I admit I’ve been a bit too snarky in the last week or so in the comments over at JohnChow.com, and for that, I do apologize John. As Kramer said, “I need to learn to control my rage”. Alright, I didn’t go to quite that level of disgusting rage. :o
Here’s the deal John. It’s not that you don’t have a good blog, you do for the most part. It’s not that I don’t think you offer some decent information that helps people, you do.
My Problem With JohnChow.com – To Be Taken Constructively
I’m a snob when it comes to online marketing. I admit it, I tend to look down on things like multi-level marketing, and get rich quick schemes. Some may work, but most don’t, and to me they make our industry look scummy. Those things are the underside of real online marketing as it exists as a legitimate business model. Again, I’m a snob.
So when I visit a site like yours John, I tend to get very antagonistic, and here’s why.
You are a thought-leader, like it or not. You brand yourself as one at least. You have a semi-large subscriber base, and you have positioned yourself as an authority. That means that people listen to you, especially the vast majority of newbies who are trying to learn their way around our industry, or simply trying to find an honest way to make a buck online.
As a thought-leader, I believe it is our responsibility to educate these readers without gaming them. Sure, it’s good to make money because of our readers in many ways… but not at their expense.
Case in point, your push on Agloco. You have the right to blog about whatever you want, and push anything you want, of course, that’s not my issue. What bothers me is that by pushing this multi-level system to your audience, you’re essentially gaming them for your own personal gain.
“I have ads on my blog too Jim, and Adsense, what about them, isn’t that gaming my readers?”
Answer: No, here’s the difference. You get ad money because you’re a thought-leader, and you offer helpful advice. There’s a line (in my opinion), and you cross it with your readers (in my opinion) when you continue to push somethink like Agloco that benefits you directly through a downline.
So again, I apologize. Now at least you understand where I’m coming from.
I only ask you this…
Do you want to be known as a thought-leader, well respected in your community… or that internet marketing guy who pushes stuff just to make a buck?
There is no right answer, either is fine. Just pick one.
Yes, John seems like he’s evil in trying to push internet marketing for his own gain but once you get to know him, he’s actually the devil, the root of all that is unholy and evil in this world.
…wait…what was I saying?
Either way, as I said on John’s blog, there’s nothing wrong with AGLOCO in the sense that you can take advantage of it the same way he has. It truly remains to be seen how successful AGLOCO will be this time around after the spectacular disaster of AllAdvantage but their business model looks a bit more solid this time around. The way I see it, the worst that can happen is we surf for five hours and get a buck or two. Not like we’ll lose anything but the 2 minutes it takes to set up an account.
Cheers.
I had the same thought and I hesitated to put the same thing on my blog. However, after a few days of thinking about it, I thought “it can’t hurt anybody”. It’s not like he’s asking his readers to pay to get into the network. It’s free! The only downside I see is if the banner software sucks and freezes up people’s computers or has spyware and viruses.
Jim,
I’m joining the conversation kind of late here but only recently have I learned about AGLOCO.
This is the part that smells bad to me: I make money from Adsense and then someone surfs over to my site and instead of that visitor clicking on my ad, he/she clicks on an ad from the AGLOCO toolbar.
That’s stealing from me in my book because I created the content that the contextual toolbar is detecting and I’m not being compensated for it. Is that fair?