Trae's dashboard

Strictly for confirmation! You will receive no other text messages from us, or from any one else as a result of providing your cell number here. It's just a way of you ensuring your advertisers/customers that your MeFile belongs a real, unique individual.

Thanks!

Hi glebber,

1) Yes - in some cases the badge graphic may be altered, although we have to be pretty picky about when and why to do it. Send us a note and perhaps a graphic you would propose to monetize_AT_youdata_D0T_com. It would have to be approved by marketing, but if you can make the case for the graphic helping generate more MeFiles via your site, it would increase the chances.

2) Sometimes the blog requests get a little backed up due to the growth we are experiencing (great problem to have) and we are working on ways to speed this up. Please allow up to 5 business days, although it usually would not take near this long.

Hi there! Unfortunately, we have not quite made it over to the UK yet and are available only to US consumers at this time. We certainly do have plans to extend internationally, and the UK will be one of the first, but there are several things to work out first (currency conversion, taxes, ad sales outside of the US, misc technical issues). Thank you for your patience - we'll get there!

In the meantime, this should be an interesting experiment to watch in the US. Please wish us luck!

Hi Ashley - although the number of ads each day or week will vary, no ads at all for over a week may indicate a problem of some kind with your account. Please send an email to support_AT_youdata_dot_com providing your MeFile ID and the techies will troubleshoot.

Thanks!

Hi glebber,

I'm not sure I am understanding your question, but your music blog sounds great! Are you asking about blogging platforms that allow our adget to be added at a cost-free tier? Let me know if that is right, and we should be able to send you a list of options.

Thanks glebber! Good catch! We have corrected it and should be pushed to production later today. Man - we have the best user community anywhere!

Your "Palpal",
Trae

Great question!

YouData is cutting new ground here, so it is actually still a little fuzzy how we fit into the existing tax rules, but here is our understanding so far:

Most importantly, as stated in our Terms of Service, you, the consumer, are ultimately responsible for any tax liabilities created via participation in our system.

That said, here is our current understanding of how we affect taxation...

YouData is only acting as a "pass-through" of any funds that advertisers pay you for your attention. This means that each advertisers is paying you directly - not YouData.

The threshold for reporting additional income from any single party is $600 annually - this is the current minimum to require a 1099 be sent from the payer. Thus, if any SINGLE advertiser paid you $600 or more for your attention in a single year, they would need to report the transaction, issue to you a 1099 form, and you would need to report the income and pay the appropriate taxes.

Fortunately, our system prevents any single advertiser from paying any individual more than $599 in a single year, so that we may avoid such a taxable situation. (Realistically, no single advertiser will even come close to the $600 threshold for a single individual anyway.)

So even if you ended up with $601 total via our system in a single tax year, that total would be comprised of hundreds of very small payments from hundreds of advertisers, and no 1099s or other reporting should be required.

Hope this helps. In forming our current understanding of the tax rules, we have talked with several tax experts and attorneys, but all admit that this is "new ground," so this could all change down the road.

We will keep the MeFile community updated on any changes or discoveries that may affect how we all handle taxation.

Thanks for the question Nickie. There are a few hundred at this time. Here are a couple of great examples: www.kirtsy.com and www.thebloggess.com. You can even try a site like http://www.youdata.com/give/pinkRibbo... to try donating your attention proceeds to a worthy cause. We will work on putting together a list of blog urls for future reference. There are some great ones and we love them all!

Oh - you are gooooood! We have actually just finished development of this feature. We are currently testing and plan to have it into production within a few days.

Keep them coming! We do listen.

Hi Mary Grace,

Unfortunately, while we do have international aspirations, we do not yet have a timetable for going outside the US. Several international inquiries such as yours have helped highlight for us the need and opportunity outside the US, and we are definitely paying attention. I can tell you that we will most likely start with Canada and the rest of our English-speaking cousins - UK and Australia.

There are several logistical reasons that make it challenging at this stage - taxes, currencies, government regulations, ad sales, geographical targeting, and many others. We will get there though!

In the meantime, please wish us luck here in the US. We have our work cut out for us. Should be an interesting experiment to watch!

Hi K,

We would recommend setting up separate login accounts within the operating system of your PC itself. This will allow you to keep your own preferences, histories, files, and MeFile login credentials ("Remember Me") in tact and separate from your husbands.

If you are using Vista, XP, or Mac OS X, setting up personal accounts should be pretty straight forward within the Accounts or Users control panel/preferences. These accounts even make passwords optional, so you could still both have access to each other's environments if you choose.

It might seem a bit of pain at first to set up separate logins for your computer, but in the long run it is usually very convenient as you each get to create your own computing environments and benefit from personalization of services such as YouData's.

Hope this helps! :-)

Hi Angel,

Thanks for the question.

There is no good way to predict how many ads any individual should expect in a week. Although there may be hundreds of ads flowing through the system, only the ones that match you will show up in your queue. Thus, each consumer's experience with the amount of ad offers is as unique as their own MeFile.

That said, this is a very common question among MeFiles (see here), and as more advertisers learn about the service you are providing, we would expect that more and more ads will fit your own MeFile.

We are just entering the 4th month in this little experiment and appreciate your patience as it is gaining steam. YouData is working hard to let advertisers know that you are open for business. Thanks for your help in fixing advertising!

Thanks,
Trae

Hi memily - sometimes there is a delay depending on carrier and server traffic, but 24 hours is definitely too long, so something must have gone wrong.

Please send us an email containing your MeFile ID to support_AT_youdata_DOT_com asking us to try sending it from one of our personal cell phones. We'll get it to you somehow!

Unfortunately, while we do have international aspirations, we do not yet have a timetable for going outside the US. Several international inquiries have helped highlight for us the need and opportunity outside the US, and we are definitely paying attention.

There are several logistical reasons that make that challenging at this stage - taxes, currencies, government regulations, ad sales, geographical targeting, and many others. We will get there though!

For now, we anticipate quite a fight here in the US, so please wish us luck. Should be an interesting experiment to watch!

Although we have been tempted, currently we do not have a paid affiliate/referral program. When studying past programs that paid for friends-singing-up-friends-signing-up-friends, their membership numbers grew for all the wrong reasons. The sign ups became the business, and no true value was ever delivered to advertiser or consumer. So we're going to try to grow "organically" and based on value inherent in our model.

For now all we can offer is our gratitude for any friends you send our way. We promise to do our best to make them glad they came, and grateful to you for letting them know about YouData.

Thanks for creating your MeFile and helping us fix advertising!

One more that came to mind:

An individual must be at least 13 years old to have a MeFile.

Absolutely! But there are a few considerations/restrictions.

Cell phones and emails must be unique per individual.
To collect payment, each MeFile must be validated with a unique email address and cellular phone number (see this link for explanation on why).

PayPal accounts may be shared - for now.
We do reserve the right, if necessary, at a future time, to require unique PayPal accounts as well.

All of these restrictions are to help ensure advertisers that it is difficult and cost-prohibitive for one person to create and manage multiple MeFiles.