Earn Passive Income While Web Surfing (Blog)

[Savage]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

Earn Passive Income While Web Surfing

[WanderingOak]

Does anybody know what browsers and platforms it will be available for? I might give it a try a few months after it comes out and people give it good reviews. I remember a few years ago when 'Bonzai Buddy' came out, saying that it was a 'revolutionary new way to surf the internet' . I wasn't thick enough to try it, but there were plenty who were. This might be one of those times where 'if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is'.

[Erki]

I have to express my dislike of those ContentAd ads. I have nothing against Google ads and that stuff that is on the left, but ads inside the content is not my cup of tea.

[Hari.c]

I like the concept of getting paid for clicking ads.
When ever I read an article in Steve’s web site and feel like donating some money I just click on as much ads as possible, so that he would get income and also I earn money by not paying money from my pocket .That doesn’t mean that I never paid from my pocket, I donated some money from my pocket, but I can’t donate every day .Everyday when I read a new article I feel like I should pay for this. And by clicking on as many ads I can, I feel good. Win -Win approach .

[Caveman Joe]

Hmm. This smells like 2000 to me. Stuff like this was springing up all over the place just prior to the Dot-Com Crash, and the same sort of businesses are starting up again now.
I'm surprised at Steve for recommending this - what value does it add to the Internet? How does it encourage useful discussion, free exchange of information or the forming of new ideas?
I fully expect another .com crash either this year or next - my current prediction is June 2008. Shall we start taking bets on the exact date?

[jpfieber]

I'm so disappointed in Steve for stooping to this level. He's shamelessly plugged other items and services before but they've at least been related to personal development. This one has nothing to do with it at all. It just takes advantage of the captive audience he's built up. He will, of course, benefit from every referral through this article, which I'm certain will be substantial (27 links that include his referral code).
The amount of new content has slowed down on this site, and the amount of ads has gone up. Those pop-up "Content Link" ads are the worst. I think Steve's shifted his focus from growing his audience to milking his audience. This is a shame because for me it signals a stop of new interesting content, and from now on we'll just see ideas he's already developed rehashed over and over (when new avenues of revenue aren't being explored). I'll seriously be considering whether I should continue visiting the site, and I would bet many others will as well.

[Natasha]

Hari: I am unaware about these sort of things. To clarify, you are saying, that even someone like me (who has no spare income to donate! lol) can help Steve get income by clicking on any of the ads that appear on his website (whether on sidebar, or in text), and that this get Steve income, even if I do not buy anything from those ads?

Because I have gotten a lot of value from his site, I would love to contribute back, and it seems like this would be a way to do this, that I could "afford!" lol

[Caveman Joe]

@Hari C:
Clicking on a bunch of ads just for the hell of it isn't going to help Steve. What helps Steve's advertisers helps Steve - and if advertisers see that they're paying for a bunch of clicks that never convert into sales, they're less likely to want to advertise on this site.
I might even go as far as to say that clicking on ads purely to support Steve's website will end up having the opposite effect in the long run.

[Iamsuperman]

I'll give it a shot but I'm not going to keep my hopes too high.

Thanks for sharing Steve

[Frankie]

I am the only one for whom the links in his post aren't working? They are just taking me to "page cannot be displayed"

[mae]

All I want to know is if Steve will sign up under me!

[ArthurHung]

I'm so disappointed in Steve for stooping to this level. He's shamelessly plugged other items and services before but they've at least been related to personal development. This one has nothing to do with it at all. It just takes advantage of the captive audience he's built up. He will, of course, benefit from every referral through this article, which I'm certain will be substantial (27 links that include his referral code).

It should be expected that a post or two like this would come up. I don't blame you though; I imagine you would not be the only one to feel this way.

Have you thoroughly gone through Steve's material? I would go so far as to say that if someone understood and applied Steve's work into their life successfully, even only 5% of his articles, they could easily become a success. Steve's giving an opportunity for his fans to give something back—those that are grateful. And I imagine there are many who will be doing so after reading this article, in thanks for the opportunity.

And… I'm not even putting a focus on the mutual benefits that this post could bring to those who use it. There is nothing wrong with this post.

[mae]

Bravo, arthur! I agree with you regarding Steve's success. Amazing!

Now, Steve...I *am* the first to ask....

Oh, and the rest of you can sign up under Steve (after he signs up under me)!

[John Wesley]

This post amuses me. I started promoting AGLOCO a bit on my blog months ago, and one thing that made me question if it was a good idea or not was the fact that Steve didn't do anything like that on his blog. I thought maybe I'd be better off staying "above" this sort thing.

