What Everyone Ought to Know About Agloco
Published March 26th, 2007 in Internet Tags: agloco, agloco scam, AllAdvantage, make money online, mlm, mlm scheme, public service announcement, vaporware.Agloco is a pay to surf MLM scheme that exploded onto the interwebs late last year. It is backed by the same team as AllAdvantage which crashed and burned in the bubble years. Check out this article from Business 2.0 on AllAdvantage (pdf).
AllAdvantage had a simple proposition: pay people a fixed hourly rate for the hours they spent browsing the internet with their software and use an MLM structure to attract new users. As you’d expect, this lead to legions of bots that pretended to surf. In contrast, Agloco uses a tortuously roundabout path to go from surfing to actual payment of money.
Still, most people mistakenly see Agloco as having a simple, linear model. Consider the following a public service announcement. If you’re a shrewd trader or investor or ever sat through an economics class (awake) you have no need to read further.
For the rest, let’s break it down:
[1] First, you have to download and install Agloco’s viewbar. This software (vaporware?) has yet to be released and every time a date is given, it makes a nice whooshing sound as it passes by. For the sake of this analysis, let’s assume it is actually released.
[2]So you surf the web while running the viewbar. But you don’t get a one-to-one proportionate credit for the actual hours you spend online. No matter how much longer you spend online, you’ll only get five measly hours accrued a month. And they “reserves the right to change these rates at any time for any country”.
[3]Next, these ‘Agloco hour units’ will accumulate. At some point, who-knows-when (if ever) they will be converted to something else. Note that they “reserves the right to change the [conversion] rates at any time”. So you can find yourself on shifting ground and get much less than what you thought you’d get.
Now, here’s the knee slapper: Agloco will convert these ‘hour units’ not into cash but into shares. But Agloco is a private company in start-up mode; has no public shares to distribute; is not profitable; hasn’t even released a product; and its founders failed the first time they tried this venture (what they lack in creativity, I suppose, they make up in persistence). Furthermore, according to SEC regulations, Agloco can not distribute unregistered shares to the public. While the ability of Agloco to produce and distribute value hinges on being able to going public, it’s ironic that the least amount of attention has been paid to this point.
“Remember, the company is 100% owned by the Members…”
No, it is not. It is a private company owned by a very few. I can cut them some slack for aggressive promotional copy but this is a bald faced lie.
[4]Assuming it does actually go public (I would really like to see an investment banker sit through a meeting with a straight face) Agloco will then have to use its shares as currency to pay its members – that was the original point, before all these twisty turns, remember? When it begins to do so, the proverbial shit will hit the fan.
If we assume Agloco is successful, they will have to regularly pay their considerable and probably growing user base a massive amount of money. Which means selling a massive amount of shares on the market. Guess what will happen to the value of the shares when this unflagging selling takes place? Guess what will happen before the selling hits as smart traders position themselves ahead of the avalanche of sell orders?
[5]But wait, maybe I’m being too harsh here. Let us again give them the benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume that people don’t make a mad dash to cash in their shares… eventhough they’ve been slaving over a hot monitor for months. The next hurdle to the ‘members’ seeing money is for the firm to become profitable.
[6]The chances of this are very slim for obvious reasons. Even if they do become profitable, the founders will rightfully want to get a return on their risk capital before paying anyone else. Again, let’s assume not only that Agloco becomes profitable but that their board declares a cash dividend (as opposed to a sneaky stock dividend).
[7]Now here is the payoff that the ‘members’ had been waiting for. Assuming all the above, we finally get to the single mention of cash payment to users in Agloco’s website:
“As Agloco grows and the company generates positive cash flow, we will be distributing the excess cash to Members and shareholders of the company.”
At this improbable point, having jumped through hoop after hoop and assumed everything but the kitchen sink, the members are getting paid a pittance: dividend ‘cents’ on any ‘dollar’ shares owned. And that is assuming that in Agloco’s glorious ascent, hackers the world over haven’t unleashed massive ‘bots’ to mimic surfing and made it a victim of its own ’success’. Or that the SEC hasn’t nabbed the founders on charges of attempting to circumvent securities law by promising the public unregistered securities in return for membership.
If you are more jaded than I am, you may point out that at each node through this circuitous path, Agloco has built in several mechanisms to control the amount of ‘value’ they distribute – whether limits on hours, conversion rates of shares or cash, reserving the right to kick anyone out for any reason, etc. These built in ‘firewalls’ are there for the protection of the founders and the business but they can also be used quite easily to manipulate the user base to extract the most from them while reciprocating a minimum.
Having said all that, I don’t think Agloco’s a scam. It is a poorly conceived scheme that appeals to those who know very little about finance, share issuance and regulation. I really do wish Agloco would go public. How else would I get a chance to short it? 
I’ve been DUGG! If you would like to make this information available to more people, follow this link to digg me up.
UPDATE: If you enjoyed this, then don’t miss: the beginning of the end for Agloco.
agloco, agloco scam, AllAdvantage, make money online, mlm, mlm scheme, public service announcement, vaporware
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Thanks for this write-up. I had been curious about just how this whole Agloco thing would work, and thanks to this write-up spelling things out in black and white like this, I can see that it’s not going to work at all. I won’t bother wasting my time looking into it further.
And let’s not forget that the whole thing is a pyramid scheme.
