I have been on MyLot for about 4 months already. At this point of writing, I have made a total of 61 posts, close to 30 online friends, $1.42, 2 referrals and a little presence in the community. At this exact moment, MyLot has a total of 135,191 members.

For a paid-per-post community forum, the earning rates do seem a little dismal to earn a proper living online and it has little scalability factor (which means that every post I make will earn me a single time earning, of which Helium pays on my article for perpetuity).

My purposes of writing this article are
(1) to document the advantages and disadvantages of the site,
(2) to help to enlarge the
MyLot community and
(3) hopefully recruit some people as my friends.


Disadvantages

1. The payout rate is miserable and not scalable
For every post you make, you probably earn about a cent or so. This doesn't translate very much in earnings but yet many members seemed pretty thrilled by it, possibly by the fact they are building an online income. Also, every post you make will only earn you that income only once.

2. Possibly more than half of all registered members are dormant
There are a select few who are really active in the MyLot
because they have seen past the fact that one cannot earn a living just on that site alone. Many who joined are attracted by the idea that you actually earn something by posting online. The value in an online community forum is not because it pays but rather in the community aspect of it. Active members have an active community base where rich interactions do take place and are more valuable than money generated from the posts themselves.

3. There are often many spam messages about the same subject.
To earn money or to recruit members for their downline, many members take this double opportunity to earn some money and spam their referral links at the same time. So hence the quality of the posts in general might be poor but it is normal for many online forums, even the unpaid ones.

Advantages

1. You are paid for every post you make
Money is still money. You should see this earning as a by-product and not a main income stream. Else you would be disappointed a few weeks down the road when you have put in so much effort for so little money.


2. You find like minded people in this vast community
As with many online forums, the idea is to find like-minded people to interact with and share experiences. With MyLot, it is more so as people who sign up are generally thinking of earning some sideline cash as well.


3. All posts are SEO-enabled and are often featured highly on search engines
The amazing thing about MyLot
is that it comes out on Google Search's top few pages once in a while
on some search terms. All posts can be SEOed by tagging and it's pretty efficient. Using Google PageRank, MyLot has a decent pagerank of 1/10!

4. Your web experience is very customisable
Web 2.0 enabled MyLot allows you to shift html boxes in your profile page. Also you can customize it. In fact, it can be a decent blog replacement too.

5. Topics are very searchable
Using Yahoo, MyLot is very searchable. Despite the spam, you can actually find what you want and with many opinions about your topic as well.

6. A referral program is in place
MyLot has a referral program in place that allows you to invite people in.
They become your friends immediately and you earn up to 50% of their
earnings (however little) as well.


In all, MyLot is still a pretty decent place to belong to, if not to earn some extra cash at the same time. Most of all, one has to see beyond the earnings to realise that in all forums, money-making or not, the most valuable thing is the community you experience during the interaction.