Now that I see this I wonder, why the heck did he wait so long? If he was gonna sell out, he might as well have gone John Chow style and started hawking in hard from the very beginning.

Why did he wait so long to get in the game? At this point his missed out on thousands of referrals and still looks like a money grubber. Of course I don't blame the man for trying to make a living, but this post is puzzling. Especially because the post itself is so lame and contains a referral link in every paragraph.

If I was him I wouldn't have done it. AGLOCO is far from a sure thing. Most of the other big bloggers are staying away from it. Especially at this point, is it worth pissing off a lot readers, especially when he already makes a ton from Adsense?

[mae]

John:

First, why would this post piss people off? It's all in the interpretation, isn't it?

You could choose to view it as Steve giving information to his readers and nothing more. I seriously doubt he has a motive for more money from this, although that would probably be a natural effect simply from his status with his supporters. I tend to believe, and I'm sure I read it here somewhere, that Steve makes more than enough money to comfortably support himself, his family, and still do tons of good work. I have a very hard time believing he posted this for his own benefit.

[Scorpio]

Ugh, I've been reading these Agloco plugs on personal development blogs for months. I love reading the flimsy ways they try to 'pre-sell' you on the program when they're obviously doing it out of their own self-interest.

I could stand your previous plugs because you were supposedly very picky about what you recommended and they were related to personal development. This leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Yeah you'll probably make some money, especially from the large chunk of your audience that isn't blogosphere savy (it's so easy to forget not everyone is part of the myopic little blogging scene), but did you really have to do this?

Personally I'd realize I made a mistake and delete the post, but that's just me.

[Hari.c]

I strongly agree with ArthurHung.

Natasha As per my knowldge every add click(weather you buy something or not) would pay some amount.
You can refer Steve saying "A single ad click may put 30 cents in my pocket".

[Dave Kaminski]

I think maybe he realizes that we're all online quite a bit and he can profit from helping us profit. He makes a valid argument, that we're going to be online anyways so we may as well make a few extra bucks.

We could also promote this to others and make more than a few extra bucks. It doesn't hurt to try if you're already online. ::shrugs:: I don't see why everyone immediately thinks that people are out to get them all the time. Are your motives that convoluted that you assume everyone else's are? I hope not.

<3

[Jacobm]

I am slightly torn on this one. While I would like to support Steve (I feel he has his readers' best interests at heart) and earn a bit of free money at the same time, I do have question what value this AGLOCO thing actually brings. As Caveman Joe said:

Originally Posted by Caveman Joe

what value does it add to the Internet? How does it encourage useful discussion, free exchange of information or the forming of new ideas?

If anyone has an answer to these questions that I find acceptable I would probably join...

[msd]

I have to say that I really dislike the "Content Link" ads Steve just put out.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Hehe, reading the various reactions in this thread is amusing.

Honestly (when it comes to this Agloco blog post), I'm only too happy to have the chance to raise my awareness, and if Steve gives me a free opportunity to do that while also giving me an opportunity to potentially earn some passive income and maybe even assist Steve by providing him with some passive income so he can further his life mission and provide me and many other people with more content (free or not) -- content that we may not otherwise be getting if Steve wasn’t getting that extra bit of income -- kudos to Steve. He's playing to win for the benefit of all (whether or not that is his true intention), and shame on anyone who faults him for doing that.

As for whether or not Steve is doing the "right" thing by making a blog post about Agloco, I think the good old saying of “who cares?” works nicely. If that doesn’t work for you, you could instead try asking yourself, “why do I care?” and maybe work from that. Now before people start hunting me down with pitchforks and flaming torches, I’m not trying to get anybody riled up here. What I’m trying to do is point out that really, regardless of what this Agloco blog post may represent, it isn’t a big deal.

Now I may be bias in saying that since I’ve become much less reactive and much more “present” and accepting after implementing what I learnt from reading the book, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (great book ), but really, a blog post is a blog post. Steve could write a 3000 word article about why he enjoyed eating breakfast this morning and I’d be pretty much indifferent (although I may be questioning his sanity just a tad, although if I do that, I think I’d also have to question my own sanity for reading his articles ).

Seriously though, from what I know about Steve, a blog post such as the Agloco one is not out of character from him, and while his new Kontera ads in combination with all the Agloco referral links may light up the Agloco blog post like a Christmas tree with (mildly distracting) links everywhere, I see no real harm in it. Steve has made it public knowledge that he is pursuing the goal of becoming a millionaire, and I think anyone with such a goal would be foolish to pass up a very low-risk opportunity to create a potentially lucrative passive stream of income.