Wow. I guess that I am very surprised. Based on the previous AllAdvantage I assumed that this would be somehow legitimate. That is what the owners want based on thie write-up: unsuspecting losers like me who assumed it would basically be the same thing…
Anyways, since it doesn’t actually cost me anything (other than the time to download the viewbar upon its eventual release) I’m going to continue to be hopeful. So I may not get anything…oh well.
Here is my referral link - but according to this article it is worth less…
[removed]
Garrett,
you’re welcome. It will be fun to watch from the sidelines and place bets on when they will implode.
Stan,
it’s an MLM structure which only attracts the desperate and uninformed. It is debatable whether it is a true pyramid scheme since you’re not paying anything, unless your time is considered valuable to you.
vtgorilla,
thanks for dropping by. You’re right to say that your referral link is worthless - that’s why it was removed
Good analysis .. I agree with most of your points, Babak. It’ll be real interesting to see how Agloco manages to deal with all the problems you’ve mentioned.
It seemed way too good to be true! Someone even made the following thinking those ppl could possible make that much annum:
http://agloco-top-gun.spaces.live.com/
If this system does turn out to fail and burn, I pity the ppl who worked like crazy to build up a downline.
mark,
I know what you mean. There are people spending a lot of money on ads to promote it as well as spamming their friends and family. In the end, they’ll have lost not just money but a lot of goodwill.
Repeat after me: there is no free lunch.
Hey Babak,
Could you look over this link of the financials because this is supposed to be how Agloco works.
http://haroldbbbg1619.wordpress.com/tag/agloco/simmons-report/
Also could you clarify a few points. I didn’t quite understand the concept of unregistered shares or what that means exactly or why Agloco cannot distribute shares to its users.
I understand that you wrote that the it’s against SEC regulations to distribute unregistered shares to the public, but what does that mean?
Could you also clearly outline the part about smart ass traders positioning themselves before people cash in their stocks? I have no investment experience and am just interested in getting a better understanding.
Thanks
There’s also the part about builders recieving 1/4 of the hours of the first 5 levels in their downline that you didn’t get into. Could you look into that and update your article?
“Agloco will then have to use its shares as currency to pay its members – that was the original point, before all these twisty turns, remember?”
I’m confused, you make it sound like the only way Agloco can get cash to distribute is by going public and selling stock, while I thought the cash they distribute was going to come from advertisers paying to put ads in their viewbar. Am I missing something?
Toke,
I don’t have the time to delve into that report although I’ve glanced at it. Nor do I think it would be productive. The report is a classic case of GIGO. There are many tells but my favourite is where it says ‘if only 2% of the US…’. Classic. Rather than get lost in the minutia and split hairs, step back and look at the big picture. That’s what I tried to do in my analysis.
re SEC regulations: http://www.sec.gov/answers/comppublic.htm
Traders position themselves before an event takes place. They anticipate, not react. So if Agloco is trading, it will crater before they themselves try to sell shares to raise money to pay their ‘members’.
Finally the downstream yada yada is what all MLM’s have. Nothing earth shattering.
Joel,
it remains to be seen if they will attract any advertisers. Would you advertise knowing that people are not neutral but rather have an incentive to view/click your ads? would you be attracting people that are interested in your product/service or just people that see your ad as a way to get paid themselves?
There’s another problem that you haven’t even addressed.
The question becomes, how are -they- making their money, where do the current owners derive profit from the company. The answer isn’t startling, you’re busy watching these advertisements on their browser bar, and they’re getting paid by the companies choosing to advertise their products and services based on the member base.
As this company grows exponentially, you’ll find that their profits soar rapidly upwards and outwards because of the pyramidal nature of this scam. I’m going to come right out and call it a scam because it has legal stop-gaps.
1 > They can kick you out, is it at their discression? With no promise of paying you?
2 > They can alter the rate at which you accrue points
3 > They can alter the rate at which points are exchanged
4 > They haven’t comitted to when their stock goes public. (If it never goes public, they simply walk away with all of their earnings and a great big smile)
That’s right… Because you can’t cash in for shares until an IPO and they don’t have to ever offer their shares to anyone legally, you’re basically being promised something that doesn’t exist and doesn’t ever -have- to exist. And guess what, if you were to sue them they can simply immediately state that the rate for point > share exchange is -so- low, that you get nothing… And there would be nothing you can do about it. In civil court, they win… until they get busted for securities fraud and end up doing 5-10.
Kirzen,
yes, there are way more issues which one can bring up. I chose to stick to the big picture.
Attn Agloco ‘members’: your attempts to spam my blog with referral links is quite humorous but futile.
I usually consider myself pretty savvy. At least enough so to pick up on scams, but this one even drew me in. After I checked the AGLOCO site today and saw that they have again delayed their bar, I will be removing their ad from my blog. The good news is :::laughing::: I didn’t pick up anyone to build my pyramid, so I am not out much! Great article. I am putting a link to it on my site. Thanks!
BigGuy,
had Randalls given away ’shares’ to the general public - and not simply their employees, then your analogy would have some merit. Public offering of shares is regulated and a very serious matter (especially after Sarbanes-Oxley). For more info see the SEC link I put in a comment above.
btw your agloco link has been removed just like the rest
Dear Babak;
I must commend your writing style. I have never felt such hostility reading text. You sound very authoritative on this subject. It is unfortunate, that you suggested, or implied the possibility of criminal wrongdoing, before the company has even started doing business. To your comment about anyone being more jaded then you, I don`t think you have anything to worry about.
