Bukisa is a relatively new writing site that many Triond users seem to be joining.  I’ve gotten several messages over the last few days telling me how great it is and asking me to join.  The users are claiming that there is a much higher payout.  So, being curious, I joined today.

Users of the site claim that the pay rate is much higher than it is here on Triond and that there is more traffic.  I’ve discovered that Bukisa is set up like a pyramid scheme.  In my opinion, pyramid schemes are bound for disaster. Usually these schemes end up toppling because the only people making money are the people at the top.  People at the bottom have more and more trouble finding people who want to join underneath them as time goes on.  This means that the sooner you join, the better you’ll do.  Good thing I’ve joined already!

People at the top of the pyramid get a cut on the next three layers in Bukisa.  Of course, they don’t really promote the idea that it is a pyramid scheme.  They instead refer to it as a referral program where you get a cut of all of your friends profits and all of your friend’s friends profits.  And if I haven’t lost you yet, even your friend’s friend’s friends profits.  That’s 3 layers of friends with you being at the top of the pyramid and reaping the rewards.

Here’s a quote from the Bukisa FAQ page explaining it:

“Getting paid for the read, viewed & listened published content of your friends, friends’ friends and their friends (up to 3 levels).

Let’s take Simon for example. Simon has 10 items published on Bukisa, each of his items are producing 100 unique views a day – that’s a total of 30,000 unique views per month. So Simon is earning $120 per month on the above content that he published (based on a Bukisa Index of $4).

Simon knows a few people so he decides to invite them to join Bukisa. A total of 30 of his friends sign up and start producing content. In total those 30 friends are producing 150,000 unique views per month, so Simon earns a total of 25% of their direct income ($600) which is $150.

Now Simon’s friends start inviting their friends, and they start inviting their friends. You can see the example story and how it plays out on all 3 levels below:

* Based on a Bukisa Index of $4.00 during a period of 1 month.”

Wow $382.50 per month sounds pretty good.  I guess the tough part is getting 30 people who want to join who will then end up having 60 people who join who end up having 120 people who join.  The other major problem that I foresee with these pay out schedule is getting the number of views that they are suggesting. I have almost 100 articles on published on Triond.  I’m one of the “Hot Users” and often have an article in the “Hot Content” section.  There is absolutely no way that each of my articles or even most of my articles receives 100 unique visits every day!  And I think that I’m doing pretty good here on Triond to tell you the truth.  Roughly speaking, I earn about $1 – $2 every day on Triond which I realize, isn’t much.  However, it does build up over time and they do pay reliably each and every month. 

This schedule also assumes that each level of friends will not only write articles, but receive thousands of views.  The assumption goes further by assuming that all members of the scheme will continue to produce articles and that the articles will continue to draw in a lot of “unique visits”.  I’m not sure that these are realistic assumptions.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that they are completely unrealistic.

If any of you are thinking of joining Bukisa feel free to message me about it or comment here.  I’ll keep the Triond users posted as to how I’m doing on Bukisa in future articles.  Consider it investigative journalism — lol.  These future posts will include the number of friends who have joined underneath of me  and the earnings that I will make.  I’m curious as to how long it will take to reach the $50 minimum to be paid.  I hope to be able to also fill readers in to how the traffic on Bukisa is in comparasion to Triond. Hopefully, this will give people an idea as to whether or not this new site is worth their time and efforts.

Bukisa is set up much differently than Triond.  Triond takes your article, picture, video, or sound and publishes it on one of many associate websites that specialize in the topic that your content is about.  Bukisa’s publishing seems to me to be all internal — that is, they aren’t publishing outside of their own site.  At the moment, I’m unsure as to how this major difference will effect traffic rates.

The Bukisa Index that is referred to in the above quotation from Bukisa is the dollar amount that you receive per 1,000 views.  The Bukisa Index at the time of this writing is at 3.95.  That means that you’ll receive $3.95 USD for every 1,000 views of your article.  I have an article here on Triond that has exactly 1,000 views right now and has made $0.77.  That’s a huge difference in pay out rates for sure!  I just wonder how long Bukisa will be able to keep their pay out rates so high.  This is especially true in these troubling economic times.

Some of the dual Triond and Bukisa users have even suggested to me that you can publish an article on Bukisa that has already been published on Triond and in this fashion, earn more money.  Bukisa themselves state that this is okay to do but recommend also providing unique material to increase your revenue stream.  I’ve sent in an email to Triond regarding their opinion of this and am awaiting a reply.  I’ll keep you posted.

Here is how you get paid on Bukisa — you need to reach $50 which seems like an awful lot, especially if you’re just starting out and have no “friends” signed up under you.  You are paid into your paypal account which means international users can also join as long as they have a paypal account.  It seems that they pay you approximately 30 days after the end of the month in which you have made the $50 pay out.  Which again, sounds like quite a long time.  Here at Triond, they pay once a month on the 15th of every month after you have reached only $0.50.  No, I didn’t type that wrong, it’s only a fifty cent minimum payout, providing that you have a paypal account.

If you do end up joing Bukisa, here are a couple of sign up tips.  Your user name cannot have any characters other than alpha numerical characters.  This includes spaces which I thought was a little weird.  Also, user names cannot be more than 15 characters long.  This makes my Bukisa name PaulaBentley.  Good luck and look for future articles from me regarding this new site!