Personally I took a look at Agloco a while back and decided against doing anything with it since A) I didn't want to pump my awareness with any more ads then what I was already getting (from just about everywhere... it’s pretty hard, although not impossible, to reasonably escape advertisements), and B) I was and still am experimenting with the Law of Attraction, so anything that influenced my thoughts in any way that hindered my experiments was undesirable. But now that I think about it, A) I do a pretty good job of filtering out most of the ads I encounter, so being paid to filter out a few more isn’t really going to be detrimental, and B) now that I have a better understanding of the LoA, I can see how my initial argument doesn’t really hold up anymore.

Now I’m not saying that I’m going to just jump on the Agloco bandwagon because Steve is doing it, but I will take the time to consciously consider whether or not it would be something worthwhile, fitting to my preferences and character attributes, and a generally intelligent course of action. I would suggest anybody reading this do the same. I would also suggest that, if for some reason you don’t like the Agloco thing, you simply ignore it... which reminds me of some quotes that will be a fitting, yet semi-random conclusion to my post:

“What you resist persists.”

“Energy flows where attention goes.”

“Leonidas: You, what is your profession?
Arcadian Soldier: I'm a potter, sir.
Leonidas: And you, Arcadian, what is your profession?
Arcadian Soldier: I'm a sculptor.
Leonidas: And you?
Arcadian Soldier: I'm a blacksmith.
Leonidas: [Turning towards the Spartans] Spartans! What is your profession?
Spartans: Harooh! Harooh! Harooh!”
~ A quote from the (bloody awesome) movie, '300'... a quote that people who haven't seen the movie will probably not understand, but oh well.

(I’ve no idea who to credit for the first quotes, so all credit goes to whoever initially came up with those sayings.)

[radeldudel]

So the main question remains:

who is that guy writing on stevepavlina.com now, and what has he done to Steve ;*)

Love You!

[John Wesley]

Originally Posted by mae

I have a very hard time believing he posted this for his own benefit.

Are you serious? If he didn't post it for his own benefit, why is it laced with affiliate links? Not there's anything wrong with that. I did it myself. But this post doesn't really serve the reader.

And that's why it will piss some people off. Because it isn't written in Steve's usual voice. It reads like an infomercial.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by Jacobm

I am slightly torn on this one. While I would like to support Steve (I feel he has his readers' best interests at heart) and earn a bit of free money at the same time, I do have question what value this AGLOCO thing actually brings. As Caveman Joe said:

If anyone has an answer to these questions that I find acceptable I would probably join...

I'll take a quick stab.

Think of it like investing. If you have a fair bit of money, you have the opportunity to invest that money into some potentially worthwhile and meaningful causes to further enrich them so that they may benefit, and possibly in turn benefit others.

The only difference is that here you are investing your your "attention/focus" (instead of money) into some potentially worthwhile and meaningful causes that would like you to somehow support their products/services. And in return for that support, they are benefiting others by giving them cash.

So if anything, if Agloco is successful, it could entice advertisers to move away from traditional, real-world advertising and invest their advertising dollars into the Internet, which could have a number of positive results. Really, I think the value comes from the diversity and expansion of options.

As for encouraging useful discussion, free exchange of information or the forming of new ideas, I think that will happen regardless of whether or not Agloco ads value. Even seemingly negative things can provide value -- it really depends at how you look at things.

[TheColonel]

Originally Posted by Hari.c

I like the concept of getting paid for clicking ads.
When ever I read an article in Steve’s web site and feel like donating some money I just click on as much ads as possible, so that he would get income and also I earn money by not paying money from my pocket .That doesn’t mean that I never paid from my pocket, I donated some money from my pocket, but I can’t donate every day .Everyday when I read a new article I feel like I should pay for this. And by clicking on as many ads I can, I feel good. Win -Win approach .

When you click those ads, that money is coming out of somebody's pocket.

Clicking them to help yourself, a buddy, or a publisher you like (in this case Steve) is NOT a Win-Win. Someone loses - the advertiser. In some cases, it may a person like yourself who is trying to run a business on a shoestring budget.

HOwever, clicking them because they may be something you're interested in purchasing is a very good reason.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by John Wesley

Are you serious? If he didn't post it for his own benefit, why is it laced with affiliate links? Not there's anything wrong with that. I did it myself. But this post doesn't really serve the reader.

And that's why it will piss some people off. Because it isn't written in Steve's usual voice. It reads like an infomercial.

I disagree. Think of it like this...

Why is it good for Steve to have ads on his website? Because if Steve is able to get paid for writing articles -- articles that generally help people -- he can write more of those articles. Sure it helps Steve, but what helps Steve also helps us, and what helps us may in turn help many, many other people (directly or indirectly).