I was surprised, to say the least, that you did not offer any mention of the Simmons report that was conducted Dec, 14, 2006. I guess that was due to the report being somewhat optimistic about Agloco enjoying some success. The Simmons report was based on a model of two million users by Dec. 2007. I just heard today, that Agloco is on target to reach ten million users by July 2007.
In closing, given your expertise in stocks, I would be interested in hearing what would happen to the stocks, with companies like Goggle, MSN. Yahoo. If Agloco, I mean when Agloco takes over the market shares. Do yourself a favor SELL
Um… I’m reading over the AGLOCO agreements and I see that they’re incorporated in Hong Kong. They also states that they plan to issue shares either there or on the London AIM market. So your assumptions about the applicability of SEC rules are not exactly applicable. In fact most countries have no rules about issuing shares outside of your registered country, so being based in a time-tested stock market like Hong Kong or London, the rules about issuing shares (at least to people outside those jurisdictions) are pretty different. Since most of your analysis flows from flawed assumptions, I’m having difficulty unwinding the erroneous conclusions you draw from them.
“where does it say that agloco is going to give shares to the general public that it just BS they are going to give shares to it members and members only”
And the members are….? now stay with me here since this is tricky… anyone can join, right? ok, then they are distributing their shares to anyone, right? then they are dist. their shares to the public!
Agloco is trying, rather ridiculously, to circumvent the securities act of 1934
Babak wrote: “Agloco is trying, rather ridiculously, to circumvent the securities act of 1933″
Do tell… Who enforces the U.S.’s Securities Act of 1933 for shares issued in non-US markets such as Hong Kong or London? IPOing in other markets costs a fraction of what it takes to IPO on the NASDAQ (which might also be why the HK exchange had many times more growth than the NASDAQ over the last several years). Maybe there’s a reason Agloco incorporated there and talks about their interest in offering shares on exchanges that are trusted and reliable markets like HK or AIM but aren’t subject to the same restrictions as the NYSE or NASDAQ? US companies have tried giving shares to members/users and have run into difficulty because the SEC simply has no rules that even contemplate the transfer of shares outside of the normal IPO process. I’d say that’s shortsightedness on the part of the SEC, and when somebody tries to “circumvent” it, it’s not necessarily a bad thing if it ultimately results in consumers receiving value (especially if there’s little or no monetary risk). But your mileage may vary.
SW,
I’m not surprised they’re going to the AIM in London. My niece’s lemonade stand could be taken public on AIM.
Yet it doesn’t change anything fundamentally. What I’ve said is still true, you just have to substitute the FSA for the SEC and we’re back to square one.
You had to go and unleash my master plan of shorting the crap out of this when it went public:P
I agree there are many holes to be fixed and perhaps in response to your post, Agloco will step up and clarify their intentions.
Besides the fact that it seems to violate securities laws …
The whole idea of issuing an IPO is to raise capital. How do you do that if all the shares are only distributed to members for their surfing time?
So lets assume serious investors can buy shares. Then you have to think of the major dilution of share value that occurs organically as the network grows and shares are continuously issued to members.
If they ever make it to an IPO on some pink sheet exchange, it’ll be pumped, dumped and dead faster than you can say “own the internet”
Babak wrote: “Yet it doesn’t change anything fundamentally. What I’ve said is still true, you just have to substitute the FSA for the SEC and we’re back to square one.” So then you substitute the FSA… what’s their jurisdiction over shares given to members in, let’s say, Japan? The rules that making it difficult to give shares away only apply within the jurisdictional boundaries of the applicable regulatory authority. Just because the SEC can’t wrap it’s collective mind around the concept of giving away ownership doesn’t mean they can restrict a company from doing it elsewhere… and that goes for virtually any regulatory agency in the world. I’m not sure why you aren’t getting this concept.
Shane wrote: “The whole idea of issuing an IPO is to raise capital.” Not necessarily. One reason may be to create a broader market for shares that are already owned by others. It just requires thinking outside the box.
This is a excellent analysis.
I predict that individuals who are considering agloco will: a) read your analysis, and b) immediately get the agloco toolbar.
Individuals at all attracted to agloco suffer from a mild form of delusion - the rags to riches story.
In order to dispell the cognitive dissonance caused by your article, they will leap on the agloco mlm bandwagon.
BTW if you want to short the stock, I have a high end printer in my basement and I am sure that I could “lend” you the necessary paper.
Again, great analysis.
I see you made yourself a fantastic advertisment
You probably got more visits in the last two days than before in the whole year, right?
Still … I think that the AGLOCO team had this in mind when they conceived it. Besides, they wouldn´t get anywhere in the first place if the couldn´t think better than the average trader Joe, don´t you think?
Brilliant and well explained.
I had wondered how the shares would be worth anything, wish i’d of been able to come up with it sooner.
There ain’t no money for nothing, and that’s that.
It’s true though, there are people killing themselves to get referrals, even paying for Adwords campaigns! Now that surely can’t make sense!
Interesting post but poorly researched.
AllAdvantage did pay out over $120,000,000 to their users before closing due to a poor business model and the dot com bubble burst. But AGLOCO is not AllAdvantage and they are on track to not repeat many of the mistakes that were made with AllAdvantage.
