I haven’t really been talking about AGLOCO much yet on this blog, but I’ve been following it since it was announced a few months ago. AGLOCO stands for A Global Community that prides itself in being “owned by its Members.” The basic idea behind AGLOCO is to sign up, run their Viewbar (which serves ads) on your computer, and sign up friends and family to earn recurring referral income.

At first glance the first thing that comes to my mind is this must be a pyramid scam. In fact, it seems the majority of people who hear about AGLOCO had this first impression - including Darren Rowse who is pretty open-minded about online earning avenues. The truth is, however, AGLOCO is far from a pyramid scam. Just because a company offers a multi-tiered referral program doesn’t make them a pyramid scam. Why?

Pyramid scams profit from new members buying into the scheme. Guy A convinces Guy B and C to buy Guy A’s “money-making products” which in turn gets Guys B and C to turn around and try to sell to Guys D, E, F, G, and 7. AGLOCO doesn’t require you to pay anything to get into their program. You just sign up. If you get bored of it you can quit.

So How Does it Work?

Theoretically (I say theoretically because the viewbar hasn’t actually launched yet) users will be able to download AGLOCO’s ViewBar which will display little ads on their PC while they’re browsing the internet. Members will get paid up to 5 hours of surfing time per month - that’s not too much. What makes money is when you refer your friends and family into the program. You earn your 5 hours of surfing time plus an additional payment depending on how long your referrals surf (weighed by how direct the referral is). It’s a pretty simple concept to be honest.

AGLOCO profits from selling the ads served on your computer. So they have no reason to rip off their members - if they piss off the users they lose their target audience which makes their ad space worthless. There supposedly will be no spyware or adware included in the ViewBar (although I’d be willing to get that some surfing-trend tracking software may be included).

How Do I Sign Up?

• Sign up for AGLOCO

If you decided to sign up for AGLOCO (if only to test the waters) I’d like to ask that you please do so under my referral ID: Sign Up. The ViewBar should be ready within the next month or so, and once it’s released I guarantee there will be a lot of people scrambling to build their networks. If you’re even the slightest bit interested, I suggest you sign up now and start working on your network to beat the rush - John agrees.

Is this a sales pitch? Kind of. I’d like my readers to sign up for AGLOCO under my referral ID, thus building my own network. However, everything I’ve said about this service is what I honestly believe. I think AGLOCO will perform wonderfully and all the people who get in on the ground level will clean up.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Ever heard of Yahoo Answers? Me neither, until I read this article on how to make $800/day with it. That got my attention.

This article is a bit older, but it’s still a fantastic read. It’s called “The Myth We Need to Dispel” and it focuses on the fact that even webmasters/bloggers with limited resources can still make it big.

I know I link to that evil dot com mogul Chow way too often, but he’s done it again with this post on how to use affiliate marketing effectively.

Dave Jakowenko examines some of the top stat-tracking software.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Proxies are a big attraction for webmasters both old and new. People like them because they’re relatively easy to build (much like niche minisites) and tend to generate traffic virally and extremely fast. There are some pitfalls of operating proxy sites (which I will cover in a later article), but for the most part they can be a pretty easy way to generate passive revenue.

Dave Turnbull has created a short, simple walkthrough that takes you through the basics on how to create a proxy site:

Making a proxy is easy. Upload some files, change some graphics, and slap up some ads, and you’re done. But making a successful proxy is a whole different ball game, and what this series of articles aims to help you with. I’ve made a few proxies myself, and for a very small amount of work, I’ve made some decent revenue.

If you want to read the entire article, click here.

Popularity: 6% [?]

It’s no secret that the mob loves lists. It’s been talked about on pretty much every major web development or blogging site I can think of. But why are lists so appealing?

1. Instant Knowledge
“…make it seem like the reader’s online success is just a 5 minute read away.” - SEO Blackhat
Nobody likes to work hard and study to acquire knowledge. It’s much easier to read a list outlining anything and everything you need to know about a certain subject. Don’t believe me? Just look at some of the most popular publications in history: Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth, Top 10 Ways to Steal a Car, 10 Reasons Not to Hit Your Kids (this is one of those “why didn’t I think of that” articles), and 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job.

