Free Electricity!

Stumbling around the Internet looking for possible freelance work, I found a site called Metacafe. Its model is simple. You upload original videos. If enough people watch, you get paid.

And if you show people how to snag free electricity, you make enough to pay for a nice vacation.



Metacafe says it pays $5 for every thousand views a video gets. It has to reach 20,000 views before payment starts. It also must have a rating of 3.00 or higher. Kip "Kipkay" Kedersha has mastered the craft, according to Metacafe's list of top earners:

1. Kipkay  -  $122,152
2. Liv Films  -  $55,088
3. fishinglivebait  -  $45,138
4. massagenerd  -  $39,196
5. shootingeggs  -  $30,533
6. Reel Stunts  -  $29,079
7. jeff3230  -  $28,903
8. maverick99  -  $26,059
9. spacepaintings  -  $25,471
10. loup226  -  $23,386

Kedersha swears by Metacafe on his website, which also includes his videos since Metacafe does not demand exclusivity.

It's not a way to get rich quick. The video above took 540,000 views to earn Kipkay $2,700. It takes a while to build an audience and you have to have more than one hit to make a decent payday. But once a video catches on, it keeps making you money.

It's another way enterprising people are putting video cameras to profitable use.