Information about AGLOCO cash payments

Here is some information about cash payments in “FAQ” form.

When are the cash payouts going to begin?

The simple answer is that it depends on “when AGLOCO makes enough money to both pay Members and be a sustainable business”. But, by using the Viewbar you are accumulating credit towards the cash payments right now (more on that below). I have spoken about this on the blog twice before:

Also, as some Members have correctly pointed out, AGLOCO’s early revenue will not immediately translate into cash distributions to Members. While we do not know how large our initial revenue will be, we do know that AGLOCO has operating costs to pay. It is important to remember that AGLOCO is not a “get rich quick scheme”, and we maintain that the most prudent way to build AGLOCO as a sustainable company is to calibrate Member distributions to company earnings. As such, the cash payouts will not begin until there is a comfortable balance between AGLOCO’s free cash flow and AGLOCO’s expenses. It is important to add that all Members will begin to accumulate hours from when they first start using the Viewbar (and referral hours will also be earned). Those hours will not be wasted. Both overall hours and monthly hours will be used in determining distributions to Members.
- http://blog.agloco.com/index.php/post57/

Cash Distributions: To be a sustainable entity in the long term, AGLOCO makes Member cash distributions from its positive cash flow (revenue minus costs). Therefore, please do not expect a check after the first couple of months as it will take time to collect revenue from advertisers and this revenue must exceed costs in order to make cash distributions to Members. We will be keeping Members informed of our financials and you can visit the Official company blog at http://blog.agloco.com for the latest updates.
- http://blog.agloco.com/index.php/post59/

AGLOCO will be keeping Members informed of our financials (after a few months, when we start getting realistic numbers) so they can track our progress on this. At this point, if our new ad system is operational in August, we should be able to give meaningful numbers for September.

How are you going to pay me if you don’t have any of my payment information?

Before the cash payments begin we will verify your billing information and ask you to specify how you would like to be paid. We currently plan to have several forms of payment available, including check, direct deposit, and PayPal. Remember that only one account per Member is allowed.

Is there going to be a “minimum” payout level achieved in my account like many affiliate programs have?

Yes, a minimum will be required to keep transfer costs down. All sums not distributed are accumulated in the Member’s AGLOCO account until the minimum is reached.

How are the cash payments going to work?

So, here are three of the potential ways AGLOCO can pay Members. As you know, when you use the Viewbar you accumulate hours (currently up to 5 hours/month, and plus a credit of referral hours at a 25% rate). These hours, both your monthly totals and your overall accumulated hours, are the basis for cash distributions.

Monthy Viewbar hours: Based on the hours you and your referrals surf each month, you will get a share of the “distribution pie”. Your share is equal to your percentage of the total hours accumulated by all Members (including referral hours). How would this work? Here is a hypothetical example. Suppose in a given month AGLOCO distributes $100,000 for that month’s hour accumulation. Also suppose that the total hours all Members have accumulated that month is 1,000,000 hours. This means that AGLOCO would pay $0.10 for each hour you are credited with that month. So in this example if you had accumulated (yourself plus referrals) 500 hours that month, you would be paid $50.

Total Viewbar hours: AGLOCO may also pay in the same manner as above based on total accumulated hours. This would “weight” the payment more towards those Members who joined and began accumulating hours earlier (including the time before the cash payouts have begun).

AGLOCO buying Hours for Cash: Here’s how it would work. AGLOCO would set a price per hour (say, $0.15), and we allow Members to sell their hours back to us at that rate. There would likely be a minimum number of hours you could sell. For instance, AGLOCO may only allow you to sell in 100-hour blocks. Hours that you sell would be deducted from your total accumulated hours for future distributions.

I realize that I have not given a concrete answer to “what an hour is worth”, “what a referral is worth”, or “the date you will be paid”. I wish I could. But, I maintain that to keep AGLOCO a sustainable venture, we must calibrate cash payouts to our actual positive cash flow, lest we suffer the same fate as AllAdvantage.

Wait a second, what about “shares”?

Our website talks about paying Members in “cash and shares”. As I’ve said before, I need to stay away from talking about “shares” in this blog. The lawyers would kill me if I went anywhere near talking about it because it is too easy to unwittingly violate a country’s securities laws.

AGLOCO is not a “get rich quick” scheme and never will be. By steadily using the Viewbar and building a sustainable business, we can make sure that Members will get distributions for years and years as we improve the usefulness of the Viewbar as a part of each Member’s desktop.

Taken from AGLOCO Official Blog

AGLOCO Revenue and Cash Payouts

The Viewbar has been out for just about three weeks at this point. We are crossing 20% activation and hope to exceed 50% by the end of the summer. New verified Member signups are back near record levels and growing.

