RANDOM RATE

One Stop Web

2009-01-14T20:23:00.001+07:00

Program yang Unik & Innovatif dari frenstore.net dengan konsep "ONE STOP WEB" yakni gabungan dari program Jejaring Sosial (Friendship) dan Toko Online (Online Store) dalam satu website. Disini kamu bisa menambah teman baru atau melakukan Jual-Beli barang atau jasa lewat Online Store. Dan satu lagi yang pasti, kamu juga bisa memperoleh PASIF INCOME setiap bulannya dari Sistem Kerja yang UNIK dan INOVATIF.

Top Ten Cyber Security Menaces for 2008

2008-11-01T10:10:00.000+07:00

Twelve cyber security veterans, with significant knowledge about emerging attack patterns, worked together to compile a list of the attacks most likely to cause substantial damage during 2008.

Participants included Stephen Northcutt, Ed Skoudis, Marc Sachs, Johannes Ullrich, Tom Liston, Eric Cole, Eugene Schultz, Rohit Dhamankar, Amit Yoran, Howard Schmidt, Will Pelgrin, and Alan Paller.

Here's their consensus list in ranked order:

Increasingly Sophisticated Web Site Attacks That Exploit Browser Vulnerabilities - Especially On Trusted Web Sites
Web site attacks on browsers are increasingly targeting components, such as Flash and QuickTime, that are not automatically patched when the browser is patched. At the same time, web site attacks have migrated from simple ones based one or two exploits posted on a web site to more sophisticated attacks based on scripts that cycle through multiple exploits to even more sophisticated attacks that increasingly utilize packaged modules that can effectively disguise their payloads. One of the latest such modules, mpack, produces a claimed 10-25% success rate in exploiting browsers that visit sites infected with the module. While all this is happening, attackers are actively placing exploit code on popular, trusted web sites where users have an expectation of effective security. Placing better attack tools on trusted sites is giving attackers a huge advantage over the unwary public.
Increasing Sophistication And Effectiveness In Botnets
The so-called Storm worm (which was not really a worm at all) started spreading in January, 2007 with an email saying, "230 dead as storm batters Europe," and was followed by subsequent variants. Within a week it accounted for one out of every twelve infections on the Internet, installing rootkits and making each infected system a member of a new type of botnet. Previous botnets used centralized command and control; the Storm worm uses peer-to-peer control, so there is no central controller to take down. Additional variants have used messages with different subjects and improved the capabilities of the rootkit. In 2008 additional variants and continually increasing sophistication will keep this worm and other even more sophisticated worms near the top of any list of menaces.
Cyber Espionage Efforts By Well Resourced Organizations Looking To Extract Large Amounts Of Data - Particularly Using Targeted Phishing
One of the biggest security stories of 2007 was disclosure in Congressional hearings and by senior DoD officials of massive penetration of federal agencies and defense contractors and theft of terabytes of data by the Chinese and other nation states. In 2008, despite intense scrutiny, these nation-state attacks will expand; more targets and increased sophistication will mean many successes for attackers. Economic espionage will be increasingly common as nation-states use cyber theft of data to gain economic advantage in multinational deals. The attack of choice involves targeted spear phishing with attachments, using well-researched social engineering methods to make the victim believe that an attachment comes from a trusted source, and using newly discovered Microsoft Office vulnerabilities and hiding techniques to circumvent virus checking.
Mobile Phone Threats, Especially Against iPhones And Android-Based Phones; Plus VOIP
Mobile phones are general purpose computers, so worms, viruses, and other malware will increasingly target them. Google's recent announcement of "android" and the formation of the "open handset alliance" is a watershed moment for the mobile industry. A truly open mobile platform will usher in completely unforeseen security nightmares. The developer toolkits provide easy access for hackers. And hackers are taking note. The author of Metasploit, H.D. Moore, plans a mobile payload presentation webcast this month.

Attacks on VoIP systems are on the horizon and may surge in 2008. VoIP phones and the IP PBXs have had numerous published vulnerabilities. Attack tools exploiting these vulnerabilities have been written and are available on the Internet. In short, the VoIP attack surface is enormous.
Insider Attacks
Insider attacks are initiated by rogue employees, consultants and/or contractors of an organization. Insider-related risk has long been exacerbated by the fact that insiders usually have been granted some degree of physical and logical access to systems, databases, and networks that they attack, giving them a significant head start in attacks that they launch. More recently, however, security perimeters have broken down, something that allows insiders to attack both from the inside and from outside an organization's network boundaries. Insider-related risk (as well as outsider risk) has thus skyrocketed. Organizations need to put into place substantial defenses against this kind of risk, one of the most basic of which is limiting access according to what users need to do their jobs.
Advanced Identity Theft from Persistent Bots
A new generation of identity theft is being powered by bots that stay on machines for three to five months collecting passwords, bank account information, surfing history, frequently used email addresses, and more. They'll gather enough data to enable extortion attempts (against people who surf child porn sites, for example) and advanced identify theft attempts where criminals have enough data to pass basic security checks.
Increasingly Malicious Spyware
Criminal and nation-state attackers continue to refine the capabilities of their malicious code, expanding on flux techniques to obscure their infrastructure, making it even harder to locate their servers. Additionally, the recent Storm variants' capabilities of being able to detect investigators' activity and then respond with a flooding attack against the investigators will become more mainstream and even more powerful, protecting the attackers and making investigation more difficult. Tools will also increasingly target and dodge anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-rootkit tools to help preserve the attacker's control of a victim machine for as long as possible. In short, malware will become stickier on target machines and more difficult to shut down.
Web Application Security Exploits
Large percentages of web sites have cross site scripting, SQL injection, and other vulnerabilities resulting from programming errors. Until 2007 few criminals attacked these vulnerable sites because other attack vectors were more likely to lead to an advantage in unauthorized economic or information access. Increasingly, however, advances in XSS and other attacks have demonstrated that criminals looking for financial gain can exploit vulnerabilities resulting from web programming errors as new ways of penetrating important organizations. Web 2.0 applications are vulnerable because user-supplied data cannot be trusted; your script running in the users' browser still constitutes "user supplied data." In 2008, web 2.0 vulnerabilities will be added to more traditional programming flaws and web application attacks will grow substantially.
Increasingly Sophisticated Social Engineering Including Blending Phishing with VOIP and Event Phishing
Blended approaches will amplify the impact of many more common attacks. For example, the success of phishing is being radically increased by first stealing IDs of users of other technologies. Salesforce.com users were targeted for an "FTC complaint" phishing email. Monster.com users were targeted for a job offer phishing email. Even if it is non-targeted, event phishing is gaining in sophistication. Tax filing scams and scams based on the U.S. Presidential elections will be widely used this year, and many of them will succeed. A note with the subject "Hillary drops out of the race" or "Rudy and female staffer caught on film" could generate huge new botnets of people who are interested in politics, but may not have patched their systems fully. Add to those opportunities potential bogus fund raising sites and even political dirty tricks going digital, and you'll have an explosive junction of hacking and politics.

A second area of blended phishing combines email and VoIP. An inbound email, apparently being sent by a credit card company, asks recipients to "re-authorize" their credit cards by calling a 1-800 number. The number leads them (via VoIP) to an automated system in a foreign country that, quite convincingly, asks that they key in their credit card number, CVV, and expiration date.
Supply Chain Attacks Infecting Consumer Devices (USB Thumb Drives, GPS Systems, Photo Frames, etc.) Distributed by Trusted Organizations
Retail outlets are increasingly becoming unwitting distributors of malware. Devices with USB connections and the CDs packaged with those devices sometimes contain malware that infect victims' computers and connect them into botnets. Even more targeted attacks using the same technique are starting to hit conference attendees who are given USB thumb drives and CDs that supposedly contain just the conference papers, but increasingly also contain malicious software.

11 Masyarakat Aceh Menang Gugat Exxon Mobil

2008-08-28T21:23:00.001+07:00

Bireuen; Pengadilan federal Amerika Serikat mengabulkan gugatan 11 warga Aceh terhadap ExxonMobil. Raksasa minyak Amerika itu akhirnya digugat di kandangnya sendiri.

Sebuah organisasi yang berkantor di Washington, International Labor Rights Fund, mengajukan gugatan ke pengadilan federal Amerika Serikat di Washington DC pada 20 Juni 2001, tujuh tahun silam. Lembaga itu mewakili 11 masyarakay Aceh di lokasi ladang Exxon Aceh, nama mereka dirahasiakan demi alasan keamanan. Exxon Mobil Corporation, sebagai tergugat adalah dari dua afiliasi perusahaannya di AS, Mobil Corporation dan Exxon Mobil Oil Corporation, dan anak perusahaan di Indonesia, Exxon Mobil Oil Indonesia (EMOI), .erusahaan minyak raksasa itu harus bertanggung jawab atas keterlibatannya dalam pelanggaran HAM yang dilakukan TNI di Aceh.

Dalam gugatan yang menyatakan bahwa ExxonMobil telah membeli perlengkapan militer untuk pasukan keamanan yang bertugas di proyek mereka, dan membayar tentara sewaan untuk memberikan nasehat, latihan, intelijen serta perlengkapan militer di wilayah proyek gas.

Kantor berita Bloomberg menulis, pada 2002 Departemen Luar Negeri AS meminta hakim menunda kasus ini. Pasalnya, Amerika sedang melancarkan program “Perang Melawan Terorisme” di sejumlah negara, termasuk di Indonesia. Proses hukum terhadap Exxon, dikhawatirkan bakal mengganggu program politik luar negeri Amerika.

Adalah Hakim Louis Oberdorfer yang mencuatkan kembali gugatan ini. Sebagaimana ditulis Dow Jones, Oberdorfer menolak permintaan Exxon Mobil untuk membatalkan kasus ini. Oberdorfer menilai, bukti-bukti yang diajukan sudah cukup kuat. Maka di pekan-pekan depan, bersiaplah Exxon Mobil duduk di kursi pesakitan.

Namun bukanlah Exxon jika perusahaan raksasa itu keder dan grogi. Juru bicara Exxon, Margaret Ross, dalam e-mail yang dikirim ke Bloomberg, membantah keterlibatan ExxonMobil dalam kasus itu. Menurut Ross, selama ini ExxonMobil justru paling kencang melawan pelanggaran HAM.

Biarlah sidang gugatan ini berlangsung di Amerika, nun jauh di sana. Yang penting, masyarakat Indonesia bisa mengambil pembelajaran politik dan hukum atas kasus tersebut. Setidaknya, kasus ini membuka mata publik, bahwa biasanya konspirasi bisa dengan mudah terjadi antara pebisnis besar perminyakan dengan pemegang kekuatan senjata.

Sejak pertengahan 1990-an, perusahaan-perusahaan minyak besar mulai menuai gugatan. Sejumlah kasus yang pernah tercatat adalah tuntutan terhadap Freeport di Papua Barat, BHP Chevron dan Unocal, dan Royal Dutch/Shell. Apalagi di Amerika ada Alien Tort Act, sebuah payung hukum bagi warga di luar Amerika yang merasa dirugikan.

Tak hanya di Indonesia, enam bulan mendatang Chevron Corporation, perusahaan nomor dua terbesar di Amerika, akan menghadapi pengadilan di San Francisco. Gugatan diajukan warga Nigeria, karena adanya pelanggaran HAM oleh militer Nigeria.

Gugatan hukum kini telah menjelma hingga berbagai bentuk. Tak hanya pelanggar HAM yang bisa diajukan ke pengadilan HAM. Bahkan perusahaan besar yang terlibat konspirasi kejahatan kemanusiaan, bisa dikejar di mana pun mereka sembunyi.

