John Chow is aggressively promoting Agloco. John is a smart guy. But should you get in on Agloco too? Should you use their viewbar? Probably not. The only thing you’ll accomplish by using the viewbar is to help John Chow get rich!
Agloco seems like a neat idea. Agloco aggregates of advertising, referral and affiliate fees generated by their “Viewbar” (yet unreleased), and then shares back 90% of that to their users.
But what is in it for you? Well, if you are John Chow and have the ability to build a large network of referred users, you might be able to bring in some decent cash. But if you are an individual, why would you use this Viewbar? Maybe you have a secret crush on John Chow and you just want to help him get rich. That’s fair. Or maybe you’ll like the viewbar and don’t care (I doubt it, people generally don’t like more advertisements – but it isn’t released yet and maybe they have a really cool product). But what will your cut of their profits be? Let’s estimate.
Let’s say the average Agloco user spends $250 per year online. And lets assume that Agloco is somehow able to tap into half of it. And, lets assume that Agloco manages to negotiate a very generous 10% commission on those sales. That means that on average, a user will be worth about $11.25. If you trust Agloco, you believe them when they say they’ll pay out 90% of revenues. That means each user should get a monthly check for $0.84 ($250*.5*.1/12)! Not bad! But, don’t forget that your contribution will be shared with up to 4 people that referred you (like John Chow). After splitting it 5 ways, your check is now reduced to $0.17 per month.
Next, lets look at advertising based models. Let’s say the average user views 10 pages per day, and that Agloco gets $10CPM for it’s page views. That means that each user generates about $0.10 per day. By the time you take out overhead and divide it through, you might generate $0.54 per month.
The Agloco fanatics will probably try to convince you that they’ll somehow generate more per user. Maybe they will. Say they magically double, triple, or heck, even get 10 times more than what I estimated. That means you’ll get $1.70 per month or $5.40. But that’s only if they do 10x better than what we seems to be a realistic estimate.
For Agloco, of course, this is a great business. They make 10% of the whole deal. If they amass a sizeable user base, they’ll generate solid cash.
And even for John Chow, this is still a good deal. John has the ability to sign up 5000 or more users. 5000 * $0.17 = $800/mo, which is decent money.
But for you – is the extra advertising and junk on your desktop really worth John Chow getting rich and your $0.17?
No thanks!
Note: John references this completely bogus report that looks well done, but provides zero facts to support it’s hopelessly optimistic and unsubstantiated claims. (He estimates Agloco could generate $30 or more per user, but it is completely made up!)
About the â€The installation source for this product is not available†problem – if you are you using Windows Server 2003:
If you extract the .exe file and see the properties on the .msp file under “Digital Signatures” you will see that the signature/certificate is not valid. (ScottGu: I presume this is a bug?).
To â€fix†(ignore) this:
1) Open local security setting: Start -> Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy.
2) Click on “Software Restriction Policies” and if it shows “No Software Restriction Policies Defined” then insert a new (right click the left pane node).
3) 2 x click on the “Enforcement” entry and under “Apply software restriction policies to the following users:” section change to “All users except local administrators”.
4) Maybe reboot
This should solve the problem (it did for me)..
/Anders