Personal Development for Smart People^TM

Agloco has been generating a lot of buzz lately as a new way for people to earn a little extra money from their normal web browsing activities… possibly a lot of extra money if you refer others to the program.

Reincarnation of AllAdvantage

You may recall an online service from many years ago called AllAdvantage.  It provided a free browser plug-in that would show ads.  By viewing ads while web surfing as well as by referring others to install the AllAdvantage plug-in, you could earn some money.  Apparently some people earned substantial sums from it by building a large network of referrals, much like an affiliate program.  I had an AllAdvantage account at one point, more out of curiosity than anything else.  I don’t think I ever made more than a few dollars from it though.  Eventually AllAdvantage discontinued their service, since the original implementation wasn’t viable in the long run.

AllAdvantage was an interesting concept, but perhaps ahead of its time.  The new incarnation is Agloco, which stands for “A Global Community.”  Agloco is supposed to release their browser viewbar plugin within the next few days (if they haven’t done so already by the time you’re reading this).  I’ve looked into their business model, and it seems much more intelligent than AllAdvantage’s model, especially in its susceptibility to fraud.

By installing the Agloco web browser plug-in, you can actually earn income from regular web surfing in 4 ways:

1. A kickback for browsing.  You earn an automatic share of Agloco’s revenue based on the time you spend each month browsing the web with their viewbar installed.  So that’s basically passive income for something you’d be doing anyway.
2. Company shares.  You earn shares of stock in the company based on your monthly browsing with the viewbar.  That could amount to zip, or it could be something you later sell for cash.
3. Referral income.  You earn a bigger share of #1 and #2 by referring others to the program, much like an affiliate program.  You also get some kind of bonus from the referrals of those you originally referred.  This is probably why the program has been spreading through blogs lately, since a popular blog can efficiently build a large network of referrals.
4. Revenue sharing.  You earn a share of the revenue whenever an Agloco member buys something, such as from a browser ad, an affiliate link, or by doing a search from the viewbar.

Agloco’s business model

I’ve been looking through Agloco’s site to better understand their business model, and it seems reasonably viable to me.  The basic idea is that advertisers are already spending money to reach you, such as via Adsense, paid search results, and affiliate commissions, in order to promote their products to you.  Agloco’s business model is based on collecting and then sharing a percentage of those advertising dollars with you, the consumer.

I earn a pretty good decent income from advertising on this site.  Those ad dollars are going to me.  With Agloco you would get a share of that money too.

Agloco’s business model basically works like this:

1. You browse the web as usual.  With the Agloco viewbar installed, you go about your usual web surfing.
2. Agloco members buy stuff.  In the course of their normal browsing activities, Agloco members will collectively end up clicking on ads, doing searches that show paid ads, or buying stuff via the viewbar.  This doesn’t mean you as an individual have to buy anything.  It’s the collective buying effect that ads up.  This could very easily amount to millions of dollars in sales with a decent-sized community.
3. Agloco collects commissions.  People are already spending this money online now, but when an Agloco member does it via the viewbar, Agloco collects a commission.  Again, if there’s a lot of money passing through this system, this could add up to a substantial amount.
4. You get paid part of Agloco’s revenue.  Based on your participation and the number of people you refer to the program, you earn a slice of the pie.

This is an interesting concept because it capitalizes on existing sales rather than trying to sell something new.  Advertisers basically end up paying Agloco a commission to promote and sell their products to the Agloco community, and as a member of that community, you get a slice of the revenue.  This reminds me of a line from the book Catch 22:  “Everyone gets a share!”

Let’s compare this to StevePavlina.com’s current business model.  Whenever someone clicks an ad or buys something from an affiliate link on this site, I earn some money.  A single ad click may put 30 cents in my pocket, but it adds up when thousands of people are doing it.  Now imagine if I took all the ad and affiliate revenue generated by this site and gave a kickback to ALL of my visitors, even those who never clicked on ads.  It wouldn’t be a huge amount, but I could afford to pay each visitor a penny every month and still make a profit.  Now imagine if every web site you visited did this.  And suppose you got an extra bonus for each person you referred into this system.  Those pennies could quickly add up to many dollars.

Now who’d want to be left out of such a system?  Even if it’s not a lot of money and you only earn enough to buy an extra meal each year, it’s basically free money for doing what you’re already doing.

The rich get richer

To some degree Agloco supports the rich getting richer, meaning that people who already have access to a large network have a built-in advantage.  Popular web sites or newsletters that can refer a lot of people to the program stand to gain significantly more than individuals who only refer a few people.  On the other hand, if you want to get started with a trickle of passive income for a few minutes time, this seems like a good way to do it.  All you do is sign up once, install the viewbar when it’s released, and go about your normal web surfing.  Even if you don’t refer anyone, you can still earn money, just not as not as much as someone with a lot of referrals.

Getting in early

The Agloco buzz has been circulating for several months now, but it’s still early enough to get in as an early adopter.  Supposedly their viewbar plugin will be launched this weekend, and when that happens, hordes of people are going to install it, and the system will start generating revenue.  I’m sure a lot of people are holding back from signing up until the viewbar is released.  Tens of thousands of very early adopters are already on board right now, but there’s still tremendous untapped potential out there.  If Agloco does well, it could do really, really well.  It’s certainly generating tremendous pre-release hype.

To me this is a no-brainer.  Obviously it’s an easy choice for me because I have the potential to build a large network due to the popularity of this site.  But it’s good for individuals too.  There are a few reasons I feel this way:

• It’s free.  The first time someone told me about Agloco, my reaction was, “Is this some kind of MLM pyramid scheme?”  It clearly isn’t though because you never have to buy anything yourself.  And you won’t have to hard-sell your friends on overpriced vitamins.  This is more like an extended affiliate program to create a very large group of users.  This system basically collects a share of what people are already buying online and gives it back to the customers, similar to a rebate program.
• It only takes a couple minutes to sign up.  You fill out a simple form on their site, and you’re in.  Then you just install the viewbar when it’s released.  They give you a referral link you can use to refer others if you want.  I’m using my referral link in all the Agloco links in this post, so if you click one of my links and sign up, you’ll automatically become part of my network of referrals.  Whether you want to do that or not is entirely up to you.
• High potential upside with low risk.  If Agloco goes bust and never pays anyone, you’ll have wasted a few minutes, and you can call me an idiot for telling you about it.  But if the system works, and you get in today, you stand to gain a lot more than someone who joins a year from now, especially if you refer others and put time on your side.  You get some credit for your extended referrals too (those referred by the people you directly referred), so you may refer only 3 or 4 people but end up with a network of dozens if someone in your network does a lot of referring.  I always like making these kinds of bets because the downside risk is negligible, but the potential upside is huge if it works.

I suggest you take a few minutes to visit Agloco’s site, and if you think this idea has potential, sign up for a free account.  At this time their site is pretty straightforward and uncomplicated, so feel free to dig around and see if their business model makes sense to you.  This could be a nice little bonus income stream for those participating in the Million Dollar Experiment.

Update 6/7/07:  The Agloco Viewbar has been released.  Read my first impressions.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 5:00 am and is filed under Business, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Wealth & Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.