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I’ve been reading some reviews of AGLOCO by some high profile probloggers and I’m disturbed by the implications. Am I misinformed or does the AGLOCO toolbar they are promoting sound like “scumware” (i.e., a program that steals legitimate ad revenue from the website owner)?
I went to the AGLOCO website (www.agloco.com) and tried to find information but I can’t seem to find too much. Then I went over to JohnChow.com and read John’s AGLOCO review but that didn’t answer my concerns either. Then I read some more reviews by doing a search on Google.
I think this is how it works:
- You sign up as a member and install a toolbar on your computer.
- You are paid to surf for some undisclosed amount to be paid in either cash or stock or both.
- From time to time, ads pop up based on what you what you are surfing and you click those ads to be taken to an advertiser’s site for purchases.
- If you click on a toolbar ad, AGLOCO makes money and you get a percentage as well.
- Which ads pop up depend on what you are surfing at the time–i.e., the ads are contextual ads like Google Adsense.
- Finally, you get a percentage of the revenue every person you refer who installs the toolbar generates–ah, classic MLM.
Well if that’s how it works, I think I’ll take a pass. Here’s my concern: if I’m the website owner, I spent a lot of time creating and maintaining the content on my site. I have advertisers, affiliate links and Google Adsense to make money and create great content. Then someone comes to my site with the AGLOCO toolbar installed and AGLOCO basically “steals” my commissions and advertising dollars because the visitor decides to click on the AGLOCO pop up ad rather than an ad on my website page.
Gee, sounds like a great deal to me the website owner (not)! Sounds like classic scumware. I need a plugin to block out this type of crap. Any entrepreneurial Wordpress plugin developers out there? I’m sure it would become a really popular plugin for webmasters and probloggers. 
Also, the founders of AGLOCO say they are seeking listing on the London Stock Exchange and that everyone who signs up will get shares so that the company is 100% owned by its members. I wonder if they checked up on their securities laws–sounds like an illegal offering to the public of stock in every jurisdiction they are operating in (USA, Canada, U.K.). Very, very bad (finger shaking…)! Maybe the Securities and Exchange Commission would be interested in all this.
I’d be interested in hearing some alternate opinions. Please let me know if I’m off base here.
UPDATE (2/21/06, 2:43 a.m. Eastern time): I’ve asked AGLOCO to respond to my blog post but they haven’t gotten back to me in 24 hours yet. If you want to ask them yourself, their email is aglocoinfo@agloco.com.
UPDATE (2/22/07): Still no response.
UPDATE (2/26/07): Nada, nothing, niltch… Are they going to be like this when you go looking to get paid?
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Ades 02.22.07 at 2:54 pm
You are right but at the moment Agloco is planning to limit the usage of their toolbar to 5 hours a month. That’s very few hours for 30 whole days.
That means you could still make money selling ads on your site and if you download and install the Agloco toolbar yourself, you could as well be making additional money! Sounds good? Then you can sign up under me [affiliate link deleted].
LGR 02.25.07 at 8:21 pm
I could not agree with you [Philip] more. You have to wonder why some very popular bloggers are pushing it so hard with regular posts about how many referrals they have.
Philip Liu 02.25.07 at 9:44 pm
Ades, thanks for your comment but I completely disagree with you. How many hours do you spend visiting any one site? Maybe for your best sites, you visit five or more hours but I guarantee you aren’t clicking on any ads then.
For anyone looking for information and might be interested in clicking on an ad, they likely don’t visit my sites for 5 hours.
You are trying to justify something that can’t be justified and your argument is one sided. You don’t look at it from the point of view of the webmaster. How is he getting compensated for all this?
Even if 5 hours isn’t a whole lot, let’s say it is worth $10 a month, would you give me $10 a month because you are taking that out of the webmasters who make the content?
Anyway, I think they are also violating securities law with their current offering plan.
Where AGLOCO anyway? Why haven’t they commented? I emailed them.
Philip Liu 02.25.07 at 9:56 pm
LGR,
It really is strange to see some high profile bloggers promoting this. Some of those guys I really respect and follow. But I guess if you have a big list and you’re at the top of the pyramid, you have huge incentive to follow AGLOCO’s plan and monetize your list.
But when AGLOCO all falls apart and pisses off a bunch of people (e.g., webmasters who feel like they’ve been the victim of theft) so that AGLOCO’s name is mud, the Internet has a long memory as to who was associated with them.
Is that worth one’s reputation? It isn’t for me (or you).