With AGLOCO… Some members have a great chance to get a LOT of money, some members who have no referrals are disillusioned and think they will receive large pay checks each month by doing nothing, but many members know that they have a great chance of profiting off of AGLOCO by doing a little work.
AGLOCO promoters, such as myself, do not know for sure if AGLOCO will be a success, but AGLOCO haters do not know if AGLOCO will fail either.
So far AGLOCO is set to already have more than 10,000,000 members by July ‘07 and most know that where the people are at is also where the money is at.
It’s free, it is ran by many successful people, so I joined it, and I see that as a wise decision.
Don’t forget about the the dillution of the shares, as members surf more and more members join, the company will need to issue more shares, thus dilluting the value of the existing shares (that is if they ever go public).
“So then you substitute the FSA… what’s their jurisdiction over shares given to members in, let’s say, Japan? ”
SW,
you seem to not get it. Those shares would have to be registered with the Japanese regulatory authority… so again, we’re back to square one.
Tim,
yes, that’s true also. There are much more consequences and corollaries that one can bring to bear on this issue. But then one would end up writing a book not a blog post!
All in all, this debate is just more free publicity for Agloco. They win anyways.
Really enjoyed that review guess il remove the link i didn’t watch in details everything im just picking random stuff up.
I kinda get it all even thought english isn’t my first language.
Thanks
Don’t forget the perpetual share dilution, as the business model expands. What I would love to see is the expiration of the quiet period. That would be fun towatch. Thousands of uneducated shareholders dumping on the same day.
Babak. Who said Agloco would be a free meal? You are right, there are no free meals. Agloco didn’t promise anyone a free meal. I am utterly amazed by all the fuss that anti-Agloco people have made about Agloco. Are you people mad senseless? It is free, and you can just sign up and leave it like that. Or if you do not like it, you can just choose to ignore it. But I see that it is not the case, many are bashing and beating down on Agloco. Just like Valerie posted on Agloco’s Blog, many anti-Algoco people are ‘argumentum ad ignorantiam’: argument from ignorance = arguing with no proof whatsoever of their
argument. Have a nice day.
Chong Vue
Its free to join so if it doesn’t work out, so what???
good homework sherlock
One month after the release of the viewbar, do people receive their 1st check from agloco?
If not, how about 2 months after the release of the viewbar?
If not, how about 3 months after the release of the viewbar?
Could someone PLEASE go to Wikipedia and edit it to to a more TRUTHFUL definition? The current article is obviously written by somebody from the AGLOCO marketing department. Check for yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGLOCO
Bosh
Hey Babak, Just wanted to correct you on one thing. There IS a thing as free lunch. Please read and understand teh system before calling it a scam. Thanks
Chong Vue: No one said Agloco was going to be a free meal. Babak was just responding to something mentioned on my site.
“Please read and understand teh system before calling it a scam.”
If you actually bothered to read what I wrote, you would see I didn’t call it a scam. Here is my last paragraph:
Having said all that, I don’t think Agloco’s a scam. It is a poorly conceived scheme that appeals to those who know very little about finance, share issuance and regulation. I really do wish Agloco would go public. How else would I get a chance to short it?
Babak, I think there is a confusion. I did read your WHOLE post and agree with what you think about Agloco.
I thought you meant “free lunch” when referring to the info on my site. I wasn’t referring to Agloco then.
Hey, i think i follow the link to this post from mylot. I gotta say you clear up the questions on my mind about agloco. I knew it! I knew it that this agloco thing wouldn’t be as “hip” as everyone thought it would be!
Pyramid schemes ask for your money and don’t have a valid product to sell. Agloco doesn’t ever ask for money and has a great product concept.
Yeah, um, thanks for the straw-man argument. But I never said Agloco was a pyramid. Next time, try reading what people actually write.
Well, most of the time you need the “CONS”
to know the real value of the “PROS”. - by “ME”
I’m sure the 8 MBA’s from Stanford wouldn’t have joined this company if the concept happened to have major flaws. The whole concept is about thinking outside the box.
BTW, I can easily see why they chose to incorporate outside the US. That country is starting to look more and more like the Sovjet Union….
John,
ever heard of Jeffrey Skilling? Harvard MBA. Top 5% of his class. Yet, he somehow left an impressive swath of financial destruction behind him. You remember, right? It was called Enron.
Ever heard of LTCM? They had Merton & Scholes, Nobel prize holders in economics. As well as a platoon of PhD’s from the best schools in fields like physics, mathematics and economics. Yet they somehow destroyed not only their own hedge fund but almost took out the whole worldwide financial system with them.
Shall I go on?
A beautifully framed piece of paper means nothing.
And by the way, incorporating outside the US is irrelevant. Agloco is distributing shares in the US to US citizens. That means they have to register with the SEC, whether they like it or not.
See my reply on my website:
A very insightful post. However, some changes are due in the Agloco model. They haven’t gained this capital of users with no intention of using it. They will probably attempt to make many out of them.
Best regards, George
It’s funny, I seem to be missing a few things here.
1) AGLOCO users can be paid in Cash, Shares, or the Combination. If you opt for the cash payout, you will get paid every month.
2) Users get paid on an hourly basis rather than by clicks to remove the temptation for click fraud.
3) Users are limited to 5 hours to remove the use of bots to accrue additional hours.
