Hey, buddy — can you spare an online dime?

It was summer 2002. Karyn Bosnak, a twentysomething TV producer in Brooklyn, N.Y., realized that her penchant for Prada pumps and Gucci bags had sent her into financial free-fall. She'd lived beyond her means for too long, and her credit-card statement was starting to resemble her annual salary.

Overwhelmed by her bills, she sent out a desperate plea into the online universe. It was a Web site: SaveKaryn.com.

"My name is Karyn, I'm really nice, and I'm asking for your help! You see, I have this huge credit card debt and I need $20,000 to pay it off. So if you have an extra buck or two, please send it my way!"

It was a nice idea. Maybe a little naive, and definitely not realistic, but sweet.

But then it worked.

Splendidly.

Bosnak witnessed a miracle on the Information Superhighway. Somehow her plea meshed with the zeitgeist — or maybe it became the zeitgeist — and her amateur Web site, all green and yellow and perky, immediately got hits from people all over the world, 1 million of them in the first three months. And people were actually donating. Real money.

Media attention soon followed, and after all those interviews, Bosnak got even more donations. One week in August 2002, the site reached its zenith: She bagged more than $2,600 from generous strangers.

Thanks to those strangers and her own penny pinching, the debt was gone within 20 weeks, and Bosnak cut off the donations and cut up her credit cards.

In the end, she received $13,323.08. Just because she asked for it.

Bosnak has, in the online world, become sort of the patron saint of Internet panhandling, also known as cyberbegging. (Online info-hub Wikipedia suggests "cause Web site" is a more politically correct term, but that rings falsely altruistic in our ears.)

Here's the way it works: Say you're broke, or at least short on funds. And you want to get out of debt. Or make next month's rent. Or buy a car you can't afford on your meager salary. The solution is simple: Set up a Web site and just "ask" for the money.

If you call for the kindness of strangers, you just might get it.

Or you might not. Especially these days, it has become an even bigger gamble.

Consider John Overholser. The 25-year-old man wants to get rid of his own debt, then save for his upcoming wedding, maybe even a home. In December, he launched his Web site: www.MakeMeRetire.com. His haul? Well, only $160 so far. And most of that is from family and friends.

"It hasn't really taken off yet," he says. But he keeps hoping it'll be the next Save Karyn.

Cyberbegging is big business

A few years ago, cyberbegging was seen as not much more than a gimmick to make a quick buck. Now it's become big business. No one seems to know how big — after all, people don't register their sites with the FCC. But Yahoo! and Google both have entire directories devoted to online panhandling, showing page after page of people with needs and dreams ("Please Help This Diabetic," "Make Me Richer Than Bill Gates," "I Like Meat But Can't Afford It").

And by now, cyberbegging has become so mainstream, there are sites where those seeking cash can connect, get advice and advertise their needs.

Some of these sites, including CyberBeg.com and DonateMoney2Me.com,even charge a membership fee. That's right — they charge money to post a message "asking" for money. (Here's a good one: At the dubious Millionairehelp.org, you can pay $35 to post your plea for six months — or $99 for a full year. Get the discount while you can.)

An alternative: SaveMeSites.com, a site that allows users to post their needs and ask for donations. The site is free, and it has provided a forum for more than 16,000 panhandlers; about 3,500 of them are using free Web pages on the site.

Steve Donahue, the Webmaster of SaveMeSites.com, says he set it up in response to all those pay sites, which he believes are scams.

He worries that too many people are putting all their faith — and maybe all their money — into panhandling online. He's seen thousands of people come and go without making a dime.

"I don't think it works anymore," he says with a sigh. "It really doesn't. Karyn got about 13 grand, and nobody since then has made anything like that kind of money. If you see a few people who make a few hundred (dollars), they're doing good."

That doesn't stop people from asking. On his site, Donahue sees users begging for donations so their cars and homes won't be repossessed. He's also got people requesting money for college, vacations and plastic surgery. Log on, and search through the list: "Help, help, help a desperate widow save her home" is listed just above "Need help with my cockatiel vet bills."

The sheer volume of requests is overwhelming. If you clicked and read each one (and you want to — who can turn away from titles like, "A life breaking down, please help"?), it would take a week. And this is just one site.

People are on the verge of losing their electricity, their cars, their homes, their health — "their stories are so sad sometimes, you can't even read them," Donahue says.

Of course, some of the most heartbreaking requests are also the most suspicious. Donahue says he has no way of knowing which users are telling the truth and which are running a scam.

"I figure about 10 percent are made up," Donahue says. "I think most people looking for help are decent. If you're on the Internet begging for help, you're probably pretty desperate."

