I have written about Bubblews many times. Almost every time I set up a website, I would write about it. It is the first website that made me experience that making money online was possible – that was 2014 to 2015. Bubblews is the website that pays cent for every interaction.
Well, Bubblews is no longer online. It shut down in November 2015. The platform failed.
This article is a flashback on the content submission site that pays writers (even non-writers, meaning everybody) to post an at least 400-character articles on their website. They do not care about grammar or the topic, just upload and interact with other users and get paid.
Table of Contents
What is Bubblews
Bubblews is a social media and content submission website that pays writers for every view, star, and comment on your post. It was founded by Arvind Dixit and Jason Zuccari with goal of leveraging money generated on the site’s advertisement and share with users.
A medium article [url] disclosed it went on beta mode in 2012, and the official launch was on July 16, 2014. Name comes from combination of words bubblews and news, thus the theme shows skyblue bubbles.
Just like any social media website, the goal is to post an update (400-character article with an image), interact with other users, but what makes this exceptional then was you get paid as others interact with your contents.
Social sites paying users to engage on their platform was a big trend, and many netizens have flocked to Bubblews because of the huge incentive. Their rate is a far cry from what other sites such as Teckler, Squidoo, and Hubpages pay.
How Does Bubblews Work
Account creation with Bubblews is similar to other social media platforms. The only supported way to create an account is through email, thus you need to input several information including your e-mail address, and then click the confirmation link on your mailbox.
You will have a profile, upload a profile picture, and input a short bio. You have a bank which shows the amount you have earned from the platform.
There is an option to upload an at least 400-character article, you can write more. There is also an option to upload a photo, later they have partnered with Pixabay for public domain images to attach on your posts (in case you have none). You can post ten articles per day.
Users can browse others’ posts, follow other users, comment on each other’s post. A cent is paid for every interaction (1 star + 1 comment + 1 view = 3 cents).
Once an account reaches $50, you can ask for a payout through check or PayPal. Reaching $50 per week is doable, but there are instances where the website deletes an account without explanation and will not pay the amount (experienced this twice).
Nevertheless, even after the website deletes an account, you can easily create a new one and start earning again – their rate is too high to ignore.
How Bubblews Failed
On December 18, 2014, CEO Arvind Dixit has announced that the website went out of money: “Bubblews has distributed over $1 million to date, considerably more than our revenues.”
There are several possible reasons why the company was heading for bankruptcy:
Fix Rate for All Countries
Bubblews has set a fix rate of $0.01 for every view, star, and comment on their website. This means, you will earn the same regardless of if you live in the United States, in Africa, or in the Philippines.
Problem arises here since advertisements are not paid the same (every region has different rate, similar to how products have different prices on every region). Advertisement in US should receive higher rate as compared to advertisement shown in the Philippines; but Bubblews pay the same.
The company is based in San Francisco; hence their basis apparently was on the area’s rates. Therefore, the rate may seem common at the area but residents in the Philippines where rate should be lower would see it as fortune. This makes many Filipino netizens flock to the website.
No System in Place vs. Spammers, Bots
The website encourages interaction with other users on the website, and what every user should do is to create a content and interact with other users’ contents with hopes that others would do the same. But, it is innate for many users whose goal is to earn money to max earning instead of actually interacting.
- Users would leave comments on massive number of contents; this is very easy through going to the homepage and see the recent posts and open them all in many tabs then leave a comment on every article. Many would bring the favor back.
- Facebook groups and group chats where Bubblews users would view, comment, and star on each other’s articles are rampant. Hence, they are not actually reading the articles but focus on leaving a star, make a comment and then leave. (This is similar to how bloggers create groups to visit their site, or vloggers create groups where each would view each of their reels/videos.)
- There are online software companies offering you to pay some dollars in exchange for massive views on your content. (Similar to how you can purchase fake interactions such as likes on your social media post today.)
Present social platforms have already found some ways against this, but in 2014, it was a different story. The response Bubblews did was to delete accounts which they suspect is circumventing their system, but this became controversial as many users who claim they are following the Bubblews guidelines have their account deleted.
Evident That They Are Paying More than Earning
Earning a dollar from the likes of Google Adsense then was very hard. You need thousands of views to earn a single dollar, but in Bubblews 1,000 views equates to $10. This is while most advertisement shown on Bubblews comes from Google Adsense.
And rate for Adsense in Philippines is significantly, as most publicized data at the time are rates from US. Evidently, they are paying more than what the company earns.
Unclear Policy on Content
The promise of paying contents while they have no system in place to check the quality has led to many putting random, often nonsense, posts. If an article that was crafted to perfection through several rewritings is valued similar to a first draft, why spend time on checking every detail?
This has led to the website seen as having poor quality contents. Often, many are spamming the website. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing would rank these poor-quality articles in the bottom, or they would not index it on their site.
In addition, Bubblews has deleted many accounts which they suspect are violating their policy but many of the account owners claim they did not do any violation. They do this at situations when there is a pending payment request, which enrages users.
The company, likewise, does not provide exact reasons why the account was deleted, and they do not respond to messages seeking reasons or explaining why account should not have deleted.
Final Thoughts
Bubblews is a social media and content submission website that legitimately pays users, when platforms like Facebook and Twitter still does not. You can withdraw your earning through check or PayPal.
Despite several issues such as account suddenly being deleted, the rate at which they pay their users could not be ignored.
The rate is too good to be true, and it’s true – the company was paying at a very high rate. That is in addition to spammers, bots, and others who infiltrated the website.
In the end, the management has decided to shut the platform down.
But for those who have been a part of the website, Bubblews is one of the sites that have proven that making money online was possible. Perhaps, it was launched at the wrong time, or they have paid too much. It was a great part of memory.
