I have a lot of scattered free time that might not be stable enough for a part time job and I was thinking about doing a little online working for some extra money. Most websites that I've visited say to do either Google Adsense, which I know isn't the best idea, or to do some affiliate program, which I'm not sure will work too well. I was also considering becoming a web developer. I know some of the basics like html, php and a little ajax, but is it really practical to try and compete with all the C# and web 2.0 gurus? What would I have to learn in order to be competitive? Oh, and I don't even want to think about those $0.20 surveys.

If you're a skilled game programmer you can make some easy money by making a flash game. Just need to get it sponsored then host it on newgrounds and hope it stays on the front page or gets there. There's people that can make a lot of money doing that.

As for learning to code properly with websites I've noticed most of it comes with experience. So just pick a goal like say a CSS based site with a login, registration (including captcha, always fun to learn), and a contact form. Learn how to prevent SQL injections and work with a database like MySQL or something.

Creating a neat login form where you can login and change your password and send forgot-my-password e-mails is really good practice. Also use regex for validating information. Some tools to look into is phpmailer which is a library for dealing with sending mail. Oh yeah and going along with the idea of Ajax, when a person chooses to change their password make a lightbox pop-up and make it so that the user doesn't have to navigate away from the page. If they enter invalid information change the formatting of the lightbox so a red label above the text box in question explains to the user the problem. You'll notice there are pre-made &#106avascript components like the ones found in YUI that do this I believe, but programming them yourself is an awesome learning experience.

Good luck.

You could sell stock photos/web templates/graphics/whatever on the multitude of sites available (see for example themeforest) for such things. Typically the money-per-sale is quite low, but I'm under the impression that if you create a reasonable body of good quality work it can continue to pay off with no further effort on your part for quite a long time.

You could also try some flash games if you've got the skills.

Wouldn't I have to buy that $700 beast to make flash games? And for web development tips, thanks, I think I'll try that.

flashdevelop is free

Write Facebook apps and monetize off the traffic using advertisements. I've written a few applications since their API was reliced, but the most successful was "Pee on your friends". The concept was very simple (I came up with it while taking a shower one day). You add the app to your profile, then you "pick" which friends you wish to "pee" on. "Peeing" on your friends consisted of sending an application invite that said, "So-and-so just peed on you! Pee back!". Clicking the invitation link would prompt them to add the application. After someone completed a peeing action, it would take them to a confirmation page that displayed an advertisement for Zwinkies (Online avatar/doll customization thing.) Every time someone clicked the link and installed their software, I got $3. Made over $1600 in a month or two.

That was a year ago and I haven't written any facebook apps since. I don't know if it's still that easy to make a successful app like that.

Quote: Original post by Matt
the most successful was "Pee on your friends". The concept was very simple (I came up with it while taking a shower one day). You add the app to your profile, then you "pick" which friends you wish to "pee" on. "Peeing" on your friends consisted of sending an application invite that said, "So-and-so just peed on you! Pee back!". Clicking the invitation link would prompt them to add the application. After someone completed a peeing action, it would take them to a confirmation page that displayed an advertisement for Zwinkies (Online avatar/doll customization thing.) Every time someone clicked the link and installed their software, I got $3. Made over $1600 in a month or two.

God Bless the Internet.

Oh snap its Lazy Foo, I love your tutorials man! Lol sorry for the random fan outburst.

Quote: Original post by Evil Booger
Oh snap its Lazy Foo, I love your tutorials man! Lol sorry for the random fan outburst.

Glad you like them. [smile]

To stay on topic, one way not to make money is by making tutorials. I average about 1 dollar a day and if I were to total all the money I made, I made 3 dollars an hour making them. Not that I'm complaining, they'll pay off with time. Just don't expect to make anything you can live off of.

Advertising has the potential to generate a lot of revenue, but it requires a very large number of hits per day. There are those who make an ungodly amount of money doing it. Realistically, you'd be doing very (very) well if you made $500 - $1000 a month with online advertising.

It's possible to make a lot of money from a blog through advertising, but again this would require that your blog become very popular (not to the extent that random people on the street know it by name, but to the extent that it gets at least a few thousand hits a day).