Ten little expenses that add up fast

2008-07-22T23:20:00.002+07:00

Do you wonder where your money goes, especially if you're not a big spender? It's surprisingly easy to blow thousands, a few dollars at a time.

by Bankrate.com

It's easy to fritter away money on little daily expenses. If you fall into these money traps, learn to avoid them and pocket the savings.

Coffee: According to the National Coffee Association, the average price for a cup of brewed coffee is $1.38. There are roughly 260 weekdays per year, so buying one coffee every weekday morning costs almost $360 per year.

Cigarettes: The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids reports that the average price for a pack of cigarettes in the United States is $4.54. Pack-a-day smokers fork out $1,650 a year. Weekend smoker? Buying a pack once a week adds up, too: $236.

Alcohol: Drink prices vary based on the location. But assuming an average of $5 per beer including tip, buying two beers per day adds up to $3,650 per year. Figure twice that for two mixed drinks a day at the local bar. That's not chump change.

Bottled water from convenience stores: A 20-ounce bottle of Aquafina bottled water costs about $1. One bottle of water per day costs $365 per year. It costs the environment plenty, too.

Manicures: The Day Spa Magazine Price Survey of 2004 found that the average cost of a manicure is $20.53. A weekly manicure sets you back about $1,068 per year.

Car washes: The average cost for a basic auto detailing package is $58, according to Costhelper.com. The tab for getting your car detailed every two months: $348 per year.

Weekday lunches out: $9 will generally cover a decent lunch most workdays. If you buy, rather than pack, a lunch five days a week for one year, you shell out about $2,340 a year.
Vending-machines snacks: The average vending machine snack costs $1. Buy a pack of cookies every afternoon at work and pay $260 per year.

Interest charges on credit card bills: According to a survey released at the end of May, the median amount of credit card debt carried by Americans is $6,600. The average interest rate on a standard card is about 13%. Making the minimum payment each month, it will take 250 months (almost 21 years) to pay off the debt and cost $4,868 in interest. Ouch!

Unused gym memberships: Costhelper.com reports that the monthly service fee at gyms averages between $35 and $40. At $40 per month, an unused gym membership runs $480 per year.

THE TOP 8 MOST COMMON MISTAKES MARKETERS ATTEMPTING TO CREATE LEADS WITH EBAY AND ONLINE AUCTIONS MAKE.

2008-07-12T23:19:00.003+07:00

There is a RIGHT WAY & WRONG WAY to do everything.

All successful marketing comes down to modeling the Success of others. If we choose not to become educated, or not to follow that which is being taught by someone who knows what they are doing, whose fault is that?

With that said, IT IS BETTER TO TAKE ACTION, than to sit on your hands and do nothing. Just remember, action alone does not guarantee success. You must constantly refine your methods and systems, it is an ongoing process, and you absolutely must be willing to take direction from those who have accomplished the results you want and …………..NOBODY ELSE!

As you have heard may say many times there are a lot of people in the market place trying to teach people “How to do” that which they have “NEVER DONE”. Be very careful who you listen to.

If it sound like I am ranting, maybe I am. As many of you know I have been testing Ebay selling methods and opportunities for several years. I primarily use Ebay as lead generation tool for my consulting, coaching services. I have had as many as 7 different Ebay businesses ALL of which reached the Ebay “Power Seller” status.

I know what I am talking about.

If I have one more person tell me that selling on Ebay doesn’t work….I am just going to throw up!I don’t care if you are selling on Ebay to make $$$ or create leads, if you follow a few simple rules, IT WILL WORK FOR YOU!

My dad is making money weekly selling golf balls and golf items. Danny who works with me here at the office went on a nice vacation to the beach with his wife this year, primarily from extra cash he generated with Ebay & Google Adwords. My sister buys and sells her daughters wardrobe on Ebay every Spring and Fall and made almost $2,000 in 3 weeks this spring, all on Ebay.

I have dozens of students and people who have invested in my course at Funded Prosposals who are creating leads monthly with Ebay and other students from my Online Auction U site that are creating cash on demand and who have become Power Sellers themselves with Ebay and online auctions!

BELOW ARE 8 STEPS YOU NEED TO FOLLOW TO HELP INSURE YOUR SUCCESS. IF YOU DON’T FOLLOW THESE STEPS THEN SUCCESS WILL BE DIMINISHED.

Don’t get greedy or creative with the postage fees you charge. Listen if you are trying to make money on the postage fees, people aren’t stupid, they see that and they resent it. Charging $6.00 to send a DVD that you can mail anywhere in the country for about a $1.80 will not work. I understand that there are “gurus” who are teaching this method but all they are doing is hurting your credibility if you follow this advice. I see nothing wrong if your S&H fees cover you actual cost, listing fees and a a few pennies for your supplies, but if you consistently over charge for postage Ebay buyers will BLACKBALL YOU!
If your goal is to develop leads then all you really want to do is break even on the front end. If I go to a book store and find a marketing book that retails for $24.00 and I buy it for $2.25, I am NOT going to try to start the bid at $15.00. I will start the bid for $2.25 or $2.99 plus a fair P&H rate. If I cover my investment & create a lead I WIN! My goal is to create a lead, not make $10.00 on the sale of a book. Plus just because I start the bid at $2.99 doesn’t mean it will end there, it could sale for $5.00, $10.00, or more. I have faith that huge Ebay market place will bid items up to a fair amount.
Use good descriptions. Don’t short cut this step. Here is a tip. If I selling a program Called X Y Z Success. I recommend that you do a search for X Y Z Success. Try to find where the item is being sold at retail. Then pull your description from that site. Not necessarily word for word, but I see nothing wrong with copying the description from the retail site, pasting it into your Ebay description and then changing it up a little. Yes, most of the time on Ebay people are familiar with the item they are bidding on, but not always so write good descriptions.
USE 1 Picture. If you are selling books, D V D ’s, C D’s and other training materials more than one picture is a waste of money. With other high end items multiple pictures can be a plus but with educational materials, you need 1 picture, just so the person knows you actually have what you are selling. There is a fee for every picture after your 1st one and there is no value in multiple pictures.
Don’t use special features such as sub category, bolding etc. they cost you money and there is no need. Why we are on the subject listing fees, never start any item at between $10.00 - $10.99. As soon as you go over $9.99 you are paying more for the listing. If I see someone starting an item at $10.00 I know this person is an unexperienced Ebayer because they could have started the auction for 1 penny less, $9.99 and saved 15 cents in initial listing fees.
Establish your policies and place them at the end of every auction. Ours for my M L M Help Auctions account simply says: M L M Help Auctions Policies. Please make payment within 3 days of auction ending via paypal. We also accept your personal check, cashiers checks, money orders, or your personal credit card. All items are sent within 24 hours of receiving payment. We appreciate your business and leave feedback for all our bidders. S&H on this huge package is 9.00 Priority Mail.
USE AN ABOUT ME PAGE. It is FREE and I talk about this extensively in my 21 Ways to Create Online M L M Leads course. It is 100% FREE to set up and gives you a great opportunity to piggy back on Ebay’s huge traffic and receive clicks to your personal website. Again, NO ABOUT ME PAGE says no experience.
Start the majority of your Auctions on Sunday night between 9:30 – 11:30 EST. I use the phrase “go where the traffic is” a lot in my trainings. Ebay is one of the Top 5 visited sites on the Internet, so they definitely have the traffic and the majority of Ebay’s traffic is online on Sunday evenings between 9:30 – 11:30 EST. So if you do a 7 day auction, which you should, then you want your items to end at the exact time.

Top Ten Job Tips for Teens

2008-05-16T22:30:00.003+07:00

If you're interested in getting a job, do some research. Visit your local library. Read the paper. Ask people you know. You're bound to find something that interests you.

Be sure to talk to your parents if you decide you want to work. They can offer advice and help you plan your time accordingly. In Alberta, if you are between the ages of 12 and 14, you'll need written consent from a parent or guardian before you can begin working.

When you do find a job, it's a good idea to have your parents look into the company's history to make sure it's a reputable business.

As a younger worker, you need to be aware of the laws that affect you. For example, did you know that if you're between the ages of 12 and 14, by law you cannot work after 9 p.m.? See Employment Standards for more information.

Before accepting a position, make sure the salary you will be earning is at least minimum wage. In Alberta, all workers, regardless of age, are entitled to the same minimum wage.

Know your rights when it comes to overtime, holiday pay, termination of employment, etc. See Employment Standards for more information.

Be aware of the restrictions there are on younger workers working alone. According to Alberta's Employment Standards Code, if you are between the ages of 15 and 17, you can work alone until 9 p.m. After 9 p.m., someone at least 18 years of age must be present.

Don't be afraid to ask your boss questions. If you feel uncomfortable talking to your employer about concerns you have about the job, perhaps you should consider moving on.

If you feel unsafe at any time while you are working, talk to your employer and your parents immediately! You may also want to consider reporting any unsafe conditions to the provincial government's Workplace Health and Safety department. Any information you provide will be kept confidential.

Don't let your job interfere with your schoolwork or time with your family and friends. A job is only one part of your life and you shouldn't let it to control you. Remember, you're only young once - so enjoy it!

Top Ten Female Streakers

2008-05-16T22:02:00.002+07:00

Streaking - a curiously British phenomenon (that guy who streaked behind David Niven at the Oscars notwithstanding). While I was growing up, it seemed that almost every national sporting event in England was interrupted by a naked runner - usually a short ugly hairy man who proved to the crowd just how cold the weather actually was (see Seinfeld, shrinkage).
But while no-one - male or female - probably gives a damn about seeing male dangly bits jogging across a tennis court, I thought there might be a little more interest in a Hall of Fame for the great female streakers to grace our sporting arenas. Erica Roe , Sheila Nichols , Melissa Johnson , Tracy Seargant , Jacqui Salmond , Michelle Cassidy , Suzanne Pegg , Michelle Newton , Naomi McDonald , Lynsey Dawn Mckenzie

10 ways Uncle Sam helps you save money

2008-02-17T14:07:00.002+07:00

Saving for the future is of paramount importance to all Americans. Luckily, we all have a rich uncle to turn to for some help. His name is Uncle Sam.

Thanks to the tax code, you have several ways to save that are either tax-free or tax-deferred. Here's a look at 10 popular savings options.

The following are 10 popular savings options that are made possible through the federal government and Internal Revenue Service.
10 helping hands from Uncle Sam
1. Traditional IRAs
2. Roth IRAs
3. 401(k) plans
4. Roth 401(k) plans
5. Medical spending accounts
6. Dependent care spending accounts
7. Health savings accounts
8. Prepaid tuition plans
9. College savings plans
10. Savings bonds

Individual retirement accounts
Known popularly as IRAs, for more than 30 years, these accounts have provided individuals a way to save for retirement and save on taxes. Anyone who works, either for himself or an employer, can set aside a portion of that income in a personal retirement account.

Over the years, the concept has been refined, with tax savings and earnings possibilities enhanced. Generally, individuals with wage income (rather than self-employment earnings) will choose to contribute to either a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA.

Traditional IRAs

"Traditional IRA" is the name given to the original account created in 1974. This account is available to anyone younger than 70½ who earns money. The contribution limit for 2007 is $4,000; money can be put into these accounts for last tax year up until the April 15 tax-filing deadline. In 2008, the yearly amount that can be contributed to a traditional IRA increases to $5,000, with an an annual inflation adjustment for subsequent years.