2. Requires Little to No Individual Thought
Lists don’t make you think - they outline what you should be doing and tell you [how] to do it. Sure sometimes there is some disagreement about a point or two, but that’s when the list-maker comes in and says “Okay maybe point #x is a little situational, but what about point #x, #x, and #x. Those are GOLD! How can you argue with pure gold?” And of course you can’t argue with gold.

3. Lists Have Authority
When a mob sees information outlined in a list they instantly acknowledge its authority. Case in point: The 15 10 Commandments. Only a few short thousand years after The 10 Commandments were written we have over a billion Christians. Coincidence? Doubtful. Other notable religions who embrace and indoctrinate via lists: Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Confucianism, Hinduism*, and Kabbalah.

4. Easy to Memorize and Casually Mention in Conversation
Members of the mob are always looking for ways to stand out from their friends. What better way to assert your individuality than by referencing an easy-to-remember bullet? “Well you know, I heard content is kind of important when trying to build a better blog.” … I <3 Darren

5. Lists are Skimmable
Who reads an entire article? Honestly. Lists allow the user to skip all of the important information and focus in solely on the witty list headlines (so they can recite them later as described in point #4). I guess you could read the content in between the list bullets if you really wanted to, but that would just be wasted time you could have spent actually putting the list into action!

6. Mobs Like Uniformity
Masses don’t really enjoy chaotic articles that aren’t confined to lists and instead are structured by paragraphs centered around a thesis. In a list every single point is its own little theme that even the most simple-minded user can follow. You don’t have to connect the sections to form a flow of thought - the list forms the flow (and subsequently, the thought) for you. No form of writing is more uniformed than a list.

7. Lists Have an Ending
People don’t like going into an article not knowing if it’s going to be “continued later.” With a list you almost always know that there is an ending, and what’s better, how long it should take you to read it. If it’s a “Top 10″ list then you can probably finish it in a couple of minutes. If it’s a “Top 100″ list then maybe you should make some oatmeal and grab a Dr. Pepper - it’s gonna take you a while. People like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, even before they start through it.

8. People Like Counting
I don’t have much of an explanation to this one, but it seems that people in general really enjoy counting.

And there you have it. After all this time of seeing lists spring up here and there on almost every topic you can imagine, you now finally know why they work. Feel free to memorize parts of this list and casually mention it to your friends. They’ll be impressed, I promise. After all, doesn’t everyone love lists?

* Thanks to angry poster for catching “Hindi”

Popularity: 8% [?]

A lot of people have been asking me to post an update for my series on Building a Niche Minisite (Part 1, Part 2). I’ve gotten a ton of questions that I’m going to answer. I hope I don’t leave any out, but if I do don’t be afraid to contact me (or reply here) and let me know so I can put them up.

Isn’t this Niche Too Small/Old to Profit?

Probably. The thing to remember with popular release niches (games, movies, products) is that after the initial release and consumption, sales go way way down. For this reason it’s important to get in on these very small, targeted niches early. My Red Steel site was created too late to gain the benefit of the Wii’s launch which means it missed out on a lot of potential revenue. In addition, Red Steel got absolutely awful reviews; therefore, there’s a lot fewer people looking to buy the game now.

Are video game niches too small in general to profit? No. But they need to be created and marketed early. It also helps if the game you’re targeting is actually good.

I Don’t See Your Site Performing on Search Engines…

It’s not. In fact it’s not even indexed by Google or MSN. There could be a few reasons for this. I think it’s because just about all of the links to this site are links to the directory “netbusinessblog.com/redsteel/” rather than to “redsteel.co.uk”. This means “redsteel.co.uk” isn’t getting link love and therefore isn’t getting any search results. It should also be noted that I’ve done absolutely nothing to improve this sites rankings aside from the on-site SEO for demonstration purposes.

How Much Money is the Site Making?

Overall the site made $75 in January (mostly Adsense). The CTR was disgusting, however, which is obviously due to the non-targeted traffic it received from the article. I doubt I’ll ever have real data on this site since it was the example for my article.

