Paid to Use Email programs
Paid to e-mail programs are simply those that provide you with a free email account, but also reward you for using the email system. Yahoo, Canada.com, Netscape, etc. provide free email account to anyone, but they do nothing more. They collect and keep all the profit from advertising on their pages. These programs, however, share some of that revenue with you. A much better position for you, the email user!
| As of somewhere in 2003, all paid to email programs seemed to be gone. There have been some attempts to re-start the concept, but none I am aware have suceeded. Thus, this page will no longer be updated. Please consider the following info as historical only. |
1. Trespass (DEAD) [
May 1, 2000 ]During October, November and early December, this organization degraded to the point that no email could be sent nor received. Finally in early December, the domain was dead for a while. However, it is now back online, and working agian. No changes seem to have been made to the system - no improvements were introduced. They simply started operations again and corrected the major problems. Late in December, the site was not functional again. It's a rollercoaster, and probably not worth your time to even try.
Finally in April 2000 they realized that having a non-functioning business may not work, and they quit.
2. Bird Mail (DEAD) [
February 12, 2000 ]BirdMail is a typical free web-based email program, plus online planner and notepad. Following the new trend in pay to email, this service pays you for using it. It was developed by a university grad who wanted a permament email account of his own, and also needed a career - and this is the result.
The point system is fairly detailed, with four different classes of points, each with their own parameters. Basically, you can redeem these points for rewards (but not cash). You can further increase your points through online shopping and referring others. Currently rewards include phone cards, 500-1000 Alaska Airline miles, hotel credits and a pile of merchandise. One detail on the fine print: many of the rewards cost below the minimum redemption level - meaning even if you had the points, you cannot redeem it for your reward until you hit the minimum redemption level (personally I think this is a little backwards!) Unfortunately, 10,000 points is worth only a $1 donation, so you will not be earning much here. You have the option of buying charitable donations too.
In my opinion there are a few design and cosmetic changes that could make the site more efficient, faster and friendlier, but other that that it is pretty good. If you are using free web-based email, you may as well collect points.
SUMMARY
Overall it is a good email system. There are still very minor bugs and quirks, mostly cosmetic. Email is easy to access, read and compose. Points accumulate properly, and easily. I will recommend this one for anyone. Few improvements have come to the site since it opened, and this drops its rating in my view from 9 to 8/10.
3.
Night Mail (DEAD)[
March 11, 2000 ]A pay per use free email system. It is a good email system without all the hoopla and problems with some of the larger email systems available. You receive 10 credits for every email you send, plus 25% for referrals, and 6% for their referrals. You even receive a bonus for making referrals. This organization really wants to grow.
Payment is quite simple, whenever your account reaches $20, you may request payment. Payment will be made within 5 business days. The benefit of this is that you can leave your credits and wait until it increases to a larger sum, and save whatever service fees might exist. Currently to prevent a very common free-email problem of spamming (especially with pay programs) they are limiting payment to 10 emails per day, which is probably good for most people. 40 points is worth a penny, or 4000 points to the dollar, or 400 emails per dollar.
You should note the newsletter susbsription defaults when you signup. Check or uncheck them as you see fit, and then register. Most usernames are probably already taken, even though this is new organization. I ended up settling for my 20th choice/try - luckily the form does not reset on such an error.
They have a slot machine within the email system at the moment, you can spin and win whatever the jackpot is that day. It was $335 when I played, I got three cherries on my first spin! The game automatically played one spin for me when I entered my email, but it does not affect your account.
SUMMARY
Nightmail is a pretty good email system. The slot machine when you login is interesting, especially since it takes $1 away from you automatically every time you enter email. The email itself is reliable, and pretty easy to use. The page loads in frames so it's easy to navigate. Overall, it receives 7/10.
4. The Email (DEAD)
[ January 9, 2000 ]You gain a free email account with your membership in this program. It is also a paid to read email service. You select categories of interest, and get paid for those ads you receive in this account. But, unlike other paid to read programs, you get an email account to use like normal.
You earn $0.0025 cents for each email read by your referrals, and $0.0005 for each of theirs. Unfortunately, you make no money for your own use of the email system. This makes me wonder whether anyone would make themselves an account when you can have an account with email groups that pay you for your use. But, if you get 10 people below you who use the email regularly daily, you can earn a couple dozen dollars or more a year.
The site itself is quite simplistic, which could be good, but the FAQ's don't really tell you much either. But along the top frame is a button bar with features such as Weather, News, Sports, Entertainment, and more.
One cool feature they offer is a downloadable mail checker utility that will check for email in your account and notify you - without the need for a browser, or logging in. They also offer auto-response and pop3 email checking (not pop3 email itself)
5. Grreat Email (DEAD) [ February 13, 2000 ]
Today, the site is still gone.... Don't know where it went, but the url was dead, and has been since late 1999.
You get a free email account, and sign up to become an owner of the organization. While it it not a paid to email program, ownership may pay off in the long-run. It depends on you. At the end of each year, the profits can be paid to members, or put toward some other corporate goal. This is done thru a democratic member-vote.
Ownership-membership is available only for a short time. Once this is closed, only free email account will be available to the public. So get your membership before it's too late.
6. Payola Email (DEAD) [
May 15, 2000 ]Payola began in Feb 2000 offering free web-based email for anyone around the world; they are based in Hawaii. By joining this email you will receive email messages from advertisers for a fee of $0.03 per message. If you do not wish to receive these advertisements, you can opt out, and only receive the free email service, without payment.
In order to remain a member, you must login to your email account once each 90 days. This is to prevent the system from being cluttered up with defunct accounts. You must open ad messages before you can delete them - after all, that is how the service is paid for. Payment on accounts will occur monthly, if a balance exceeds $50 US.
At the bottom of every email you send, your personal referral link will be shown with your numeric ( not login ) id shown. I am surprised, they use a 12-digit number for member numbers. Do they think they will have one trillion members soon? The population of Earth is just over 6 million at the moment, and estimated to be 12 billion by 2020. Maybe they have very very long term plans.
As of May 2000, they are still under development and you may notice this by the system's common slow speed, or pages that do not load. No banner sponsors have been found and no official email advertisement campaigns have begun within the email system. The email system does work, and you can send and receive emails using your @payolaemail.com account. There were about 2600 members as of May 1.
One unfortunate thing about their prototype email system is that it uses a message text box that does not word-wrap, so your lines scroll... scroll... and scroll further and further until you remember to hit return.
Thanks for visiting my site. If you found something useful, then my work has been worthwhile. Now if the banners on the site, or any site for that matter are of interest to you, you should persue that interest. After all, that's why the information is there, to make you aware and direct you to the information you are looking for.
