people are pulling a very nice income from it now while most people are fully reinvesting to compound the earnings rather than withdraw.

There does not seem to be any sign of it slowing down soon and it’s Alexa ranking is the envy of many other companies. For those that do not know the return is 2% per day with units bought at $10 each. They earn for 75 days giving a 150% return then are placed in a matrix that when cycled gives another 150% return. Triple your money and many are.

2012 will be make or break for JBP. They will either prove they can move forward with the paying model or will fold in a crumbling heap once members get to a stage they are requesting higher payouts. The key is where the income is coming from. While most members are reinvesting earnings there is no liability on the company. Once that changes and more regular withdrawals are being requested the liability increases. That then means the income has to remain above the withdrawals otherwise the company starts losing money. That is where hyips will normally close down. The most successful ones will generally try to get something else going to increase income again but it isn’t easy. If JBP have another source of income that is paying for the earnings I have not seen it and I have seen several people ask for it with no answer given.

For now JBP is worth throwing some money in to cash in on its popularity. I would definitely recommend not reinvesting the full returns back into it though. Try to get your original investment back and maybe more so the money left in there is extra. My belief is that June will be a key time for JBP. If it is as strong then as it is now that will be a good sign.

Wowwe
Wowwe had the typical start that many companies have. A great deal of interest in the beginning and then the opportunity hoppers disappeared. This is normal though and Wowwe now has the genuine members left after clearing the matrix of the inactive members. Growth has continued and there are some people making great incomes from the work they have put in.

One thing that has not only changed but improved considerably since the start is the opportunity itself. Changes to the compensation plan making it a possibility to earn on infinite levels make it very attractive.

The product is in demand and in a growth industry. More importantly it is something that anyone and everyone can use. Wowwe have a solid company model which is a brick and mortar business. The people behind the company are first class and have the members interests foremost in their minds.

Wowwe has moved on to having seminars around the world and expanding their infrastructure. This is a company that knows what it is doing. They have goals to reach a million members in 2012 and will be pushing towards that goal.

In November Wowwe launched a contest aimed at recruitment. It was giving away several prizes including an iPad.

Marketers should use Wowwe in their business and take advantage of the video conferencing and video email marketing. It is cutting edge and is a valuable resource. To be able to earn from it is almost a bonus in itself.

This is a company that is not going to be disappearing into the blue. It is well worth getting involved with even if just for the video email.

Tagvillage

Tagvillage has had a rollercoaster start. Two false starts with the tag trading before it was launched properly with a few thousand people involved from the start. It looked set to take off in the same way Kooday did. The problem was many in Kooday thought tagvillage was just a spinoff and wouldn’t last. In fact it was quite the opposite with Kooday ultimately failing. It was Koodays failure a few months after Tagvillage began that probably was the biggest hindrance to Tagvillage growth. People were scared Tagvillage would have the same fate. They failed to see that the business model was totally different and the only thing similar was that you could buy and sell tags.

The big difference was the commission structure. Tagvillage had commissions setup in a way that it only pays from profits. Due to that the company will never be in financial trouble. A lot of thought had gone into how commissions are generated. Early on some people thought that Tagvillage were not paying as much as they should, comparing it to Kooday. When Kooday imploded due to their business model not being able to sustain itself, some realized that it was because of this Tagvilage commissions were better.

Tagvillage came under critism for not releasing the platforms promised in the timeline that was originally set. The reality was that Tagvillage is doing something that very few other startups do. They are building everything from scratch. They are not purchasing ready made scripts or existing platforms, they are building their own. Wowwe is the only other company that can possibly say the same. This may not seem important but for a long term company it is very important. They have kept members well updated with what the company is doing and explained reasons for events.

One of the key things Tagvillage did at the start was setup a Leadership Group. Originally there were about a dozen people made up of members, shareholders, David Ruebush (CEO), and even a developer. As the company has grown so has the Leadership Group as members have been identified with growing groups and helping others, select members have been invited into the group by CEO David Ruebush. Currently there are 29  people in the group. The importance of having this leadership group is that it gives a voice of the members to decisions made by the company. It also provides some good ideas to come through that may have otherwise not been thought of.

The Bazaar was the next release that Tagvillage came up with trying to capitalize on the growth in the penny auction niche. It did not provide the influx of membership that was expected despite creating the fairest penny auction system on the planet.

In October Tagvillage worked to regain it’s early momentum by launching the Tag Guru Contest. In fact from that point on there has been a constant stream of promotions and contests. Thousands of dollars have been given away to members in the process. The Bazaar was closed to reopen at a future date as they believe it was not in line with the company ethics.

The Tag Guru Contest has been a success with hundreds of members qualifying for the levels which will reward them in credits from the New Year on. This rewards some members with thousands of dollars.

The tide has turned with Tagvillage and you could say Tagvillage has grown up and thrown away the training wheels. The last two months has seen a lot of activity. Wanting to speed up development Tagvillage setup a investment plan where people could get a high return on their money with the option of converting it to a Tagvillage share at the end of the term. Those that got in on the deal would be very happy now.

In November Tagvillage setup a gofundme page in an attempt to source some much needed development funding. This was a temporary measure as they were already in negotiations with an equity company for a deal reportably worth 8 million dollars. Due to this the investment plan was closed to new investors.

The focus has now changed to developing the Tagvertising Platform to give members the most commission potential on their tags. What wasn’t known was that it will also create another income stream of commissions from advertisers or publishers that use what will be the Tagvillage advertising widget. Similar to having adsense on a website, Tagvillage ads will be shown in a similar way on not only the Tagvillage website but other sites as well.