As I mentioned in my last post, stabilizing the Viewbar, the website, and the ad rotation has been our first priority. While it took more time and more money than we had planned, the Viewbar is performing well (ad rotation aside). It has been seamlessly upgraded on Member computers a couple of times and the percentage of Members with Viewbar problems is low. In stabilizing the website, among the steps we took was adding an alternate Viewbar download site (tucows.com). Now that we are more comfortable with the website stability, we will also begin updating the website more frequently again.

As far as the ads go, I am pleased to announce that we have just reached an agreement to make major improvements toward increased Viewbar revenue. As noted earlier, we launched the Viewbar and our ad volume swamped the ad server of our third party supplier. While it has improved, the current system is still not working up to the standards needed (weak rotation ability and unable to connect properly with several networks). Given that the current state of affairs makes it difficult to implement our search, profile and geographic targeting (which are necessary to make Viewbar ads effective), we sought a new arrangement which will give all that to AGLOCO. This will take 5 to 6 weeks to be activated. As a result, revenue for the months of June and July will be low, as the current system cannot be improved any faster.

We will also have the ability for an AGLOCO online ad auction system like Google’s AdSense so advertisers will be able to buy Viewbar ads directly.

As a global community, AGLOCO Members live all over the world. To maximize Member income, we will need to address that with our advertisers (as well as with our Members). Our new ad system will have a country specific system for advertisers (we are told that this will be available at the end of the summer and not for all countries). At that point we will likely have to ask each Member for a language preference to make the advertisers aware. Keep in mind that it is very costly to support multiple languages (it’s easy to just display them, but language support includes full Member support, email communication, etc., in that language), so additional supported languages will probably not be forthcoming before that.

In order to reach profitability quickly (which is necessary to make cash distributions to Members - as I will detail below), we keep AGLOCO expenses to a minimum. Many of you make great suggestions for improvements we could make to AGLOCO, but unfortunately they are not yet in our affordable budget. We have tried to implement the less costly improvements while recognizing that the major changes will have to wait longer. We do hear all of your suggestions, but AGLOCO needs to become sustainable and make Member distributions as fast as possible. To keep expenses low, for example, in the year or so we have been working on AGLOCO, no development team member has been paid for their work (not to mention that some of you have been working very hard to help build AGLOCO as well and have not yet received the rewards of that work either). And with that we are turning our attention to revenue (and distributions to members).

Members often ask when they will be paid by AGLOCO, and how much they will be paid. I must admit that I have a bit of hesitation to address this issue, only because I do not want Members to misunderstand anything I say and/or take it as a “promise or prediction” of what AGLOCO will exactly do in the future. So, I will write the following with the disclaimer that everything I say below, specifically regarding when Members will be paid or how much, is only an illustration and does not constitute a promise of any sort. Capiche? Capiche.

Taken from AGLOCO Official Blog

Viewbar FAQ

Here are some frequently asked questions about the Viewbar. It will be updated as new questions get asked and new issues get raised. If you still don’t get the help you need, please email help@agloco.com to reach our customer support.

What is the Viewbar?
The Viewbar is downloadable toolbar software that enables AGLOCO to collect money on your behalf as you actively browse the Internet.

How do I download the Viewbar?
First, sign in to your account. On your account page, there will be a button that says “Download Viewbar”. Click that button and follow the instructions on screen to download the Viewbar (when prompted, click “run” instead of “save”).

I am having a problem installing and using the Viewbar. What do I do?
Here are some common errors:
Viewbar is compatible with Windows – Windows 2000, XP and Vista. Mac and Linux versions are not available yet.
You should hit “run” instead of “save” during the installation process
You may have a firewall block you (With firewalls the Viewbar needs an OK for its viewbar.exe program and its update.exe program – otherwise it will not function).
You need to put in your correct Member ID and password (if you can not remember yours, go to the AGLOCO website sign in page and request a new password)
No green light in the Viewbar logo
- Make sure you are connected to the Internet and are actively using a browser (IE or Firefox)
- Give it 2 minutes to connect to the database.
If you have any other problem get a new Viewbar, you can always try restarting the Viewbar. If that still doesn’t work, you can also try reinstalling the software.
- To restart the Viewbar, right click on the Viewbar icon (a green “o”) in the Windows icon trey on the lower-right hand corner of your screen, and select “quit”. Then, right click again on the Viewbar logo and select “sign in”.
- To reinstall the Viewbar, first right click on the Viewbar icon (a green “o”) in the Windows icon trey on the lower-right hand corner of your screen, and select “quit”. Next – click on the Windows start button, then navigate through all programs and AGLOCO Viewbar – then select the Viewbar uninstall program. Then, download the Viewbar again by sigining into your AGLOCO account on the website and clicking “download viewbar” on your account page. This will give you a new Viewbar

What is my Member ID?
You can always use the email address you became a Member with to get access to your account or your Viewbar