Michael H. Lewis 02.26.07 at 3:24 pm
I don’t think this program is necessarily going to eliminate other forms of advertising. It’s just one more channel.
I also think that many people are envisioning AGLOCO in a narrow way, that it’s just about making tons of money and nothing else. There’s more to it. I think, in fact, that many people won’t care if they don’t make thousands of dollars. They’ll join, make a few bucks, and benefit from the other things AGLOCO offers. Just click my name at the top of this post if you want to know exactly what I mean.
Philip Liu 02.26.07 at 3:57 pm
Hi Michael,
Thanks for commenting. I read your post, however, you haven’t addressed the point of my post–namely that AGLOCO >steals< the commissions a webmaster would otherwise earn by having contextual advertising pop up based on that web page’s content. In other words, AGLOCO is monetizing the webmaster’s content without compensation.
Does that seem fair to you? Not to me. Everyone I’ve read who’s pushing this has avoided or minimized this “theft”.
Want to make it really fair? Great, compensate me the webmaster by giving me a commission for every sale my content tells the toolbar to pop up a particular ad that generates a sale…
Jason (blogAGLOCO.com) 02.28.07 at 9:05 am
I understand your concerns over AGLOCO’s Viewbar being able to offer an ad that may be clicked on instead of one on your own blog Philip.
One way to help balance that out is to be an AGLOCO member yourself.
But no, I do not think that should be the only solution at all.
However your concerns about AGLOCO’s Viewbar taking from other website’s does not seem to be that big of a deal. When I use my Google toolbar to search versus using one on another site I also take away money that they could make.
Maybe AGLOCO will help to change the way people advertise for the better or the worse.
As for the AGLOCO stock, I have been wondering that myself and hope that they will respond to the question’s soon.
But for now I guess everybody will just have to see what happens when AGLOCO launches the Viewbar next month.
Shane 03.01.07 at 12:03 am
I don’t believe the toolbar is going to steal affiliate commissions away from websites. Agloco basically it would not in an interview with Scobleizer.
If they did try to do that, 3 things would happen.
1. A lot of bad press, both msm and on the web.
2. People would run scripts that block the toolbar.
3. Their affiliate deals would crumble because no one would promote those same affiliates. Sites like Amazon can’t afford to put millions of sites out of business so Agloco can make a buck instead.
That said, I doubt Agloco is going to be all that successful. They’re not going to pay nearly as well as AllAdvantage did. They simply can’t afford to and still stay in business.
And the whole “stock” thing does look like a securities nightmare. It seems to be somewhere in between a private and a public offering.
If it is public, I’m not sure how they plan to keep it 100% user owned. Doesn’t seem feasible for a publicly traded stock.
A lot of strange ideas coming out of this company.
Philip Liu 03.01.07 at 12:12 am
Hi Shane, welcome!
We’ll see what happens with these guys. And there is no doubt in my mind this is a public offering.
Zigire 03.01.07 at 9:15 pm
I predict Agloco to be the biggest failure of 2007. Who wants a horrid toolbar full of ads and “buy this”, “buy that” links? A horrid idea for 2006/7.
Zigire 03.01.07 at 9:16 pm
Scrub that! We all know Pixelotto is the biggest failure of late 2006/7! Agloco will be the biggest let-down to the most number of people then..
Shane 03.02.07 at 8:11 pm
It’s too bad about Pixelotto. They launched with $135k in sales. I expected them to be sold out by this month or next and they’re only at $150k now.
I think it was a brilliant idea. There’s just something wrong with the execution that didn’t make it sticky enough to draw people in beyond the initial buzz.
Dave J 03.04.07 at 11:18 am
This is nothing but a get rich quick pyramid scheme that will ultimately fall flat after the first month. Anyone who has taken any web authoring classes knows that the number one rule to a good web experience is a fast loading page containing an interface free of distraction and interruption.
The common user will lose their mind having 5 hours worth of spam being shoved down their throat every time they click a link. Some will labor through it to be sure, in anticipation of the big pay day at the end of the tunnel, and when they see how minuscule their reward actually is, after putting up with all that harassment, will curse Aglogo and purge it from the HD.
Lisa 05.07.07 at 12:10 pm
Agloco business model reminds me of company years ago called GATOR.
When I visited Agloco websites too read more about the way they make money I thought it was a good idea, but then I realized the intent was to steal affiliate commission from the website publisher. Think about this. Why would Amazon pay a commission twice for one product sold?
One commission to Agloco and one to the website owner. I dont know about you guys but it doesn’t sound like such a great idea after all.