Advantages: The earnings are tax-deferred, meaning you won't owe the IRS until you make withdrawals, which you can start taking at age 59½. Workers age 50 or older (but younger than 70½) can put in another $1,000 a year. Some individuals also might be able to deduct these contributions. Drawbacks: You'll eventually owe taxes on at least some of the money in the account. You cannot contribute once you reach age 70½. When you reach that age, you must start taking out a minimum amount based on an IRS distribution calculation.

Roth IRAs

Roth IRA contributions were first accepted in 1998. That year, $8.6 billion went into these retirement plans, with another $39 billion transferred from traditional IRAs to Roths. By 2001, IRS data showed contributions to Roths had passed the amount going into traditional accounts.
Why the shift? Money earned in a Roth IRA can be taken out in retirement tax-free.

Contribution limits for Roths are generally the same as with traditional accounts, with one major difference: As long as you are earning money, you can contribute to a Roth, regardless of your age.

Advantages: The earnings are tax-free. This is very appealing to account holders who open a Roth early and let the money grow for decades, as well as to individuals who expect to be in the same or possibly higher tax bracket when they retire. You can contribute at any age. You can take money out on your timetable, not on the IRS's age 70½ withdrawal schedule.

Drawbacks: Contributions are not tax-deductible. There is an earnings limit which restricts higher-income taxpayers from contributing to or converting traditional IRA money to a Roth account.

Workplace retirement savings
Many companies help their employees save for retirement by offering defined-contribution plans. As the name indicates, workers play a major role in building retirement savings by contributing a percentage of their incomes to these accounts.

401(k) plans

In the private sector, these are commonly known as 401(k) plans; when the employer is a university, nonprofit agency or some government agencies, they are known as 403(b) plans. In some cases, the employer matches a portion of worker contributions.

Advantages: Employee money goes into the account before payroll taxes are figured, meaning you'll save a bit on withholding taxes. Matching employer contributions help boost your retirement savings. You can put substantially more in a 401(k) than in an IRA. In 2007, the limits were $15,500 vs. $4,000, respectively; for 2008, the amounts are $15,500 for 401(k)s and $5,000 for IRAs. Larger contributions are allowed in both types of retirement plans for individuals age 50 or older.

Drawbacks: Contributions and earnings are tax-deferred, meaning you'll owe the IRS when you take the money out at retirement. You must begin distributions by age 70½. Not all companies match worker contributions, and some that do match do so with company stock rather than cash.

Roth 401(k) plans

Roth 401(k) plans became available in 2006. These accounts combine the basics of 401(k)s with the tax-free aspect of Roth IRAs. Essentially, workers put money into Roth 401(k)s after payroll taxes are withheld, meaning the account doesn't offer an immediate tax benefit. But when the money is withdrawn, it is tax-free.

Advantages: Distributions are tax-free. Contribution levels, as with regular 401(k)s, are higher than for IRAs. Employer matching contributions increase your retirement savings. There are no adjusted gross income caps, so higher-income workers who might not be able to open a Roth IRA can contribute to a Roth 401(k). You can leave money in the account past age 70½.

Drawbacks: Not yet as available as regular 401(k) plans. Because money goes into this account after taxes are withheld, you get no immediate tax break. Whether your 401(k) is a regular or Roth account, ultimate responsibility for your workplace retirement savings rests entirely on you. You must enroll in the account and then manage it, deciding which 401(k) offering best fits your personal financial situation. These concerns were addressed in provisions of the Pension Protection Act of 2006. Now companies will find it easier to automatically enroll workers in 401(k) plans, as well as make investment advice on plan choices more available to employees.

Medical spending accounts

They might be called flexible spending accounts, or FSAs, but whatever the name, these workplace benefit plans can help you save on medical and child care costs.
With a medical spending account, you can put aside money to pay for health care costs that are not covered by your insurance.

Advantages: Employee money goes into the account before payroll taxes are figured, so your withholding taxes will be slightly less. FSA money pays for out-of-pocket medical expenses (co-pays, deductibles) you would have to pay anyway. You can use your FSA money even before you've actually put money into the account. For example, let's say you sign up to contribute $1,000 to your medical FSA, but have deposited only $100 when you are faced with a $300 out-of-pocket expense. You still can collect the $300 from your account. Also, you can use FSA money to pay for over-the-counter medications. Drawbacks: Companies limit the amount you can put into your medical FSA. Unused FSA money does not roll over into the next benefit year.

Dependent care spending accounts

Similarly, a dependent care FSA allows you to put aside money to pay costs for the care of an IRS-eligible dependent while you work.

Advantages: As with a medical FSA, contributions are made pretax. In addition to paying for child care costs, the money also can go toward expenses to care for a physically or mentally disabled adult dependent so that you can work. Drawbacks: When applied toward child care, the youth must be age 12 or younger. Under federal law, you can only put aside $5,000 to cover dependent care costs. This is a household limit, meaning that if you and your spouse each have a dependent care FSA at your jobs, the total amount put in both cannot exceed $5,000. The same $5,000 limit applies to single filers. And while FSAs generally offer individuals a very tax-advantageous way to save on medical and dependent care expenses, in some cases other tax deductions or credits could be disallowed or reduced by use of these accounts. If you have extreme medical costs that you can deduct or want to claim the dependent care tax credit, talk to your tax adviser about how these accounts could affect these other tax considerations.

Health savings accounts

Money placed in a health savings account also pays medical costs, but these medical savings vehicles are different from FSAs.

In order to open an HSA, you must be covered by a high-deductible health insurance policy, which means you'll have to pay medical costs of at least $1,100 for self-only coverage or $2,200 if for family coverage. Once you have the requisite insurance coverage, you can open an HSA and contribute up to the amount of your insurance policy's deductible. Individuals age 55 and older can make additional catch-up contributions to the HSA each year until they enroll in Medicare.
Advantages: You get an immediate deduction on your Form 1040 for contributions to an HSA. You do not have to itemize to claim this deduction. Even if someone else, for example, a relative, makes the contributions to your HSA, you still get the tax deduction. HSA earnings grow tax free. As long as HSA funds pay for eligible medical expenses, you owe no tax on the distribution. Any money in the account at year end can be carried forward to the next year. Drawbacks: You have to pay a high deductible for medical care, meaning you'll have to come up with the doctor and pharmacy payments and then be reimbursed from your HSA, rather than having your bills go directly to the insurer for payment as with traditional health policies. If you get a high-deductible policy during the year instead of at the beginning, the amount you can contribute to an HSA is prorated by the number of months you've had the policy. College savings plansThese savings vehicles, named after Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code and known collectively as 529 or qualified tuition plans, come in two flavors: prepaid tuition plans and college savings plans. All 50 states and the District of Columbia sponsor at least one type of these plans.

Prepaid tuition plans

With a prepaid tuition plan, you can pay for attendance at participating public colleges and universities in advance, generally many years before the student actually enrolls.
Advantages: Prepaid plans allow you to buy a future education at today's cost -- a sizable expected savings given the rate of increase over recent years. The plans usually are guaranteed or backed by the state. Drawbacks: Since many prepaid tuition plans are under the aegis of state governments, they generally have residency requirements, meaning your college choices could be limited. The plans also have age and grade limits for the beneficiary student. In most cases, only tuition and mandatory fees are covered in prepaid plans.

College savings plans

With a college savings plan, you establish an account to pay for a student's future college expenses.
Advantages: Withdrawals from college savings plans can generally be used at any college or university, regardless of its location. Distributions for eligible college costs are tax-free. Savings plans will cover a wider range of expenses than prepaid tuition programs; this includes room, board and books in addition to tuition and fees.
Drawbacks: As with any investment, risk is a factor; the plan money is not guaranteed by the associated state government and is not federally insured. If you use account money for ineligible expenses, you'll owe federal taxes on the amount as well as an additional 10 percent penalty on earnings. Savings in a 529 plan could reduce a student's eligibility for other financial aid. Pay close attention to the plans fees, which could take a substantial cut of its earnings. 10. Savings bondsThis savings vehicle is often viewed as old-fashioned, but today's savings bonds are not the bonds your grandparents or even your parents bought. Enhancements to these federally backed instruments make them attractive to many looking for an easy, safe and, in some instances, quite competitive way to sock away cash. The most popular savings bonds are Series EE, the fixed-rate variety, and Series I, which is indexed periodically to inflation.

Advantages: The purchase price of a Series EE bond is just half its eventual maturity value. Both EE and I bonds come in eight denominations, ranging from $50 to $10,000. You can buy bonds directly from the U.S. Treasury at the department's TreasuryDirect Web site. Interest earned is exempt from state or local taxation. Federal taxes are deferred until you cash the bond, but if you redeem them to pay for higher-education expenses, you might be able to also avoid federal taxes on the earnings.

Drawbacks: Unless the bonds are used for college costs, you'll eventually owe the IRS for the accrued earnings. The Series I bond does not offer a half-price purchase option. You must hold both types of bonds for at least one year before you can redeem them. Both series charge a three-month interest penalty if you redeem the bonds during the first five years. You need to pay attention to when you cash in the bonds, because the redemption timing affects the amount of interest you'll get. Don't try this at workThere's one more tax-related savings option that many people use, but it's not recommended by most financial advisers: paycheck overwithholding.

Many employees intentionally have an excess amount of federal taxes withheld from their pay so that they'll get a fat refund at tax time. But if you adjust your withholding so that it more accurately matches your ultimate tax bill, you'll have immediate use of your cash. That way, you can put it into a savings account where it can earn more for you, instead of letting Uncle Sam have your money for most of the year as an interest-free loan.

SPi Continues to Rank in Top 10 in Global Services 100 Survey

2008-02-13T20:32:00.000+07:00

WASHINGTON, DC, (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- SPi, a leading global provider of business process outsourcing solutions, announced today that it has been ranked No. 3 in the "Leader, Emerging Asian Markets" category, No. 6 in "Best Performing BPO Provider" category and No. 9 in "Leader, Human Capital Development" category in the 2008 Global Services 100 Survey conducted by Global Services magazine and neoIT, an outsourcing advisory firm.

The Global Services 100 is a ranking of the world's top 100 service providers across various BPO and IT sectors. In developing the ranking, Global Services and neoIT collected third-party and participant-provided data to evaluate and score service providers across four major categories -- operational excellence, human capital, service offerings, and client relationships.

SPi has consistently been in the Top 10 list of "Best Performing BPO Providers" and "Leaders, Human Capital Development" since 2005. This year, SPi not only maintains its Top 10 ranking in these categories, but it has also been included in the Top 3 of another category, "Leader, Emerging Asian Markets."

Reflecting on the latest rankings, Peter Maquera, SPi's President and CEO, commented, "Being ranked as a top-tier BPO Provider and a Leader in Human Capital Development for four consecutive years is confirmation of our unwavering commitment to grow our people, our strategic partnership approach with our clients and our resolute promise to continuous process improvements in everything that we do."

Maquera went on to say, "We are also delighted to see that SPi has been included in the 'Leader, Emerging Asian Markets' for the first time. Our high ranking in this category is a testament to our ability to compete with other large outsourcing companies in India, China and even in the Philippines in terms of scope of service, quality and cost-effectiveness. These recognitions truly reflect our commitment to making SPi the Employer of Choice, Vendor of Choice, and Investment of Choice," Maquera added.

SPi has consistently received recognitions from various global industry experts. In 2007, the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) ranked SPi as one of the Top Outsourcing Leaders and gave the company citations in the Healthcare, CRM Services, Document Management, Administration and Corporate Services sections. The 2007 Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey also included SPi among its Top 20 Overall Service Providers.

About Global Services
Global Services is a media platform with a portfolio that includes a magazine, website, events, newsletter and customized solutions. The company's audience consists of corporate professionals engaged in the sourcing and management of business and technology services. It is owned by CyberMedia (India) Limited (www.globalservicesmedia.com).

