My progress on Method #1
I'm up to 6000 points in empireviews.
I got an article accepted on Triond.
To my understanding 1000 views should give about $1 from Triond. Minimum payout to paypal is $0.50.
I submitted my link into Triond and spent 250 points initially.
Since Empireviews want to have control over their links, the Triond site/articles isn't auto approved and I'm now waiting for approval.
(About my article: Took a good keyword, 5k searches, $5cpc, very low comp in G. Wrote my article about it in my native language, G translated it and corrected some translation errors. So should be unique. Hopefully I can get some organic traffic to this article. Considering doing a SB blast to possible gain some serp.)
I do see the empireviews part as a short term moneymaker, and hopefully the Triond could make me money in the long run (If I don't get burned).