Of course, there are scams all over the Internet. And now lots of those scammers are zoning in on the desperate. Donahue's site lists about 50 scammers he's identified recently — people who are preying on panhandlers with fake promises of money and misleading offers of help.

Cyberbegging has gotten serious. It's gotten organized. It's got scammers. But there's only so much money and goodwill to go around, especially among strangers online. You wonder: Is it going to collapse under the weight of its own need?

Modern desperation

If we didn't have the Web, would some of these Internet panhandlers be standing on street corners? Collecting spare change under bridges? Is this phenomenon the result of a shaky economy and an Internet-savvy population?

Not necessarily. It might just be the weird byproduct of an altogether useful development.

Lee Rainie is the founding director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which releases all kinds of fascinating studies about Americans' Internet use. He says cyberbegging is just a small part of the many ways we're using the Web to try to help each other.

Remember what happened after Hurricane Katrina? On Web sites all over the Net, people started offering and asking for assistance.

"People were bypassing traditional relief organizations and doing do-it-yourself relief," Rainie says. "They'd post a little note: 'I'm driving my truck down with water and diapers and clothes — anybody want to go with me or contribute?' It was distinct and different from the Red Cross."

The Internet gives us a chance to set up exchanges directly, Rainie says, and it lets us initiate them "from the demand side rather than the supply side." Especially after an event like Katrina, "people [are] taking it upon themselves to offer and seek help."

And that, he says, may be where cyberbegging is headed. But it's not all for noble causes like hurricane relief. Sometimes it's just so we can give the world a list of the stuff we want.

Consider the Amazon Wish List.

"That's sort of a benign version of panhandling," Rainie says. "Sometimes it's for a wedding. Other times, it's — 'Hey, anybody who wants to can buy me ... ' "

The entertainment factor

The fact is, it's not enough to just "ask" anymore. The need is so great — and there's so much competition — that Internet panhandlers are forced to offer something in return.

Sometimes that's entertainment.

Look at Christine Kent. To raise money for an animal charity, she set up a Web site, SaveBuster.com, and wrote in the voice of her cat. And she made more than $1,000 from highly amused strangers.

"It's sad to say that a simple tale of woe will not cut it," Kent says. But "you have to entertain people. If you just tell them, 'Everything's awful and so-and-so has died and I've had this surgery,' that's a big downer. You've got to amuse them or tell them about your life or draw them in, in some way."

Then there's the serious stuff: Christopher Allbritton, a former Associated Press and New York Daily News reporter, started blogging about the war. He gathered $15,000 in donations from readers who wanted him to blog from Baghdad, and he's been blogging with news and commentary since 2003.

That's not really panhandling, Rainie points out. He calls it "low-scale entrepreneurialism." Sometimes it's more like "cybertrading."

Which is where Kyle MacDonald comes in.

MacDonald, a 26-year-old Canadian, was sitting at his desk last summer wondering whether he'd ever be able to own a house. Then he thought: Why not trade for a house?

When MacDonald was a kid, he and his friends used to play a game called Bigger and Better. It was sort of like a neighborhood scavenger hunt with a bartering twist.

"We'd go door to door with a small item and try to trade up to something bigger," MacDonald says. "It was all in good fun, and a lot of people cleaned out their basements."

So in July, as MacDonald lamented the fact that he didn't have enough cash to buy a home, genius struck.

"I remembered the game and looked down at my desk, and there was a red paper clip," MacDonald says. "I said, 'That'll do.' "

So he put up a Web site: oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com. He offered the paper clip. He waited for people to clamor for it.

And they did.

Within a few hours, a couple of Vancouver women offered to trade a pen shaped like a fish. Then a sculptor in Seattle offered him a crazy handmade doorknob. MacDonald took it and handed off the pen.

The trade offers kept coming: A Coleman stove. A generator. A three-day trip to Yahk, B.C. Seven months of trading later, MacDonald has a van. It's a cube van with 200,000 miles and a company logo on it, but hey, the guy started with a paper clip.

Now his site gets nearly 11,000 visitors a day. Offers are pouring in.

"My whole idea was to write short stories about meeting people, and it sort of snowballed," MacDonald says. "But I'm not doing this for a book deal. I'm tryin' to get a house."

MacDonald's One Red Paper Clip is more sophisticated than Bosnak's Save Karyn. It's full of pictures and streaming video, updates and advertising.

The spirit, however, is the same. Bosnak needed cash. MacDonald needs a house. They both set their wishes loose on the World Wide Web, hoping someone would fulfill them. And in their own ways, they've both gotten lucky.