4) AGLOCO’s income is Primarily Ad based, not share based. Currently, there are 17 Ad Networks and several other direct Advertisors that have signed up.
5) It is absolutely free to join. There is no monetary risk involved and nothing but perhaps a bit of time to loose if it did flop.
Honestly, most of us that do sign up realize that we are not going to become Millionaires doing so, but a few extra dollars every month don’t hurt.
However, I have it on very good authority that many of the reasons that AllAdvantage failed have been resolved at least in part. (I’ll take that kind of failure any day, over $100,000,000 paid out before AllAdvantage flopped). Sure, this business model is imperfect, but your explanation of it is incomplete at best. You completely ignore AGLOCO’s primary source of income in your analasys (THE ADVERTISERS) and act like the only money we are going to see are shares assuming AGLOCO goes public. Even if it never went public, there will be plenty of money made by a lot of people.
Do keep in mind that online advertising is tested and proven now unlike before the dotcom bust when everyone was dumping money into the internet without it even being profitable. Also keep in mind that over FOUR BILLION (yes, with a B) is currently being spent in online advertising every quarter.
The internet has a long way to go, but it is maturing very nicely.
Sincerely,
MakeMoneyWithJason
Babak,
If you are going to do an analysis of a company, at least be objective and complete.
You sound like a trader who’s been burned quite a few times.
I don’t have the time to address every point you brought up, but clicks on ads in the Agloco view bar are not incentivized. Users will get nothing from clicking on an ad.
Second, Agloco has already lined up over 15 ad networks as well as individual advertisers for the viewbar.
If only companies like YouTube and MySpace would share revenues with those responsible for their growth and wealth.
Just my few cents.
Fermin
Fermin,
thanks for your comments and the ad-hominem attack.
I’ll ignore the latter and respond to the former: the users of the toolbar are incentivized because they are told that they will be part of the ’success’ of Agloco. So if Agloco makes money (clicky, clicky) then so do they… or atleast that’s the song and dance. As well there’s a lot of hot air about affiliate $$ etc.
YouTube/MySpace haven’t, to the best of my knowledge, come out with wonky MLM schemes with strange ‘we’re public eventhough we’re private’ offerings which are meant to circumvent SEC regulations. Theirs has been a simple linear model: traffic gets you a certain % of the income. Agloco on the other hand goes through a tortuous process which most ‘members’ still have no real clue about.
ps to all and sundry:
If you have something intelligent to say, say it. If you mix it with a spam attempt (agloco aff link), you run the risk of your whole comment being erased.
Thank you Babak,
You do make a valid point. For those who are choosing to get paid in Stock rather than Cash, your diagram at the beginning of this post is accurate and I will have to concede that many people do not understand this.
Thank you for being a consumer advocate. I still believe you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And I still think it is worth signing up and getting others to sign up.
1) Like I said in my previous post, you are going to make money if you choose to get paid in Cash.
2) As long as AGLOCO is profitable, (with 10,000,000 members signed up it should be) it will most likely go public. Sure you’re taking a chance and perhaps there are many who just don’t understand that there is no guarantee, but those of us who remember the dot-com bust fully understand it.
3) I use Google AdSense and I do not encourage people to click on my adds. Yet I make money as do you.
4) When using the AGLOCO Viewbar, money is being made not only for the text adds that are running across the left side of the Viewbar. Google and other search engines will be paying AGLOCO every time the search feature is used. Google pays AOL as much as $0.10 per search referral.
5) TV Networks, Radio Shows, Newspapers, Magazines, etc. turn a profit with adds that are never clicked on. There is no incentive for click fraud. In fact it is “forbidden” and will lead to one’s account being terminated. It’s not necessary for AGLOCO to succeed.
Granted, the business model may not have every pitfall worked out yet, but there is a lot more to AGLOCO that the piece that your blog is focused on. Thank you!
I agree that this is a MLM scheme.
Ok, you monetise your site by using google Ads and what do you give in return to the visitors who create the revenue for you? Nothing! so you keep 100% of the profit from your website.(example fiqures- $100)
If you paid out 50% ($50) of the revenue you generate from your website to its visitors, you think that you lose your revenue by 50% and make a profit of only $50. But in reality you will make $200 profit.(200% profit by giving out 50%) you win-your visitor wins-your advertiser wins
If you can’t ubderstand this, then you basically don’t understand the economics behind incentive sites.
As a test why don’t you advertise that you will share 50% of the revenue you generate from your site from google ads to your visitors and see what happens to your site traffic and your profits.
I can’t understand why you have google ads in your site? you are just a slave of a monster company by generating revenue for them by forcing ads on your innocent visitors for your own monetary gain.
M A
Haha,
You guys actually buy into all of his bull. He doesn’t even take the time to read the website and find answers to his many questions. Also, I think he needs to sit through economics again and learn a thing or two about the stock market. I’m not even going to waste my time tearing his argument apart here seeing how the last time I did it was deleted. Also, just because someone labels something a “scam” that you have doubts about doesn’t mean that you should actually assume scam. I’m a member of Agloco but I haven’t spent any money on it. I’ve just asked a few friends to join and those who are interested go to the site those who say I can make better money else where don’t. Of course I’m not looking at making tons of money just some here and there.
This is funny every comment that I post about Agloco being valid is deleted. I’m not even putting a website in-case he thinks that I’m trying to spam my member ID here.