About neoIT
neoIT is a management consulting firm that helps leading corporations improve and grow their business by capitalizing on services globalization. Through a blend of strategic advisory services and hands-on execution support, neoIT provides advice and management expertise on the globalization of Information Technology (IT) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services (www.neoIT.com).

About SPi
SPi is a leading full-service Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) solutions provider with offices and facilities across North America, Europe, and Asia. SPi has more than 14,000 employees worldwide delivering a wide range of call center and knowledge-based outsourcing services to diversified markets, including Healthcare, Legal, and Publishing. SPi consistently improves operating efficiency, lowers costs, and helps to strengthen the competitive position of more than 500 clients.

SPi is owned by ePLDT, Inc. ePLDT, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), the leading telecommunications provider in the Philippines. PLDT is listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange (PHP: TEL), and its American Depository Shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: PHI).
For more information on SPi, visit www.spi-bpo.com.

Top Mobile Broadband Notebooks Named

2008-02-13T20:23:00.000+07:00

BARCELONA, Spain--Notebooks by Dell and Taiwan-based Elitegroup Computer Systems are the winners of a contest for the best sub-$1000 laptop designs with embedded mobile broadband adapters.
Dell's winning model was its Inspiron 1525, while ECS was honored for its pre-production G10IL. Both are priced at $800 or less. Winners were announced at a news conference at the Mobile World Congress here today.

Sponsored by Microsoft and the GSM Association--the wireless telecommunications trade group that sponsors MWC (formerly known as 3GSM)--the contest was announced at the GSMA Mobile Asia conference in Macau last November. It was designed to encourage notebook vendors to create more affordably priced systems with HSPA (high-speed packet access) in order to attract mass-market users to wireless broadband.

Judges considered not only the hardware, features and price of the competing designs, but how the vendors intend to work with carriers to simplify account activation and use of the embedded mobile broadband adapter.

Many Entries
Competition organizers say so many vendors sent entries that they decided to choose winners in two categories. The Dell, a mid-range conventionally configured, was named the best commercially available broadband notebook, while the smaller ultraportable ECS won as best pre-commercial design.

The GSMA hopes you'll eventually buy one of the winning notebooks, or a similar product, directly from your mobile operator, who will create your account and preconfigure the connection software so that you can log on immediately.

HSPA is the more robust sibling of HSDPA (the D stands for downlink), which is the high-speed wireless technology AT&T Wireless has deployed in parts of the US. HSDPA only speeds up downloads; on AT&T, uploads would be limited to slower UMTS speeds until the carrier upgrades its network. HSPA speeds up both uploads and downloads.

While most notebooks today ship with embedded Wi-Fi adapters, relatively few come with embedded mobile broadband adapters, which tend to be an extra-cost item on pricier models. David O'Bryne of the GSMA says the group's research shows many consumers would buy a notebook with mobile broadband if it were affordable and easy to operate.

Where mobile broadband is available, it generally offers better coverage than Wi-Fi hot spots, which are limited in range. With a mobile broadband account, there's no need to seek out hotspots, figure out if you need to buy access or are already a subscriber, and configure each connection.

However, all-you-can-eat mobile broadband services tend to be fairly pricey in the U.S.--about $80 a month--which is a lot for people who aren't frequent business travelers. But O'Byrne said carriers realize service prices are also an issue with consumers and are starting to adjust accordingly.

Top 10 Best Selling Mobile Phones of Spring 2007 by Wirefly

2007-06-23T20:22:00.000+07:00

Wirefly has presented the best selling mobile phones of Spring 2007. At the top of the list are the Motorola RAZR, Blackberry Pearl, and LG Chocolate.

Wirefly also noted an interesting fact that all these 10 phones have almost the same technical characteristics, but at the same time they offer something that helps users express themselves and their style.

Here is the Wirefly's Top 10:

Motorola RAZR
BlackBerry Pearl
LG Chocolate
Samsung A900M
Motorola i850
Motorola Buzz ic502
Sanyo Katana
Sony Ericsson w810i
Nokia 5300 XpressMusic
Motorola v325i

Viewbar release this Tuesday in asia

2007-06-05T00:23:00.000+07:00

I am happy to announce that the Viewbar has been released. The software is functioning fine, but it appears to have overloaded the ad servers in the initial surge.

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).

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!

Microsoft's Big Online Ad Buy

2007-05-19T16:01:00.000+07:00

There's rarely been a doubt that Microsoft (MSFT) intends to compete with Google (GOOG). Yet for the past few years, the software giant's efforts to take on the search giant appeared to be half-measures, as its focus always seemed diverted by other businesses.

But on May 18, Microsoft made its boldest statement yet that it intends to become a dominant force in the online world. The company dug deep into its vast cash holdings and agreed to its biggest acquisition ever, a $6 billion purchase of online marketing powerhouse aQuantive (AQNT).

The deal, which the company expects to close in the second half of 2007, gives Microsoft a potent online marketing base for selling ads, placing them, and giving advertisers tools to measure ad performance. It turns Microsoft—already a force in online content with such sites as MSN—into a formidable Web power with many of the marketing pieces that advertisers look for as they embark on Internet ad campaigns.

And while Microsoft has spent lavishly in recent years to build up its online business, buying aQuantive is the clearest sign yet that Microsoft intends to create a business rivaling its PC and server software empires. "It's a big bet on advertising monetization for the long-term growth of the company," Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's Platforms & Services Div., said during a conference call with analysts and reporters.

Last One Standing
What's more, the deal may muzzle critics who lampooned Microsoft for failing to match Google's ambitions for Web dominance. "They've exited the 'day-late-dollar-short' club," says Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Charles Di Bona II. The deal comes just a month after Google bought Web ad giant DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, reportedly outbidding Microsoft.

There's no question that Microsoft paid dearly for aQuantive. That's because it was one of the last major online ad firms standing, after the recent sales of DoubleClick, RightMedia, 24/7 Real Media (TFSM), and Digitas (PUB) (see BusinessWeek.com 5/21/07, "Behind Those Web Mergers").

Microsoft says it beat out competitors, offering $66.50 a share in cash, an astonishing 85% premium over aQuantive's May 17 closing price. While Microsoft's shares inched down, dropping 15 cents, to $30.83, most analysts seemed willing to accept the premium it's paying for aQuantive as the price of competing with Google. "It was clear that if they didn't get this one, there wasn't going to be anything left on the table," Bernstein's Di Bona says.

Stepping Up the Deal Pace
It's also the kind of acquisition that few companies besides Microsoft could pull off. With $28.2 billion in cash as of Mar. 31, Microsoft clearly has the financial wherewithal. "This acquisition continues to demonstrate that we are willing to use the strength of our balance sheet … to aggressively accelerate our growth and support our strategic initiatives," Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said during the conference call.

Microsoft's acquisition pace, particularly for online businesses, has picked up in recent months (see BusinessWeek.com 5/4/07, "Microsoft's Urge to Merge"). But this deal surpasses any other purchase Microsoft has made by a factor of four. The company bought the Danish small-business software maker Navision for $1.45 billion in 2002. Recently, Microsoft has made morsel-sized purchases of ad businesses, including video-game advertising firm Massive, and mobile-phone advertising companies ScreenTonic and MotionBridge.

Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer was kept apprised of the negotiations but never got personally involved, according to Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice-president and chief advertising strategist at Microsoft, who closed the deal with Johnson and others. While Ballmer was engaged in Microsoft's strategizing over the deal, his involvement in the talks was largely limited to a conversation with aQuantive CEO Brian McAndrews to "express his enthusiasm," Mehdi says.

Online Ads' Coming of Age
In aQuantive, Microsoft gets a company that generated $442.2 million in sales last year, registering 43% growth. Profit grew 53%, to $54 million. Its business comprises three key brands: Atlas, which provides tools for advertisers to generate better returns on ad campaigns; DRIVEpm, a service to match ads with Web-page inventory; and Avenue ARazorfish, one of the largest online ad agencies in the world.

The business is a far cry from Microsoft's software monopolies, particularly the ad agency business, which is about as culturally removed from software development as it gets. Some analysts question whether Microsoft will spin out pieces of Seattle-based aQuantive, but the company says it intends to keep the company intact. And with Microsoft's deep pockets and grand ambitions, McAndrews believes that aQuantive will achieve far more than it could have on its own. He says it's akin to "trading gasoline fuel with rocket fuel."

More broadly, the deal caps a spate of mergers signaling a coming of age in online advertising. "We are finally at the cusp of where traditional advertising budgets are giving way to online budgets," says Forrester Research (FORR) analyst Shar VanBoskirk. And while online advertising is a mere 10% of total ad spending, this deal and the recent raft of similar transactions suggests that the industry has turned a corner. Valuations have climbed because it's evident that companies that don't build up their online marketing prowess now will be left far behind. With the aQuantive deal, Microsoft has made sure that it's along for the ride.

byJay Greene is BusinessWeek's Seattle bureau chief.

Blogger John Chow Uses Viewbar

2007-05-16T07:56:00.000+07:00

We recently decided to give a Member who is not on the development team a chance to use and test a recent version of the AGLOCO Viewbar. John Chow has written (and posted a video) about his first look at the software. Here are his opening thoughts:

The AGLOCO Viewbar is real and it does exist. I know because I’m using it right now. Akshay Mavani sent me a beta Viewbar to try out and give my impressions.
The Viewbar software is a 1.8 MB download. When installed, it takes up 5 MB of space. The Viewbar is not any bigger than the Windows task bar. The version I am running shows ads by Google and Google is the default search engine. The ads are not targeted at the moment because it hits only one ad server. The rest of the ad servers have not been connected.

Feel free to read his whole post or check out the video of the Viewbar in action at http://www.johnchow.com/15000-agloco-sign-ups/

As Chow also notes, as soon as we are able to finish integrating the ad servers (which has unfortunately taken much longer than expected), we will begin our full-scale release. The current integration issues are coming from the ad server side, but we are having to adjust the Viewbar to compensate for this. We are working with our partners to correct this last remaining issue so the Viewbar can be released. Every day I keep my fingers crossed that it will be the day the ad server integration is completed so that AGLOCO can finally move into the next phase of business.

Brian Greenwald
AGLOCO Development Team

Ready to Viewbar Testing

2007-05-16T07:45:00.000+07:00

Brian Greenwald
AGLOCO Development Team

(Update: Here are two images of the Viewbar as it looks on my desktop right now. Click on each thumbnail to see an enlarged image. I like how the blue matches the windows task bar, though green looks good too. Looking forward to getting one on YOUR desktop!)

Viewbar quality tests are still going on. As I mentioned in the comment area of my previous post, all tests of the Viewbar have passed except for the ad servers. We had expected our testing to be finished by now, but this advertising integration is not proving easy to solve. All of us on the development team are anxious to see the Viewbar distributed to our Members, as we are now two months behind our initially planned launch date. Still, with only one technical hurdle between us and the release, I’m really getting excited for the upcoming launch (and I can see other Members are getting excited too!).

For those of you who did not read my prior comment, here it is again:

Just a quick update on my Viewbar this week.

As stated in last weekend’s email, this is a very simple Viewbar (mine is labeled V0.53). But I think it does a good job with it simple functions of showing the path to the various continued enhancements that will come.

As stated earlier, it looks much like Viewbar on the website, though slightly smaller (it is the same size as the windows task bar). I have mine docked on the bottom but it can also be moved to be at the top of the screen. I also tried the four color choices, and I like the default blue.
There are currently 7 search engines in the search field (I already use this to do all my searching as it is the most convenient way to search from my desktop). It has my favorite links as well as tools (calculator and calendar). I was told these tools are just there to show Members that the Viewbar will be a source of functionality (they will get more handy as improvements are made to the Viewbar). I sometimes use the favorite links menu, generally when I do not already have a browser up on my screen.