Then a big announcement

tagvillage Attracts Large Advertising Network

---

Dec. 9, 2011

UPDATE: we are happy to announce that tagvillage has signed a deal with a major advertising network this week. When our Tagvertising distribution system launches, it will include ad content from one of the largest online ad networks. Advertisements from over 60,000 advertisers will be fed to us directly by this network. This means publishers will have access to the highest quality advertising content to monetize their sites. It also means tens of thousands of advertisers will immediately be targeting the Tags our members own from the very beginning of our Tagvertising Distribution System launch! As we are able to, we will release more details regarding this new partnership and the many other amazing things happening with our Tagvertising Platform.

Shortly after it was announced that people can signup to be part of the beta testing until the end of January 2012. You can read more about the publisher and advertiser beta testing at these links

Advertisers

Publishers

The part that will distinguish the Tagvillage advertising network will be the ability to earn a commission from every referral that you have that uses one. That will create residual income. Another big selling point to get people to signup to the beta testing is that advertisers wil get a full month of free advertising. That alone will be worth thousands of dollars to those that take advantage of it.

Although Tagvillage has not accomplished everything they set out to in 2011, they have put together an opportunity that is now set to take off in 2012. This is a company you should be involved with. There will be a lot of growth over the next year and you do not want to miss out.

That Free Thing

With over 500,000 members TFT has been a big success, or have they? Of those 500,000 members only around 40,000 paid for membership. That is still a lot of members. If they are all current members, that would represent $400,000 a month in subscription fees. Of course a lot of that is paid out in commissions.

The latest move by TFT have been to launch their Daily Deals. With 500,000 people on the books they can go to companies with a bit of deal puling power. Probably the biggest challenge will be in some places where companies have had bad experiences with coupon based deal companies. Here in Australia there have been several articles in newspapers about companies and individuals that have had bad dealings.

ThatFreeThing has managed to maintain a good Alexa ranking since its launch and despite falling off it’s peak levels it has not had the sudden drop experienced by the fly by night companies.

The website has improved considerably from the early versions and is now looking very professional. It was money well spent to get it much more attractive and more functional for members. Separate country and even cities can be selected to filter offers. Other features such as the ability to share the offer via Facebook and Twitter may not be that exciting but help with promotion. It also has a much better description of what the offer is worth. The main critism in it’s early development was the lack of offers outside of the USA. While the USA still has the bulk of the offers it also has the bulk of membership on the site so you could say it is all in proportion.

The introduction of a fast start bonus was met with mixed reactions. Some thought it was good as it added commissions for getting people started. Others saw it as a problem with the higher startup cost possibly preventing some people from joining.

There is also some nice features like a Freebie bank showing you the value of all the freebies you have ever taken on the site. I have previously praised the fact that TFT have pretty much come through with everything they have promised. Possibly the only exception to that would be people that complain about not getting spillover into their business. That is small thinking though because no one should ever rely on spillover to build a business.

Zeek Rewards

Zeek Rewards was one of the standout successes in 2011. A simple program that perpetuates it’s own advertising by making the income opportunity linked to members advertising. Basically in order to earn your daily share of the profits you must place an ad for the program. This means that the company grows generating more profits which can be shared with members. Clever idea isn’t it. The key is that the program is sustainable as it has more outside income coming from the penny auctions. As such this is a program that does not rely on member contributions like JSS.

The program has grown very well and there are many members that are now generating a very good income. For only a few minutes work each day this is definately worth joining. There are different levels of membership and you can start as a free member and work your way up. This reduces risk which you may have noticed I like to do.

So where do I see Zeek Rewards in 2012? the penny auction niche does not show any signs of disappearing so Zeek will continue to grow its auction site. THis is good news as it means the business side will continue to have funds coming in. For the business side I believe there will be good growth in 2012. Many people will start earning an income that begins to make a difference in their life. For some that may only be a few hundred dollars a week, for others it will be thousands.

If you haven’t joined yet this is a program you should get involved with.

The Failures

Kooday
Promises are only as good as the intention behind it. Kooday started the year with a lot of hope and was still very popular despite missing deadlines. Questions were being raised by some people including myself but the fact was if they were to deliver on what had been promised a lot of money was there for the taking.

There was only one voice behind the company and some people questioned his real involvement. Indeed the support that was introduced was all volunteers that were directed by Mark. Some have since said that the support they were given was the worst in their experience and Mark did not give them any information.

The signs of failure really surfaced in April when for the first time payments were not met. Some were and some weren’t which seemed a bit strange. Support were told to take details of those that did not get their withdrawal requests. It was the beginning of the end though and things got worse rather than better. The key problem was activity had dropped significantly which meant that the money going into the site was substantially less than before. Weekly commissions had already been dropping to very low levels and people were looking elsewhere. It was the classic Ponzi fail. Money coming in was being overshadowed by withdrawal requests. Soon the money dries up.

There was a few sporadic payments which in retrospect seem to have been made to promote hope that Kooday were fixing their issues. This did not slow the demise much and June was the last time any news was released. Even then it was saying that there was going to be a big announcement. The announcement never came and was probably a last ditch effort to get people to put money in.

There is serious doubt over whether Kooday ever set out to develop a search engine. It seems more likely that it was a scam from the start. Lack of any evidence to suggest otherwise tends to support the view.

The website remained online even after the initial domain expiry date which surprised many. It is possible that was just in the hope that some unsuspecting punter would put money in. Given the amount of promotion it is fair to assume there are links around still online. Maybe it was left online as a way to collect more email addresses from people registering.

I will add more later. Just wanted to get this post out to you all.