No comments have been deleted. Only affiliate links. Look above you for many supportive comments of Agloco.
This article is nothing more than a way to get you some traffic. Congratulations. Still doesn’t make it accurate because you got a lot of hits.
AGLOCO is free to join. Most people look at it in a way that if it works out like the millions All Advantage paid out then great. If not it didn’t cost me anything anyways. MAy have cost me 99 cents actually to make a site about it, but I made more ad money on that site the first day than it cost me to make it.
Edit your article to include that you can be paid in cash please. That would completely destroy your entire analysis and your limited market knowledge though I guess.
I see you have taken out every user’s name link that has an AGLOCO site. Class act, really. Glad you have made the effort to protect your readers from falling for a free opportunity that may, or may not pan out. I always appreciate a writer that makes decisions for his readers.
News flash Jimi: everything I write, I write with the intention of ‘getting traffic’. That’s what a blog is all about.
re the aff links: I informed everyone repeatedly that this is a place to exchange ideas not promote aff links. Thanks for your comment.
Hi everybody,
It looks like lot of pessimism prevails about AGLOCO. Reminds me of the good old saying “Birds of the same feather, flock together”. In this world loosers always see problems before solutions and the vice versa is true for the winners. Optimism takes it’s own time to prevail but skepticism reaches out like plague. And to all the stock market buffs, remember, when every one starts talking about a particular stock, it’s time to sell. In financial games, only the early birds walk away laughing.
With AllAdvantage in the backdrop as a reality, i expect the team to only improve upon their business model and reap and share the benefits. Every success story has a trail of blood and sweat.
As far as regulations pertaining to stock issue are concerned, i think when a revolution comes, regulations become more accommodative in mutual interest of the governments. Don’t forget we are talking about recurring regular income. If my country members have collectively amassed billions of dollars through AGLOCO, ultimately it is my country’s gain. In the times to come crumbling US economy (watch out for Iran story the way it is developing) will bow down to lots of underdogs of the day.
Before i finish, i would like to say that nothing is guaranteed in this world but i have faith that AGLOCO will revolutionize the internet and change the entire scenario.
So is inaccurate information also your scam to get traffic?
IF traffic is what you want I’m sure you could easily make up some lies about things that are more popular than this.
The same idiots that say it is a scam are the same ones that didn’t read your article all the way through and cross reference it to the correct information.
I’m sure everyone that signed up for Agloco thinks they will make Gobs of $$$ just for signing up. Yup…everyone but the people that think it is a scam are idiots. All of these people buy all the stuff you see on infomercials and think they will get rich as well I am sure. I know I have. I can’t possibly read myself even though I have about 20 blogs that make money in almost every way imaginable.
Well done. Glad to see you making a name for yourself by excluding information, or just downright making it up. You and the AGLOCO you claim them to be are a lot a like. Simply taking advantage of idiots because they are too lazy to check your BS.
Hi i have a story to tell
I agree that Agloco is a scam!
I was referred by a friend to join Algoco Singapore…at first glance i really thought that i can make some $$ with it…but later on i found this page…
Agloco Singapore has this chatter box where everyone can leave any messages they wish and there was this question in the cbox “is this agloco thing for real? where are they based?” so being nice i replied on the cbox that it may be a scam and gave the url of this page…guess what happened! The administrator deleted my post and he/she banned my IP address from posting any comments…so for those Agloco defenders…if Agloco is not a scam, why are they bothered to banned me?
thanks for the story. can’t say I’m surprised though!
This is a laughable pyramid scheme that would on day 1 require agloco.com to file a sb1 or even s1 registration. They are in effect offering shares to users as compensation for doing certain things. This is a classic ‘phantom stock’ scheme I saw many times during the dotcom boom 1.0.
The SEC went after many of these guys and forced them to change their ways in the US.
I think I’d have a better chance with the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. But then I’m not desperate enough (yet) to want to believe in such schemes.
MLM is evil and I don’t know why we haven’t figured out a way to make all forms of it illegal.
Very interesting analysis. But I want to know how you can explain the fact the people did make money off of Alladvantage. It’s not a hard thing to do.
Most people don’t care about the shares. They just want the extra “free” $5 a month for doing what they always do.
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
Marcel,
people made money (on average only a few bucks) because, as I explained at the beginning of the article, AllAdvantage paid you on a simple, fixed rate. You surfed x hours, you got y dollars. This is NOT the case with Agloco. I’m surprised you missed the whole point of the article!
We will see soon see if you are right. But I think your wrong. They will share out cash, instead of only shares. It’s what we people want. If we don’t see cash we will leave.
If Agloco only distributed “bogus” shares, as you described they won’t last 5 months in this Web 2.0 world. It’s happened before so why waste time and money recreating the flop ?
I think they will share cash. That’s what people want and what will keep them coming back.
I believe Babak said it best:
THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH.
Whatever is free and easy and well-known will ALWAYS pay out very little or nothing. It’s the nature of investing and business.
Thank you for this post. I didn’t have the effort to explain it as you did. Maybe it will wake some people up.
agloco is a scam, they never release the toolbar.
Very good article. But how to explain people on the forums that this is one big lie so they need to stop spamming.
marinko, you can’t. Some will continue to belive in this even after they sell the agloco.com URL.