Since the release of this to Members is the most important topic at AGLOCO right now, here is the update on that:

All the final Viewbar ‘fixes’ are being implemented today and will be tested all through tomorrow. If they work correctly we should be able to move the download process to the AGLOCO site and your account page. If not, we’re going to fix whatever issues remain as quickly as possible - we won’t release a product that doesn’t work. I will give an update on this again tomorrow.

Also, we are aware of the website not always being available on a worldwide basis. We have been preparing to integrate the Viewbar download with the AGLOCO website. This has caused a balancing problem which our Savvis engineers have been working on for the last two weeks.

Again, your overall patience on the Viewbar release is appreciated. I’ll continue to keep you posted as I hear updates from our Shanghai tech team.

Interesting Site of the Day: http://www.aglocoportugal.com/
- Congrats to “ismabera” for being our first non-English “interesting site of the day”. Thanks for being an active and thoughtful contributor to this blog’s comments (and for a great AGLOCO cartoon on your site).

Make You Agloco Viewbar Update

2007-05-16T07:33:00.000+07:00

I am currently working with an AGLOCO Viewbar on my screen. As several of you have asked questions about it, here are a couple of quick comments:

It is very similar to the Viewbar that is pictured on the AGLOCO website
I have tested the Viewbar features (search, favorites, options, install, uninstall, minimize, etc.) and it is working smoothly on my machine
There will be a major test of the ad servers tomorrow to see if all the known bugs have been corrected

All Members should have received an update email (I have copied it at the bottom of this post). If you are a Member and did not get an email over the weekend you need to correct this, as it is the only way to get the Viewbar notice with downloading instructions. If you did not get it, try going into your account to make sure we have a current email address on file (if it is correct and you still did not get an email, check your junk/spam folders).

The next email you should receive on this subject will be one that mentions that our servers will be down for a few hours while we load the Viewbar onto the system. After that outage, we will be sending an email inviting the earliest Members (about 50,000) to download the Viewbar and another 50,000 each day thereafter for the next two weeks.

I have noticed that there are a lot of comments to this blog lately and I’d like to repeat something I’ve said in those comments:

I’ve read all of your comments, and I think the “community leaders” are doing a good job moderating this discussion. Kudos and thanks for stepping up. This is exactly what we’d hoped for, and it’s very encouraging to see our community begin to take shape like this. After the Viewbar is released and we begin work on features for better Member-to-Member communication, there will be more “official” channels for the community to interact outside this blog.

From the beginning, we’ve wanted to make AGLOCO a Member-centered community. And in many ways that has happened, as there are over 3,500,000 pages all over the Internet (according to Google) talking about AGLOCO. We are very pleased to see some members “stepping up” and providing leadership and insight. These are the beginnings of a great community, one that will get even better once we launch this week.

Keep a lookout for that email shortly, and get ready for the AGLOCO Viewbar!
Brian GreenwaldAGLOCO Development Team

Interesting “thing” of the day: Here is the email we sent over the weekend.

Dear Brian,

We will be releasing the AGLOCO Viewbar software soon and want to update Members on how things will work when it is released.

Each Member will get an email informing them that their Viewbar is available. It will contain detailed instructions on the download, which will be done from the agloco.com website. Members will be invited to download in groups of 50,000 a day for a two week period, with Members contacted in the order in which they signed up.
Shortly before the first set of download emails go out, you will receive an email notice that the AGLOCO website will be ‘out of service’ for a few hours – this is necessary for us to move the Viewbar download system from the test server to the main servers.
Also, please be aware of the following:

AGLOCO Hours: You will accrue hours in your AGLOCO Member account (current maximum is five direct hours a month). Hours are earned during active surfing on the Internet. The Viewbar has a green light on it that notifies the Member when it is accruing time. Your referrals’ surfing will accumulate hours for you at a 25% rate, meaning if one of your referrals surfs for the maximum five hours you will get 1.25 (0.25 x 5) hours credited to your total referral hours. You can only get credit referral hours up to the amount you directly surf (meaning if you surf 3 hours but a referral surfs 4, you will only get credit for the first 3 of your referral’s 4 hours). AGLOCO accrues these hours each month and also has a cumulative total of all hours earned. These hours are what AGLOCO will use to calculate cash and other distributions. The Viewbar contains a one click inactive button which turns it off and removes it from your screen at any time.
Initial Release for Windows: The initial Viewbar release will be for Windows Vista, XP, 2000 Pro and 2000 Server. Later, we will release Mac and Linux versions of the Viewbar. Until that occurs, Mac/Linux users can still log onto any supported Windows computer and accumulate their five hours. The Viewbar works with browsers IE 5.5 or higher and Firefox 1.5 or higher.
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.
Multiple Users on One Viewbar: As stated previously, multiple Members may use the same Viewbar on the same computer. Only one Viewbar download will be necessary as the Viewbar software will enable each Member to log in and log out using their AGLOCO Member ID# and password (obviously, only one Member ID# can be accumulating Viewbar hours at any one time). Please note, only one Viewbar is allowed on a screen at a time.
One-Time Download: The v1.0 Viewbar is purposely simplistic and minimalist, but it also comes equipped with an automatic self-updating feature. Once you download the Viewbar for the first time, your Viewbar will be seamlessly updated with new additions and features as they become available. These future features include the direct cash back feature when a Member purchases items on sponsor site and a portion of the purchase price is added back to the Member’s AGLOCO account (as described on the Official AGLOCO Blog at http://blog.agloco.com/index.php/post35/ . )

We look forward to your active participation in the AGLOCO community.

From : Dan Jorgensen Member Coordinator

Pay-as-you-go computing

2007-04-24T07:58:00.000+07:00

People around the world have enthusiastically embraced the pay-as-you-go model for mobile phones. In fact, 72% of people in emerging markets pay for mobile phone service with prepaid cards on a pay-as-you-go basis because it is straightforward and intuitively fair. The flexibility of the pay-as-you-go model is also well suited to the economic realities of emerging markets where many people work in informal jobs with unpredictable paychecks. The popularity of the pay-as-you-go model is not limited to mobile phones - it is now used in everyday services like internet access, gaming, electricity, and water consumption around the world.

Microsoft has developed a new financing model with the goal of overcoming barriers to owning a PC with genuine Microsoft software - reducing the entry price and enabling pay-as-you-go installment methods to pay off the balance.

Microsoft FlexGo :

• Removing financial barriers to PC ownership
• Pay-as-you-go computing
• Subscription computing
• The technology behind Microsoft® FlexGo™
• Consumer and partner benefits
• What are people saying about pay-as-you-go PCs?
• Frequently asked questions
• Press Release
• Video: Pay-As-You-Go Computing in Brazil

Start an E-Business Without a Website

2007-04-12T22:29:00.000+07:00

Agloco Banner by AglocoBanners.com

Back in the early days of internet marketing, there wasn't much you could do to get started with marketing your business online until you actually launched your own website.
Before you could make money, you had to:

Choose a domain
Set up your hosting
Design your website
Put it all online
Optimize and test your website

But maybe you want the chance to "get your feet wet" before you commit to building a website and getting really serious about marketing your business online.
Or maybe you're trying to discover your online business niche: the problem you want to solve, the people you want to sell to, and the best possible way to create a viable business. Maybe you don't want to commit to a website until you've had a better chance to experiment with different ideas.
Well, fortunately for web newbies, there are more options for getting started with e-commerce than ever before. Now you can actually market and sell products without ever creating your own website. Here's just a few.

Start a Blog
You can create your own website in less than five minutes (and for free!) by starting a blog. Business blogs have become one of the hottest tools for marketing on the web today. And while some companies use them to promote their products in addition to their main websites, you don't need to have a website--or even have a business yet--to start a blog.
Anyone can create a blog for free and have an active, functioning presence online in just minutes. Even complete internet newbies find the set-up process simple and easy to understand. You don't have to know anything about web design or pay a single cent for a domain name or web hosting.
And once you've got your blog online, you can start making money instantly. Here are some tips to get you started:

Start a Google AdSense campaign to generate advertising revenue from your blog. It's easy to set up an AdSense account, and have targeted ads displayed to your online readers. This can be a great source of revenue, though of course the amount of income you can expect from your AdSense ads will depend on the amount of traffic to your blog. The more traffic you receive, the more people are likely to click through the ads displayed on your site--and the more revenue for you!
Join an Agloco and other affiliate program, or a few affiliate programs, and start promoting their products on your blog. You don't even need your own product to get started. You can place ads for your affiliate products on your blog, or write articles or product reviews that contain your affiliate link. You receive a percentage of each sale made when readers click through your links and make a purchase.
Sell products directly from your blog. If you do have a product that you're ready to sell, you can write articles on your blog telling readers about the benefits of your widget. Once they get excited about what you have to offer and decide to take action, you can direct them with a sidebar button to your PayPal account (which is free and easy to set up).

With PayPal, they can order your product and pay for it in seconds, and it only takes you a few moments to get set up to take payments.
You can create a blog in five minutes, absolutely free, with a free blog hosting service. These are considered the top options for blogging beginners:Blogger , Yahoo! 360 , MSN Spaces, LiveJournal

Hot Career Trends fo the 21st Century

2007-04-09T09:16:00.000+07:00

— Sacha Cohen
"Manager," "CEO" and "administrative assistant" are old-school. In the Networked Economy, there's a whole new class of job titles coming to an HR department near you. Here are some of the technology-related jobs that will be in demand in the 21st century and beyond.

Network Experts
According to a recent study by IT placement agency Robert Half International Consulting, networking is the most in-demand IT specialty. 32 percent of the 1,400 chief information officers surveyed cited networking as the highest growth area within their IT departments.
Gary LaFave, president of InfoTech Contract Services, says, "With telecommuting on the rise and the high demand for sharing and accessibility to data, the person who understands the connection on both the local, wide and global fronts will be in most demand."
These "Global Network Architects" need to comprehend communication and information at a much higher and more complex level, explains LaFave. They will need to be knowledgeable in Internet, voice, data and cable capabilities as they come together in the next few years.

Information Architect
Part builder, part librarian, an Information Architect clarifies the mission and vision of a document, balancing the needs of an organization and the needs of its audiences. An IA is responsible for learning how users find information in a site by defining the site's organization, navigation and labeling systems.

Web Site/Database Integrator
The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects 249,000 job openings in this area within the next ten years. Web site/database integrators will need to know standard Web site languages (HTML, PERL, C, JAVA, etc.), database languages (DB2, Oracle, SQL, etc.) and, in the case of legacy systems, some back-end knowledge of accounting packages, financial systems and inventory systems. This job also requires the ability to hook the database(s) to an Internet site or an intranet.

Web Programmers and Developers
As the Internet continues to grow, so will the demand for Web programmers and developers. To land these jobs, you'll need to be well versed in a variety of programming languages including Java, Cold Fusion, C++ and PERL.

Information Broker/Infomediary
Made popular in the new book Net Worth by John Hagel and Marc Singer, an infomediary's primary role will be to act as a third-party agent that brokers client information to vendors in exchange for goods and services for the consumer.
Looking for a position in upper management? Here are a few promising senior-level titles that executive search firm Christian & Timbers predicts will be even hotter in 1999:

E-Commerce CFO
This position is in the greatest demand at pre-IPO companies that are starting to generate revenue and brand. Qualified candidates must possess experience in taking a company public (i.e., know the mechanics of the IPO process) and have good overall business skills.