What is my password?
Go the AGLOCO website sign in page and click on lost password

What are the features of the Viewbar? How does it work?
We’ll address the Viewbar’s features from left-to right:
Options: Right-Clicking on the “AGLOCO” logo on the left-hand side of the Viewbar brings up several options. In addition to access to the AGLOCO website and your Account page,
- Dock: You can choose to dock the Viewbar at the top or the bottom of the screen
- Skin: The Viewbar is currently available in four colors: Blue (default), Green, Red, and Purple
- Language: The Viewbar is currently available in both English and Chinese
- Advanced Options: These include a place to put your proxy settings (if you access the internet through a proxy) and your auto-update settings.
Accrual Indicator: The second letter “o” in the AGLOCO logo tells you whether you are currently accumulating AGLOCO Hours. If it is green, you are. If the indicator is red, you are not currently accumulating hours (most likely because either you are not actively browsing the internet or because you have already reached your monthly maximum).
Ad space: The largest space on the Viewbar is for a text ad. If you see something interesting, click on the ad to check it out! The ad will open a new tab or browser window, so your current browser will not be interrupted.
Search: Conduct your internet searches using the toolbar. We have several search engines available, including Google, Yahoo, or Amazon.
- To select your search engine: Click the logo on the left-hand side of the search field and a drop down menu of all available engines will appear
- To search: Type your query in the search field and either hit “enter” on your keyboard or click the magnifying glass button.
Favorites and Tools: The “gear” button has tools for AGLOCO Members. Currently, the tools are simple, but this section of the Viewbar will be expanded over time.
- Favorites: The Viewbar has all your favorite websites from Internet Explorer and Firefox, as well as a few AGLOCO-selected websites
- Tools: Right now this enables you access to the Windows calculator and Windows calendar. This capability will be expanded with more tools in future Viewbar versions
Minimize: The down arrow on the right side of the Viewbar minimizes the Viewbar software. When minimized, the Viewbar will be off your screen and will not be monitoring your internet surfing. You will not accumulate hours for the time the Viewbar is minimized.

Ads aren’t showing up properly on my Viewbar. What do I do?
Try waiting a few minutes, as we may be conducting routine maintenance on the ad server or experiencing another temporary issue. If that doesn’t work, try restarting the Viewbar. To restart the Viewbar, right click on the Viewbar icon (a green “o”) in the Windows icon trey on the lower-right hand corner of your screen, and select “quit”. Then, right click again on the Viewbar logo and select “sign in”.

How do I log in as another Member from the same computer?
There should be an AGLOCO icon in the icon trey on the lower-right hand corner of your screen (a Green ‘o’ ). Right-click this icon and select “sign out”. Then, right click on the icon again and click “sign-in”. The sign-in screen will pop up and you can sign in as a new Member.

How do I get credit for using the Viewbar?
Simply surf the internet while the Viewbar is visible on the screen. The software calculates the time you spend actively surfing and tallies it. The current maximum is 5 hours/month. You also get credit for your referrals’ surfing.

How do I minimize the Viewbar and get it off my desktop?
Click the down arrow on the right side of the Viewbar. When minimized, the Viewbar will be off your screen and will not be monitoring your internet surfing. You will not accumulate hours for the time the Viewbar is minimized.

Taken from AGLOCO official blog

Agloco Update - Viewbar release this Monday (Tuesday in Asia)

Sorry to be so long between posts. There was no meaningful news to give you until today.

We have made a workaround regarding the ad server problem and we will finally be launching the Viewbar. Some, but not all, of our ad networks will be connected. These networks have enough ads on them, so we are comfortable releasing the software as we continue to work on the outstanding issues that remain with the other networks. All of the preliminary Viewbar functions are there, but with the ad problems we will not be initially launching with the personalized ad targeting. We will continue to develop this capability after we have launched and when it is available the new version of the software will be incorporated into your viewbar automatically.

Remember that this is the first version of the Viewbar (v1.0), and with the Viewbar being automatically self-updating software, gradual improvement (both aesthetically and functionally) will appear seamlessly (you also have an option to turn off this feature and ask for updates manually, though we recommend leaving the auto-updating feature active so that you always have the latest software as improvements are made).

This weekend the Viewbar download is being moved from the test servers to the main servers. We will NOT need to temporarily take down the web site as we had thought, so we will not be sending out an email warning on that. If the transfer goes smoothly, the first download emails will be going out Monday morning California time (early Tuesday in Asia).

Please remember:

If you have a Norton firewall you may be asked to allow access to “viewbar.exe” and “update.exe” (please check “Permit Access Always” for proper installation of the Viewbar).

The Viewbar is currently available for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista and will work with IE (Internet Explorer) or Firefox browsers.

I’m sure you are all just as ready for the Viewbar release as we are!

Brian Greenwald

Taken from AGLOCO official blog