Hi,
Its free to signup…no scam. How can you be taken for anything at all when its free to signup?
Answer: You can’t
This program may end up being a total failure..but it can not end up being a “scam” you have nothing to loose if you sign up and you have nothing to loose if you don’t sign up.
Pure and simple.
Peace,
Steve
________
http://iraqsinconvenienttruth.com/
Steve,
I agree. It isn’t a scam (I even said so in my post). What it is, is a colossal waste of time.
if you’re intending to help people, just answer their questions. arguing with people on your blog just makes you look immature. you sound like you know a lot. be wise, consider patience. or maybe you’re not intending to help people, you just want to be the one that “called the shot” and was right about it? i dont judge you either way, just giving some advice.
either way, keep in mind that the majority of your readers are not as educated as you, so explain things that they can understand.
don’t forget, as emotional and one sided as agloco marketers may seem… the only educated sounding ones are the ones that aren’t emotional about it. i read through your blog, just as input to you, your blog sounds like the anti-marketing blog of AGLOCO, not the educational blog that saved a lot of people a lot of time.
Humble, thanks for your comments. I’ve tried to answer people’s questions (see above). Did I miss a question? can you point it out?
OK, now I don’t know anymore what to believe… I am agloco member, and I already have referrals in my network so I was hoping to get something out of it. Just a hint - AllAdvantage did pay its members before the dot.com crash, I think Agloco will too.
This is pure opinion, i don’t believe what your saying is correct although you do prove some good points. What you must understand is that the community has an effect on how good agloco does, so do us all a favor and don’t sign up. You are EXTREMELY negative about agloco for some reason, we all know they are going to have tough obstacles to pass thats how it is with any business, but to sit here and state how there going to fail is childish. Why don’t you make a whole post on how they can Succeed. Good day.
-Michae l
Ps im invested in the Iraqi Dinar and the ISX, i would like to add that your website from your last post is truly amazing. Good day.
Kassper,
I don’t think Agloco will be sustainable just as AA wasn’t.
Mike,
you won’t be shocked to know I haven’t signed up
thanks for your compliment re my site but which post do you mean?
Register and try out yourself
http://www.agloco.com
Can I ask you a question? If you think Agloco is a scam, why do you have your own referral link here? Is this post just a way to get attention and signups? Reverse psihology maybe?
ooops, sorry, I thought that was your link, now I see it’s just someone else trying to get signups
Kassper,
yup, that was the usual agloco spammer (link since edited).
But they made it sound so profitable for the common surfer. A lot of people are paying good money on PPC to get their downline built. Do you mean to tell me that I can’t believe everything I read on the internet?
If it sounds to good to be true………………………………..
Relatedly, just what IS the “Agloco community”? Agloco is based on having the Viewbar open while browsing. By that logic there’s a Google Toolbar community.
I guess what I’m saying is; how do you associate browsing anywhere up to 5hrs per month with a toolbar visible with a community
Very really and pretty article.
I got a request to join this and read their “How it works” section. I noticed the “paid in stock” clause and got worried and then saw the “private company” part and then closed the window.
However my greed got the better of me so I did a google search and low and behold, this article not only confirmed my suspicions but pointed out many more interesting details.
The comapny can turn a profit without ever having to relases their “Viewbar” in that they collect vital information about the members that sign up and can construct networks and flow charts of members relations and connections to one another.
The ad comapnies they will be dealing with would pay a pretty penny for that information and the company will be ancy to turn a profit by any means necessary. As far as I can tell this is just a really sneaky way of collecting information on users.
Chuckus, I’m trying really hard to not project some nefarious motives on these guys unless they give me reason. But its a moot point as the whole thing is dead in its tracks. I visited their official blog over the weekend and people are leaving right, left and center. People are even putting up their agloco websites on sale as I said in my follow up post.
A very interesting article, thank you.
I must say, I am more confused than ever about the validity of the whole Agloco thing. I suppose for Joe Public like myself without a degree in Economics, this whole thing sounds rather appealing.
Where I come from, there is a saying: “you dont get owt for nowt” (look it up!) OK, you MAY be able to make a little cash with the program (I seem to recall that same promise when I joined dozens of PPC sites) but if you dont make any money, what have you lost?
On the other hand, I also had my fingers burned with a HYIP - so I feel naturally cautious about investing any time in this.
I guess the question I would put to most of you is this: I found this blog when I did a Google search, as I was unsure about Agloco. Presumably, many of you did the same, so if you had doubt enough to search for the site, why are you attacking the very person who attracted your interest in the first place? alk about biting the hand that feeds!
I’d consider myself to be reasonably intelligent. For this reason, I’m giving my “membership” with Agloco until Christmas. If I make some money, I’ll stay a “member”. If not, I’ll just leave.
If the scheme fails, I’m sure Babak will be fully justified in saying “I told you so,” and I’d hope those who snubbed his article would have the decency to admit you were wrong. Likewise, if it takes off and all the members become milionaires overnight, I’m ure Babak will be only too happy for you to blow a virtual raspberry in his face.
Zoltm,
I highly doubt you will get paid by year end. As they’ve already said, they will only pay when they make a profit. You’d make more money by picking up pop cans off the street.
Much as I agree this is a scam… I ought to point out I *did* get paid by AllAdvantage… and that was *after* it’d closed its doors too!! Only got the $50 I was owed of course… but I did get it.