Internet CEO
This individual will be invaluable to the company that is beyond early-stage start-up. This person will need 15 to 20 years of industry experience and three to five years of experience as a general manager or CEO running a significant business. The most likely talent pool will come from technology and new media.

Vice President, E-Commerce
This individual will be responsible for creating linked networks, databases and business solutions. Because Web technology is changing constantly and electronic commerce is relatively new, those candidates who are able to identify emerging trends will continue to have enormous potential in 1999 and beyond.

This article originally appeared on Monster.com.

The Largest Database in the World

2007-04-02T09:49:00.000+07:00

1. World Data Centre for Climate
If you had a 35 million euro super computer lying around what would you use it for? The stock market? Building your own internet? Try extensive climate research -- if there's a machine out there that has the answer for global warming, this one might be it. Operated by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and German Climate Computing Centre, The World Data Centre for Climate (WDCC) is the largest database in the world.
The WDCC boasts 220 terabytes of data readily accessible on the web including information on climate research and anticipated climatic trends, as well as 110 terabytes (or 24,500 DVD's) worth of climate simulation data. To top it off, six petabytes worth of additional information are stored on magnetic tapes for easy access. How much data is six petabyte you ask? Try 3 times the amount of ALL the U.S. academic research libraries contents combined.
By the Numbers

220 terabytes of web data
6 petabytes of additional data

2. National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center
The second largest database in the world belongs to the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) in Oakland, California. NERSC is owned and operated by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy. The database is privy to a host of information including atomic enegry research, high energy physics experiements, simulations of the early universe and more. Perhaps our best bet at traveling back in time is to fire up NERSC's supercomputers and observe the big bang.
The NERSC database encompasses 2.8 petabytes of information and is operated by more than 2,000 computational scientists. To put the size of NERSC into perspective, the total amount of spoken words in the history of humanity is estimated to be at 5 exabytes; in relative terms, the NERSC database is equivalent to 0.055% of the size of that figure.
Although that may not seem a lot at first glance, when you factor in that 6 billion humans around the globe speak more than 2,000 words a day, the sheer magnitude of that number becomes apparent.
By the Numbers

2.8 petabytes of data
Operated by 2,000 computational scientists

3. AT&T
Similar to Sprint, the United States' oldest telecommunications company AT&T maintains one of the world's largest databases. Architecturally speaking, the largest AT&T database is the cream of the crop as it boasts titles including the largest volume of data in one unique database (312 terabytes) and the second largest number of rows in a unique database (1.9 trillion), which comprises AT&T's extensive calling records.
The 1.9 trillion calling records include data on the number called, the time and duration of the call and various other billing categories. AT&T is so meticulous with their records that they've maintained calling data from decades ago -- long before the technology to store hundreds of terabytes of data ever became available. Chances are, if you're reading this have made a call via AT&T, the company still has all of your call's information.
By the Numbers

323 terabytes of information
1.9 trillion phone call records

4. Google
Although there is not much known about the true size of Google's database (Google keeps their information locked away in a vault that would put Fort Knox to shame), there is much known about the amount of and types of information Google collects.
On average, Google is subjected to 91 million searches per day, which accounts for close to 50% of all internet search activity. Google stores each and every search a user makes into its databases. After a years worth of searches, this figure amounts to more than 33 trillion database entries. Depending on the type of architecture of Google's databases, this figure could comprise hundreds of terabytes of information.
Google is also in the business of collecting information on its users. Google combines the queries users search for with information provided by the Google cookies stored on a user's computer to create virtual profiles.
To top it off, Google is currently experiencing record expansion rates by assimilating into various realms of the internet including digital media (Google Video, YouTube), advertising (Google Ads), email (GMail), and more. Essentially, the more Google expands, the more information their databases will be subjected to.
In terms of internet databases, Google is king.
By the Numbers

91 million searches per day
accounts for 50% of all internet searches
Virtual profiles of countless number of users

5. Sprint
Sprint is one of the world's largest telecommunication companies as it offers mobile services to more than 53 million subscribers, and prior to being sold in May of 2006, offered local and long distance land line packages.
Large telecommunication companies like Sprint are notorious for having immense databases to keep track of all of the calls taking place on their network. Sprint's database processes more than 365 million call detail records and operational measurements per day. The Sprint database is spread across 2.85 trillion database rows making it the database with the largest number of rows (data insertions if you will) in the world. At its peak, the database is subjected to more than 70,000 call detail record insertions per second.
By the Numbers

2.85 trillion database rows.
365 million call detail records processed per day.
At peak, 70,000 call detail record insertions per second

6. ChoicePoint
Imagine having to search through a phone book containing a billion pages for a phone number. When the employees at ChoicePoint want to know something about you, they have to do just that. If printed out, the ChoicePoint database would extend to the moon and back 77 times.
ChoicePoint is in the business of acquiring information about the American population -- addresses and phone numbers, driving records, criminal histories, etc., ChoicePoint has it all. For the most part, the data found in ChoicePoint's database is sold to the highest bidders, including the American government.
But how much does ChoicePoint really know? In 2002 ChoicePoint was able to help authorities solve a serial rapist case in Philadelphia and Fort Collins after producing a list of 6 potential suspects by data mining their DNA and personal records databases. In 2001 ChoicePoint was able to identify the remains of World Trade Center victims by matching DNA found in bone fragments to the information provided by victim's family members in conjunction to data found in their databases.
By the Numbers

250 terabytes of personal data
Information on 250 million people

7. YouTube
After less than two years of operation YouTube has amassed the largest video library (and subsequently one of the largest databases) in the world. YouTube currently boasts a user base that watches more than 100 million clips per day accounting for more than 60% of all videos watched online.
In August of 2006, the Wall Street Journal projected YouTube's database to the sound of 45 terabytes of videos. While that figure doesn't sound terribly high relative to the amount of data available on the internet, YouTube has been experiencing a period of substantial growth (more than 65,000 new videos per day) since that figures publication, meaning that YouTube's database size has potentially more than doubled in the last 5 months.
Estimating the size of YouTube's database is particularly difficult due to the varying sizes and lengths of each video. However if one were truly ambitious (and a bit forgiving) we could project that the YouTube database will expect to grow as much as 20 terabytes of data in the next month.
Given: 65,000 videos per day X 30 days per month = 1,950,000 videos per month; 1 terabyte = 1,048,576 megabytes. If we assume that each video has a size of 1MB, YouTube would expect to grow 1.86 terabytes next month. Similarly, if we assume that each video has a size of 10MB, YouTube would expect to grow 18.6 terabytes next month.
By the Numbers

100 million videos watched per day
65,000 videos added each day
60% of all videos watched online
At least 45 terabytes of videos

8. Amazon
Amazon, the world's biggest retail store, maintains extensive records on its 59 million active customers including general personal information (phone number address, etc), receipts, wishlists, and virtually any sort of data the website can extract from its users while they are logged on. Amazon also keeps more than 250,000 full text books available online and allows users to comment and interact on virtually every page of the website, making Amazon one of the world's largest online communities.
This data coupled with millions of items in inventory Amazon sells each year -- and the millions of items in inventory Amazon associates sell -- makes for one very large database. Amazon's two largest databases combine for more than 42 terabytes of data, and that's only the beginning of things. If Amazon published the total number of databases they maintain and volume of data each database contained, the amount of data we know Amazon houses would increase substantially.
But still, you say 42 terabytes, that doesn't sound like so much. In relative terms, 42 terabytes of data would convert to 37 trillion forum posts.
By the Numbers

59 million active customers
More than 42 terabytes of data

9. Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is in the business of collecting and distributing information on people, places and things, so it should come as no surprise that they end up on this list. Although little is known about the overall size of the CIA's database, it is certain that the agency has amassed a great deal of information on both the public and private sectors via field work and digital intrusions.
Portions of the CIA database available to the public include the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Electronic Reading Room, The World Fact Book, and various other intelligence related publications. The FOIA library includes hundreds of thousands of official (and occasionally ultra-sensitive) U.S. government documents made available to the public electronically. The library grows at a rate of 100 articles per month and contains topics ranging from nuclear development in Pakistan to the type of beer available during the Korean War. The World Fact Book boasts general information on every country and territory in the world including maps, population numbers, military capabilities and more.
By the Numbers

100 FOIA items added each month
Comprehensive statistics on more than 250 countries and entities
Unknown number of classified information

10. Library of Congress
Not even the digital age can prevent the world's largest library from ending up on this list. The Library of Congress (LC) boasts more than 130 million items ranging from cook books to colonial newspapers to U.S. government proceedings. It is estimated that the text portion of the Library of Congress would comprise 20 terabytes of data. The LC expands at a rate of 10,000 items per day and takes up close to 530 miles of shelf space -- talk about a lengthy search for a book.
If you're researching a topic and cannot find the right information on the internet, the Library of Congress should be your destination of choice. For users researching U.S. history, around 5 million pieces from the LC's collection can be found online at American Memory.
Unfortunately for us, the Library of Congress has no plans of digitizing the entirety of its contents and limits the people who can check out materials to Supreme Court Justices, members of Congress, their respective staff, and a select few other government officials; however, anyone with a valid Reader Identification Card (the LC's library card) can access the collection.
By the Numbers

130 million items (books, photographs, maps, etc)
29 million books
10,000 new items added each day
530 miles of shelves
5 million digital documents
20 terabytes of text data

Top Ten List of Hot Internet Business Trends for March 2007

2007-03-30T08:54:00.000+07:00

With the ever-changing nature of the Internet, so are the business opportunities it offers. More and more new entrepreneurs are discovering their "niche" businesses online. For many, a small niche business on the Internet can still bring a very lucrative source of income.

The innovative website, agloco.com, reveals some of the top Internet business trends for 2007. Many of these have been a direct result of online technology while others are prime examples of how everyday businesses can be transformed into online businesses.

"The Internet is expanding into business categories never dreamed possible as more individuals and businesses choose online resources over traditional methods to meet their needs".

A look at ten different industries and the most popular online businesses for each industry:

1. Food Industry
Just as it is off-line, the food industry is booming online as well. Consumers are "fed up" with the same old local foods and are venturing online to buy unique or unusual foods. Some business trends within the online food industry include herbs and herbal tea, specialty foods, chocolates, do-it-yourself menus and one-product restaurants.

2. Online Security
Security is still a major concern for online businesses this year. Those businesses that store lots of information are especially concerned with keeping their online databases secure. Businesses offering security software and third party security services such as shredding, site surveillance, secure database storage, and data backup have been popular in 2006.

3. Personal Technology
From cell phones to online games, millions of consumers have jumped on the bandwagon of technology in their personal lives. This has opened the door widely for Internet businesses that offer personal technology gadgets and devices. Cell phone add-ons are particularly popular, from cell phone covers to downloadable music and ring tones.

4. Home Improvement and Décor
Buying decor items or home improvement products from the Web is another hot trend for 2006. Internet consumers are able to find an amazing selection of items online, and they are loving it. Businesses offering products in home and garden decor or remodeling are appearing all over the Internet. Lighting, garden fountains, garden statues and furniture items are hot right now.

5. Products for Children
Kids' products are also popular online. There are unique toy businesses, educational software sites, fun and games sites, children's clothing sites, and many others.

6. Travel
Another industry that has been booming online is travel. From travel booking to car rentals, travelers are taking advantage of online resources to make travel plans. Where else can one find an affordable airline ticket and view their destination area and hotel rooms in advance? Full travel packages are popular online as well.

7. Internet Marketing
One business that is always changing, but still a very hot market, is Internet marketing. SEO (search engine optimization) companies, which keep track of search engine patterns, have been very popular recently. There are also Web content companies and writers that tie in with the SEO market as well.