This Was Just an Example

I’ve seen most of the off-site discussion about this article resulting in people creating only niche video game sites. I never said video game sites were the *best* niche. In fact it’s one of the lowest-paying and lowest-performing niches you could possibly target. I just had the domain lying around, and since it was getting some type-in traffic I decided to use it for the article. Please use your imagination when looking for niches. Utilize all of the tools I mentioned to find a niche that suites you.

I hope I’ve answered all your questions, and as I said before, if I left something out tell me. I don’t plan on creating another update on the Red Steel site ever, so now is the time to get the questions about it answered.

Popularity: 6% [?]

There’s been a ton of good posts over the last couple of weeks:

John Chow just posted up his January recap where he goes over in great detail how he has been able to build up “full time income with part time blogging”. John has been able to take his personal blog (which wasn’t monetized) and turn it into a problogging machine. He pulled in a total of $3,440.66 in revenue this month. That’s inspiration for any blogger.

Eli has put up two great blue hat SEO articles this week. Madlib Sites goes over how to create automated, personal sites using a simple template and a purchased database. Link laundering is a bit complicated but a great method of getting a good number of backlinks. Maybe this would be a good method to use in conjunction with link building through design and themes?

The Diggiest users cannot be silenced!

Julek gets into the importance of not only keeping your design simple, but also understanding why that’s importantt.

I hope you enjoy those posts as much as I did, but if you’re still bored afterwards, maybe you should check out the worst video informercials ever.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Well guys the new theme is completed and active. What does everyone think about it? I didn’t change much with the structure or layout because honestly … I liked it before. What I did do was add some little stylings here and there to hopefully make it just look better overall.

I’ve also added Brian Meidell’s Threaded Comments plugin and am messing with the styling with that as we speak (so hopefully soon it won’t look so ugly). I really like this plugin as it’s easier to organize the discussion.

So how do you guys feel about the changes?

Update: The upgrade to Wordpress 2.1 went smoothly and what few bugs there were have been sorted!

Popularity: 3% [?]

One of the greatest things about blogging is the fact that there is so much networking to be done. You can build relationships with other bloggers simply by referring to a post or comment they made. In the same respect, however, you can tear down those relationships by disagreeing with something they said or did.

Blogging is personal. When you have people writing as individuals instead of as some corporate front, the words become human and the criticism much more harsh. With a typical website the only thing you really have to worry about is traffic, but when it comes to a blog your reputation is by far the most important concern. Your reputation earns you respect in the blogosphere which in turn leads to backlinks and referrals. What does all this mean? It means that when you make a statement that may have a detrimental affect on another blogger’s reputation (whether justified or not) be prepared for things to get personal.

I’m sure most of you have heard about the little “JZ vs. Andy Beal” drama that went in the last day or two. To sum it up, Shoemoney and Andy Beal made a little bet or something to see who could get the most new members in their MyBlogLog communities. Shoemoney decided to use an icon of some woman with a nice rack, and Andy Beal took the “Win a Zune” approach. Jeremy’s take on the “Win a Zune” icon was that it was spam, and wrote about it here.

Jeremy’s argument was pretty much that using an icon displaying the text “Win a Zune” was not “creative marketing” but was in fact spam. He was accused of stirring the pot for linkbait which sparked a nasty response from Andy Beal, Shoemoney, Graywolf, and the only guy I know who likes Snap previews. After all of the negative publicity, Jeremy changed the title of his blog from “Andy Beal Spamming MyBlogLog?” to “I overreact sometimes…” Judging from Jeremy’s comments on his blog and others, I think he changed the title more from the pressure rather than actually changing his mind about Andy Beal’s actions.

So what can we get from all this? The bottom line is if you bring into question the motives or actions of any other blogger be prepared to get a swift and personal response. Reputation is all that matters to a blogger. Was Jeremy right in calling Andy Beal a spammer? Maybe. Is posting a “Win a Zune” icon going to destroy MyBlogLog? Doubtful (although it may be a step in the wrong direction).

At the end of the day Jeremy decided it was better to to 180 and save his reputation (even though he probably didn’t do anything wrong) rather than continuing with the drama. Keep that in mind, and instead of waiting until the negative publicity hits, make sure you’re willing to handle the consequences of what you’re posting before you hit “Publish”.

Popularity: 3% [?]