I was sorry to see them go.
I have always been wary of Agloco. The first thing im wary of it is that i have something like it running on my computer. I am into privacy, man.
Next..anything that needs referral puts me on alert.
And then..the release of the software keeps getting delayed…
Visit my financial blog at http://how-to-be-rich-and-happy.blogspot.com/
Finally Agloco released its viewbar. We will see how its go. Anyway, nice review
It’s good to see both sides as I read through each one of your comments about Agloco.
I must admit that I’ve been speding some money to get people to visit my link and I get a few signups. To me it was my feeling that drew me and I signed-up right away. I was hoping people will see the same thing I see and join with me.
Now I am surfing with Agloco viewbar and it seems to work very well and the hours I spent surfing seems to be monitored very accurately.
It’s True, there is no free lunch but some lunch can be subsidied like where I work. If you are a skeptic please do not join and we will go our ways and you will go yours. If I spend some money promoting agloco and if I lose it let it be it. Scam is every where and if you don’t try how do you know it’s a scam or not.
I don’t want to miss out on the dotcom any more and will stick to this concept “we as member will own the internet”. If it fail be it but this concept will never die because we as the people want to be in control of our own destiny and AGLOCO seem to speak to our hearts, minds and souls. The success of AGLOCO is trully based on it’s own members and I am one them determind to make sure more people will know about it and join.
While I note the analysis of agloco and the eventual labelling of it as scam, I am appalled at the apparent one-sidedness of the critique. If agloco was busy frauding members already one would think, yes the apparent attack on it is no doubt justifiable. But the viewbar has just been released and members are paying $0 and most of them are doing a wait-and see thing, is it not just right to give readers of your article a balance view? I like to be given an opportunity form the article to decide for myself rather than throw a scare onto my mind and rush me into a decision. Try to make your observation more balanced so that you give people chance to make the final decision!
I was interested in Agloco at first, but never really made an effort to work on it. After reading what you wrote, I know I made the right decision not recruiting people.
bavpras, its success hinges on its underlying concept not the effort of its members. If I give you the map for Chicago and plop you in downtown New York no matter how hard you work or how many people you get to help you read the map, the map won’t help you find your way around.
Henry, I didn’t call it a scam. Are you sure you read what I wrote? And how can you call it one sided? I gave them every benefit of the doubt at each step!
Johan, thanks. I’m glad it was of help. That’s why I wrote it. If you like to spread the word, digg the article on digg.com and write about it on your blog so more people can find out the real story.
Hi i’m un happy with people promoting agloco reason is they are doing false advertisiment instead of passing on the real and exact information any ways all the sest to agloco lets see who wins
Having said all this.. the gist of the matter remains the same.. you have nothing to lose and at least something to gain.
:-)
PeeKayZee
HI all,
I have downloaded the viewbar and it looks that it was an updated version to say the least coz I’ve seen a lot of advertisements from different companies. This is just a beggining. I see nothing wrong in joining agloco as I project that in the coming months they will integrate and update their infrastructure with 1,000,000 already. Releasing the viewbar is the first step as they will have to adjust to everything. When GOOGLE owners started their company in their apartment basement a lot of critics and big companies criticise them that they will not become successful coz there’s a lot of search engine competition out there like yahoo, ask jeeves, etc. but look at GOOGLE right now it’s the GIANT multi billion dollar company and it’s still growing with lots of business development. When it comes to risk you don’t lose anything by joining AGLOCO but a lot to gain when it becomes successful but if you’re just a watcher all your life now that becomes scary as you are left with raspberry to blow on your face!
What you lot are failing to understand is that you are providing *them* with a vehicle to sell advertising space on for free! They will get paid for showing advertising… you won’t get paid for viewing it!! They can’t lose but you can.
What you lose isn’t money and may not be time… but you do lose space on your monitors and you lose faith in the possibilities for earning online… and there are a few. Why would you want to provide them with advertising revenue free?
Those who compare AGLOCO to Google ought to consider… if it was such a money spinner… then why when Google has already such a huge advertising base from Adsense don’t *they* release a similar view bar?
The reason is simple *it can’t work*!!!
You are worshiping Google. Google is not good at everything. In fact they suck mostly at social web services.
Just look at Orkut ( google ) and answers.google.com.
Yahoo did a brilliant with it’s answering service. Google shut down it’s own.
Welsh Dog –
May be Google doesn’t want to share any of the AD revenues with its user and Agloco does.
Why you are saying that Agloco will ditch every user and keep all money to itself. What is the basis of your point.
I don’t see any reason, except “Cheating”, why it should not work.
-PeeKayZee
Babak you are wrong about this part “there is no free lunch”…as a metter a fact there is a free lunch for me at least and for many people i am sure, Agloco will be huge, how do I know?…Bill Gates told me.
Marcel,
You are wrong sure GOOGLE would not work in every aspect but they have proven their online presence as a GIANT search engine. Need proof? GOOGLE is up 53% in Stock Exchange last month. You don’t need a professional broker to know that even a 5th grader knows it. Even if they suck at social web services but they still make more than 2 billion dollars a year in net profit. Only Microsoft, yahoo and perhaps IBM belong in that category. Take a look at their financial statement. I’m not comparing google to AGLOCO coz they are entirely different. Maybe you deserve a raspberry blow to your face!
Hi ! I downloaded VIEWBAR