8. Health, Diet, and Fitness
Products to help one stay healthy or lose weight such as diet plans, diet pills, menu ideas, vitamins and exercise equipment are still going strong on the Internet. Other hot online businesses include medical billing, prescription refills, and other health care products.

9. Staffing
Online staffing services for all sorts of businesses have come on the scene recently. Many companies are using third-party staffing services to ease their hiring burden and reduce staffing costs.

10. Unique Products and Services
The Internet is a magnet for those who want to test out new innovative products. To name a few, there are robots, Nanotech products, custom gift baskets, collectibles, web-related educational courses, online cash machines, multi-level marketing programs, penny stock trading and thousands of others.

"The Internet has opportunities for almost anyone, from single moms who want to work from home to millionaires who are forming a new corporation. This year's trends prove how diverse the online market has become, and it is expected to continue growing in 2007" .

More information about starting an online business can be found at the website:
http://www.agloco.com/

Free AGLOCO Referrals With Trafficswarm

2007-03-28T19:51:00.000+07:00

If you want an easy way to make a few extra AGLOCO referrals you should check out TrafficSwarm. If you have not heard about it yet, it is one of the top traffic exchange programs available on the net. TrafficSwarm has been active since 2001 and has over 300,000 satisfied and successful users.
Basically with TrafficSwarm all you do is sign up and set your referral page and that’s it. If you join TrafficSwarm now you will receive 100 free credits. There are also several other ways that you can make more credits, such as checking out other peoples websites. With all traffic exchange programs you can get tons of users to check out your site by checking out theirs. With TrafficSwarm you earn anywhere from 1-1000 credits each time you check out another members site. The more credits you have the more your ad is shown.
I have been using TrafficSwarm for a short time, but I certainly see the potential. So far my ad has been shown for free over 70 times. You are also able to buy credits and more professional packages to make even more credits, but you can still get a lot of extra traffic for free.
TrafficSwarm can be a very helpful tool in promoting AGLOCO or any other program, and I am glad I signed up. If you wish to join and get 100 free bonus credits then you can Sign Up With TrafficSwarm Here.

Agloco will win, will be succes

2007-03-27T15:47:00.000+07:00

AGLOCO will win.
AGLOCO will be succesful.
AGLOCO will be the best money making online company ever.
AGLOCO Founders will be happy to see agloco company grow and become big.

AGLOCO Founders will be credited for the efforts in sticking their necks to spread the concept and idea of AGLOCO thus reaping the rewards of being the real founders and builders of the Agloco Economic Network.

AGLOCO Members will be more enthusiastic to recruit as the Viewbar will start to give earnings to each and every Members of AGLOCO. People will not waste any second to signed-up to AGLOCO as they want to join the most successful and the best making money online in the internet world today.

Making money online with AGLOCO is the byword for the days to come. Not only thousands, not only hundred of thousands but millions will going to stampede just to join AGLOCO. AGLOCO which is the first Internet Economic Network turn into an internet economic revolution, will be the best making money online company the internet world has ever had.

This moment is your moment to decide! Join AGLOCO now! The best making money online company in the internet world today.

FAQ

2007-03-27T09:00:00.000+07:00

1. What is AGLOCO™ all about?
AGLOCO™is the first Internet based economic network, which enables you as a Member to ‘Get your share of the internet.’ Advertisers, search companies, online merchants and other businesses currently pay lots of companies to deliver people like you to them to get your attention and sell goods. With AGLOCO™they will be paying YOU. AGLOCO™ is also a global community of Internet users whose active Members can be paid for all their online activity. By downloading our proprietary Viewbar™ technology, members benefit from engaging yet unobtrusive content tailored to their interests. AGLOCO™ also pays its members to refer their friends to the community (and for those friends to refer more friends through four levels of extended referrals.) Find out more (see Learn More) »

2. How do I earn cash and shares?
Sign up, use the web as usual and earn cash and shares - it really is that simple. Once you install the Viewbar™ software it automatically records the time you're actively online, and we pay you for it. But the first step is to sign up and become a member. It's fast and it's free. If you refer your friends and family we'll pay you even more cash and shares. Visit our Referral Center for helpful tips.

3. How do referrals work?
AGLOCO™ pays you an hourly rate when the friends and family you recruit (called “direct referrals”) use the web with the Viewbar™ running, as well as for people your referrals recruit (called “extended referrals”). Extended referrals continue for four levels past your original referral, and there is no limit to the number of referrals you can accumulate. Check out our Referral Page for more information.

4. Are there rules or restrictions?
There are some rules, and all are intended for the benefit of AGLOCO™ members:
Sign Up Only Once: Each person can only sign up once, creating an account for him or herself, and may not establish an account on behalf of anyone else. Accounts cannot be transferred between people, and each account must be for a physical person.
No spamming: AGLOCO™ strictly forbids spamming to get referrals. This means you can only tell people you know or who explicitly agree to receive your invitation to be referred. If you use spam to try to get referrals, your account will be terminated. For more information, see our Anti-Spam Policy
Number of Internet Hours: The maximum number of payable hours per month is currently 5. Over time, depending on several variables that number may change at AGLOCO™ ’s discretion. The reason we implemented this limit is to prevent hacking software from continuously clicking and thereby generating online search. Remember you can still increase your profits by referring more people to AGLOCO™.
Active Surfing: You have to actively surf to earn cash for your online usage. Just keeping a website up does not constitute active surfing. If you use a software piracy device that constantly clicks through websites, AGLOCO™ ’s anti-hacking instruments will detect and – after investigation – disconnect your account. In addition, you have to be an active online Member in order to get the benefit of your referrals' surfing. If you surf only 50% of the maximum payable hours a month, and your referrals each surf 100%, you will be credited with only 50% of the payable surfing time for each referral. See our Global Payments Table for details of payable hours by country.
Accuracy of Information: All information submitted during signup must be accurate; members who deal with AGLOCO™ in a fraudulent fashion will forfeit their memberships, their account balance, and their referrals. You will have to accept these terms before signing up and being able to download the Viewbare. See our Membership Agreement for more information.

5. Do I need to buy anything?
No, AGLOCO™ Membership is absolutely free. You will never have to buy or sell anything. Simply sign up, download your free copy of the Viewbar™ software, refer your friends and family, and get your share of the Internet!

6. Why is AGLOCO™ giving 100% of its stock to its Members?
We believe the internet should be a platform for users to benefit from, and if anyone generates money from users’ normal online activities, it should be the users themselves. Distribution from the company

7. How will you (the Development Team) make money if all the AGLOCO™ shares are given to Members?
AGLOCO™ pays a 10% fee to its management company, much like Tom Cruise has an agent that he pays 10%. In order to make and keep AGLOCO™ a vibrant community it needs to attract the best management it can. Since no stock is given to managers or founders (only Members are issued stock). This fee serves as an incentive to attract the best talent to help run AGLOCO™.

8. What is AGLOCO™ ’s Privacy Policy?
AGLOCO™ is totally committed to your privacy. We do not sell, rent or give away your personally identifiable personal information to any marketer or advertiser. We have a detailed Privacy Policy which explains in plain language how we protect your privacy. Read our Privacy Policy »

9. What will my shares be worth?
As a profit-seeking venture, the value of the shares will be directly related to the value of the company. Since AGLOCO™ ’s profitability is dependent upon its Members’ internet usage, the greater the number of AGLOCO™ Members the more the shares will be worth. We are currently in the process of listing the company on the London Stock Exchange (AIM). As with any public company, the market will decide what is the fair value of the share.

10. How do I change my personal information?
Go to your profile section to change your information. Don't forget to click on "Save" to upload your profile

11. Can I give my cash and shares directly to charity?
Yes, you will be able to give your cash and/or shares directly to the Charity of your choice. AGLOCO™ will also work with select Charities so as to facilitate donations. In addition, The AGLOCO™ Foundation was set up to promote free access to information across the world. The Development Team has agreed to tender the shares they earn as Founding Members to the Foundation.

12. When can I sell my shares?
Once AGLOCO™ is public, Members will be free to sell their shares through the stock exchange. (see Cash and Shares).

13. Can I have more than one account?
Membership to AGLOCO™ is limited to one account per physical person. Registering under different names will violate the membership rules, and may lead to cancellation of your account.

14. How do I invite others?
Go to the referral center (or click here). It will give you detailed information and a step by step approach on how to refer friends to your network.

15. Why should I invite others?
The more referrals you have the more you can earn and the more powerful your community becomes. Click here to see how much you can earn.

16. Is AGLOCO™ free for everyone?
Yes. AGLOCO™ is free for everyone. There are no hidden fees or premium accounts.

17. How can I get more referrals?
Click here to visit the referral center for more information.

18. How valuable can my referrals be?
Click here to go to the share calculator.

19. Can I refer someone that is already a member?
No. If someone is already a member, he/she cannot become your referral.

20. How many referrals can I have?
As many as you can sign up, there is no limit.

21. Is the AGLOCO™ referral system multi-level marketing?
No. Multi-level marketing involves Members selling products to new Members that they recruit. AGLOCO™ is basically the opposite. No Member ever pays AGLOCO™. Instead, AGLOCO™ gets money from companies (like advertisers, search companies and online merchants) and distributes cash and shares to it Members. See Learn More for more info.

22. How much do I get paid in my country?
Check out the Global Payment Table for details about each active country.

23. What does the Viewbar do?
Go to the Viewbar page for more information on how the Viewbar works.

24. Why can’t I download the viewbar now?
The Viewbar software is currently in closed beta testing (no one is accumulating hours with the beta software). After thorough testing and necessary improvements, it will be released to AGLOCO™ Members on a first come first serve basis (according to the date you signed up to be an AGLOCO™ Member). We are currently allowing our Members full access to the site to build their referral networks. The sooner you sign up, the earlier you will be able to download the Viewbar and start accumulating online hours!

25. Will it be free to download the viewbar?
Yes, it is completely free to download the viewbar. Depending on the speed of your internet connection, the download time may vary from a few to several minutes.

26. Do I need to have the Viewbar up all the time?
No! Currently AGLOCO™ will reward up to five hours a month in Viewbar time. Above that limit, you can keep your Viewbar displayed or minimize it at any time, though most of the Members choose to keep it up. If you don’t want your Viewbar to operate at any specific time, just minimize it and it will stop working. However, you will not earn online hours while your Viewbar is minimized.

27. Will I be able to minimize the viewbar?
Yes! You can minimize the Viewbar any time and it will stop working. However, you will not accumulate any online hours while the Viewbar is minimized.

28. Can I use more than one computer?
You can install the Viewbar™software on multiple computers and get credit for your surfing regardless of which machine you use. However, you cannot use the Viewbar™ on more than one machine simultaneously. Just download and install the Viewbar™ software on each machine you use to surf the Web.

29. How do I change my email address?
You can go to the profile section and change your email address. Don't forget to click on "Save" to upload your profile.

30. What if I want to quit?
There are no obligations to maintain your Membership, you may quit at any time. If you cancel your account, you forfeit any balance accumulated below the minimum payout level. You also forfeit your referral network, although your referrals remain members. Of course, you can rejoin whenever you want but you will start out without any balance or referrals. To cancel your membership, you can send an email to cancelmembership@AGLOCO.com If you don't find the answer to your question above, please, send us an email at aglocoinfo@agloco.com.We will respond to your question within 24 to 48 hours.