If Steve's website had no ads and he got no cash from his website, he'd have to get money some other way, and that may detract from his ability to write articles, and in turn, help people through his writing. The more money Steve can get doing something that helps people, the more he can expand his service to help people even more.

Ultimately, even if he posted that blog post solely for his benefit, we all benefit from it. You just have to look at it from a "zoomed out" perspective and consider the big picture.

[Caveman Joe]

Originally Posted by Bruce Achterberg

I do a pretty good job of filtering out most of the ads I encounter, so being paid to filter out a few more isn’t really going to be detrimental

You've just hit the biggest flaw in systems like this one - what advertiser in his right mind would pay for advertising in a space that a user is only ever going to look at if you pay him?
Sorry if this post is gonna seem a bit harsh, but I've been holding my tongue about the concerns I've had for a week or two now, and Steve does invite honest feeback, so here it is.

I remain unconvinced about this system. Sorry, but it was a dumb idea seven years ago, and bearing in mind that we all know what happened to those systems in the end and thus don't have the excuse of ignorance, it's an even dumber idea today.
The fact that Steve is recommending a system that we know already to be flawed and of very little value to advertisers is, in my mind, further evidence that he's changing his attitude towards his readers.
I had a big problem with the amount of PATHS spam being posted on the other forums, and the fact that Steve hasn't controlled it sufficiently, but I kept my mouth shut. I shouldn't have. PATHS is such an obvious scam that it shouldn't even warrant the amount of discussion that's gone on about it, and as a sysadmin I find myself with a sense of responsibility to protect people from online scams - Steve apparently doesn't share that sense of responsibility. I admire, mostly, his softly-softly approach to moderation, but he's allowing people to take the mickey and exploit his openness. This latest post is simply reinforcing my fears.

Sorry Steve, but you asked for my opinion and I gave it to you. I give it with no bitterness, but purely in the hope that you'll find it useful.

Good luck, mate.

[pll]

Originally Posted by Frankie

I am the only one for whom the links in his post aren't working? They are just taking me to "page cannot be displayed"

You are probably blocking cookies, which, in fact, is exactly how Steve will make money from this agloco site. If you click on the link embeded within his site, it sets a cookie in your browser cache which the agloco server reads in order to know from whom the referral came.

If you don't click on the link from Steve's site, then manually enter the agloco URL into your browser and join, Steve doesn't get a dime from your connection because there is, in essence, no referral.

By the way, if you're disturbed by the number of ads on any given site, use Firefox as your web browser with the AdBlock plugin. I see no ads on Steve's (or any other) site during my daily browsing.

Also, be aware that with these types of "services" from the likes of agloco, you are essentially selling them your privacy. You give them your e-mail and allow them to set cookies in your browser, and with their "toolbar" they now have access to your browser cache. This means they basically track your every web-based move and sell that data to their "partners".

Steve asked "Who wouldn't want to be part of this?" Well, me. I value what little privacy I have left in this world.

[bossb]

although it sounds naysayish, i'm not gonna bother with aglocco.

banners ads never worked in the past. now you're just getting people who are "going to work" for some shares, its not a system that has truly interested individuals clicking leading to sales.

and considering the amount of people who are going to be using this thing based on alladvantage's previous numbers, if they're going to continually be pumping out shares, that will seriously dilute the value per share, if there is going to be any in the first place.

so either its going to be a big wait for an ipo, and hope share prices start off strong, where its the big boys who will dump this quick before the little guy gets a chance, or it'll never get off the ground and you're stuck with shares that have no value and will cost you fees to sell anyways through your broker if they havent gone to 0 by then.

or if somehow they manage to pay off dividends per share, that'll be coming out of net income, which remains to be seen, won't be a large number per share, unless if they want to go bankrupt.

if they're giving a cut of the income, outside of a dividend model, it'll be better, but once again, remains to be seen how effective their conversions to sales are.

all in all, its not a high risk activity, but unless if you have the potential to have a huge signup like john chow or maybe steve, doesn't seem that lucrative, regardless if you'd be online anyways.

[machine]

Originally Posted by Hari.c

I like the concept of getting paid for clicking ads.
When ever I read an article in Steve’s web site and feel like donating some money I just click on as much ads as possible, so that he would get income and also I earn money by not paying money from my pocket .That doesn’t mean that I never paid from my pocket, I donated some money from my pocket, but I can’t donate every day .Everyday when I read a new article I feel like I should pay for this. And by clicking on as many ads I can, I feel good. Win -Win approach .

So basically what you are doing is taking money from the advertisers and giving it to Steve. You get the benefit of feeling like you are contributing while someone else pays the price.