Viewbar

2007-03-27T08:51:00.000+07:00

The Viewbar™ is a small toolbar that rests on the bottom of your screen or browser window while you surf the Internet. The Viewbar™ software is what enables AGLOCO to collect the money you are earning while browsing the Internet.
The Viewbar™ keeps track of your online interests and preferences, and uses that information to deliver the most valuable message to you at the right time. Because privacy is a core principle of AGLOCO, the Viewbar™ communicates with our secure servers in an encrypted fashion to keep your information private.

Some people have asked: “Is the Viewbar™ some kind of ‘spyware’?” The answer is simple: The Viewbar™ is the opposite of spyware. Spyware sneaks onto your computer without your knowledge or permission, it steals your private information, and it’s nearly impossible to remove. Unlike spyware, the Viewbar™ is completely permission based, it keeps your information private, and you can always turn it off with a single click.

The AGLOCO Viewbar™ (currently in limited beta) is shown below:

NOTE: The AGLOCO Viewbar™ is currently in limited beta testing and is not yet available for download. We expect that it will start to be available to download in several weeks. It will be released to Members in the order in which Members signed up. No testers are receiving any earnings while using the Viewbar™ in this testing phase. For now, we ask you to build the community, because both you and AGLOCO make more if you grow the community.
The Viewbar™ also has many additional features:

Search (which lets us get you money from search engine companies)
Contextual ads (which lets us get you money from advertisers)
Anti-fraud and other software utilities (which lets us get you money from software companies)

What's Agloco ?

2007-03-26T17:07:00.000+07:00

This is AGLOCO™ 's proposition, just three words: Own the Internet.

Whenever you are online, either surfing, blogging, clicking on an ad, making a purchase, all the money generated by your activities is pocketed by a small number of players. At AGLOCO™ they say not anymore!

AGLOCO™ is a global community, whose owners are its Members (you and potentially the millions of internet users out there). Their goal is to capture a significant portion of the value generated by our online activities and return it to Members in cash. Best of all, it is totally free, Members will NEVER have to pay anything, nor will they have to disclose ANY personal information!

How does this work? Once you sign up on their website, when available you will be able to download the Viewbar software, a free toolbar-sized application (half the size of a traditional Windows tool bar) that quietly sits on your desktop without ever hampering your online habits. That’s all you need to do! Just continue using the Internet as you used to… no need to change your habits!

Do you have several individuals using one computer? You can have different AGLOCO™ viewbars to fit the profile of each user.

Don’t want to see or use the Viewbar at any given time? Just minimize it and the Viewbar stops working!There are different ways AGLOCO™ can make money for its Members:

Cash: You get cash by surfing the Internet while the Viewbar is running. AGLOCO™ ’s profits are distributed back to its Members. And you can also receive real-time discounts should you choose to purchase from AGLOCO™ ’s partners. They will never include gambling or adult entertainment sites as partners.
Shares: In addition to cash, AGLOCO™ will give out shares in the company to its Members. Eventually, AGLOCO™ plans to go public and will be traded on the London Stock Exchange AIM. You can start earning stock options by keeping Viewbar active while you surf. In addition, you will gain extra shares by referring active users to AGLOCO™ (they lose nothing).

The more people join AGLOCO™ , the more value the community can generate for itself. The company believes those that build the community deserve more: your own profits become larger the more people you refer. You can accumulate hours not only from your Internet activity but also from those who you refer, and their referrals too… Up to 5 levels underneath you! For example, if you refer 10 people and all of them refer 5 people each, you could make over 7000 shares a month*!

Remember, this is all free, you don’t lose anything, all you have to do is sign up, download the Viewbar and that’s it. Build your network and refer friends, family and colleagues to AGLOCO™ and earn even more!

Don't wait any longer. This is a win-win opportunity, and you’ll make it even more profitable for yourself when you start referring friends and relatives before others get to them! Since I assume you learned about AGLOCO™. Click here to sign up directly!

History of Agloco team:The guys behind this idea include several Stanford MBA’s and a few individuals who started AllAdvantage back in 1998, which gave over $100 million to its users before falling victim to the burst of the internet bubble. Today, the context is much more favorable: The sophistication of on-line commerce, the rapid emergence of communities, the wealth of advertising revenue sources, etc. Isn’t it time you got your share of the Internet?

AGLOCO gets mentioned in the Economist

2007-03-23T00:46:00.000+07:00

You know when an online startup like AGLOCO gets coverage in mass offline publications that something's going to shift. Many people use the Internet, but only a small percent of them learn about the latest stuff through the Internet.
Most of us, even though we use the Internet, find out about the newest, hottest stuff through TV, newspapers, friends, radio, and yes, magazines like the Economist.I am not the first to break this news, but it is worth stating for any of you who are reading this blog that AGLOCO got a paragraph or two in the Economist's Technology Quarterly report:Yet another example [of new Internet user-information businesses], established by a group of Stanford graduates, is Agloco. “Advertisers, search providers and online retailers are paying billions to reach you while you surf,” says its website.
“How much of that money are you getting? You deserve a piece of the action.” Like AttentionTrust, Agloco is based on a browser plug-in that tracks users' online activity and then uses this information to allow advertisers to target people with specific interests. Agloco promises to return 90% of ad revenue, sales commissions and other income to its users. In a further twist, those who recruit other users get a cut of the revenue, too. Akshay Mavani of Agloco says the firm is on target to sign up 10m users by July.
I think what the rest of the article says also highlights how much potential this new personal data market has. AGLOCO has a good foothold in an industry that's about to boom. Don't get left out.
Article by Michael H. Lewis

How to Invete?

2007-03-23T00:18:00.000+07:00

How to Invite and Sign Up New Members
There are 4 important points you need to learn to grow a successful network:
Point #1 – Know why "Every Internet user should join ALGOCO" - (here are the reasons we suggest you use)
1. All Internet users help create value on the Internet and should get their fair share of it – and AGLOCO has a great plan to get it for its members.
o If Google can afford to pay AOL 10 cents a search
o and if YouTube (with users doing 90% of the 'work') – can be sold of $1.6 billion,
o then there is plenty of 'excess' value to share with the users.
2. What share will an AGLOCO member with no referrals get? –
o They will get their share of AGLOCO's profits . In my personal view this will eventually be $100 to $200 a year – but possibly less at the beginning.
o In addition to the cash payments members will get their share of the ownership of the company – This could be much more than the annual cash check due to the multiplier effect of earnings.
3. All Members get security and utility – There is a short list of items on the AGLOCO site, I think AGLOCO members will drive the utility of the Viewbar to become very useful for all members.
4. It is the right thing to do – AGLOCO is nothing short of an Internet Economic Revolution – and YOU should be supporting it. That is pretty much how I say that.. (- like Wikipedia is Internet revolution in freedom of Internet information)
5. Membership is always free and all data is totally private (no spyware). AGLOCO never gives out any member data to anyone at any time (Read Privacy Policy) And they have one of the top anti-spam and privacy people in the world as their Chief Privacy Officer, Ray Everett-Church, (he wrote the "Internet Privacy for Dummies" book and the "Anti-spam for Dummies" book.
Point #2 – Know why "All AGLOCO members should recruit new members."
AGLOCO can better serve its individual members the bigger the total membership gets. – This is because AGLOCO can get:
1. Better deals with business partners the larger the network is (size matters when making marketing deals).
2. Better Viewbar software (the more users the more other companies will want to connect their software with the AGLOCO Viewbar).
3. Recruiting members can increase their 'share' of AGLOCO by recruiting new members.
o AGLOCO does reward network builders who recruit new members (recruit five new members and 'double" your share – recruit 25 and increase your share 5 times)
Point #3 – Know how to "Motivate new members to recruit for AGLOCO."
1. Give them a plan
o Most people use email – so 'ask them when they are going to send them.'
o Most potential builders are worth a personal call or visit – ask your new recruits to list the people they now who would be good AGLOCO builders
2. Give them the tools
o Sample emails
o Answers to questions they get asked (I told them to email them with any questions they get.
Point #4 – Just keep at it.
1. Keep recruiting new members every chance we can.
2. Keep in touch with your recruits to help the keep recruiting as well.

Sample Emails
Make sure you update the links in the mails you send out so when your referees sign up in AGLOCO they use your id#. The link must conform to this format: http://www.agloco.com/r/BBCK4789, where BBCK4789 is your own id# (notice there's no hyphen in the web address).

Email #1: The analytical approach
I just signed up to be part of AGLOCO™ , an Internet economic network launched few hours ago. Basically, AGLOCO™ gives its Members part of the money they (as Internet users) generate. Their slogan is 'Get Your Share of the Internet'. They are also giving the entire company to the Members (it is a 100% Member owned entity.) -- You get more cash and shares if you refer new Members, which is one of the reasons I’m sending this to you all.
AGLOCO™ Membership is free. Among the founders there are Stanford students and also the couple who launched AllAdvantage in 1999, which had millions of Members and paid out over $100 million to them. So it has a chance of working... Best of all, there is nothing that the users can lose, because all they do is – sign up, invite friends to join and use the internet normally.
So, click on this link: http://www.agloco.com/r/BBCK4789 and sign up now. This link will automatically give me credit when you sign up – if it does not work use my id# BBCK-4789. Once you sign up, you may check out http://agloco-aceh.blogspot.com for some cool ideas on how to build your network of contacts fast.
{YOUR NAME HERE}

Email #2: The "don't be left out" approach
If you haven’t heard about AGLOCO™ – you will. It is the newest thing on the Internet – an economic network – like a social network only this is about its Members making money.I signed up because it costs nothing, takes 2 minutes to sign up AND if it works I didn’t want to miss out. I do not think it is a scam. Some of the founders are at Stanford and some of them started AllAdvantage in 1999 and it gave its Members over $100 million in less than a year.So I thought – what the heck – it is new and I can get in on the ground floor – if it works and if I can sign up a lot of friends I will make a bunch of money like the early guys at AllAdvantage did.So, click on this link: http://www.agloco.com/r/BBCK4789 and sign up now. This link will automatically give me credit when you sign up – if it does not work use my id# BBCK-4789.After you sign up tell everyone you know – if AGLOCO™ gets really big, really fast I think it has a good chance of making it.{YOUR NAME HERE}PS. No, I am not joking – this is real – go look at the site (www.agloco.com)
Once you sign up, you may check out http://agloco-aceh.blogspot.com for some cool ideas on how to build your network of contacts fast.

Em ail #3: The "what are waiting for" approach
Boys and Girls,
I just signed up to be part of AGLOCO™ , an Internet economic network launched few hours ago. AGLOCO™ gives its Members part of the money they (as Internet users) generate. Their slogan is 'Get Your Share of the Internet'. They are also giving the entire company to the Members (it is a 100% Member owned entity.) -- You get more cash and shares if you refer new Members, and this is what I'm doing with you now.
AGLOCO™ Membership is free and there is nothing that the users can lose, because all they do is – sign up, invite friends to join and use the internet normally. So hurry up, sign up using this link: http://www.agloco.com/r/BBCK4789 and bring in your friends before others do!!
Once you sign up, you may check out http://agloco-aceh.blogspot.com for some cool ideas on how to build your network of contacts fast.

Email #4: The bullet-point approach
I just joined AGLOCO™ and that is their slogan: ‘Own the Internet’.It is the newest thing on the Internet – an economic network – like a social network only about money instead of just friends.I joined for three reasons:
· I might make a lot of money if this works (and I have nothing to lose if it doesn’t.)
· I use the Internet just as I always have – and still make money.
· I like the idea of getting my share of all the billions of wealth being created on the Internet – even if I am not going to be a millionaire because of this.
I checked it out:
· The company has real people – mostly Stanford graduate students who seem to be in the forefront these days.
· They have great privacy – designed by the Internet’s first Chief Privacy Officer Ray Everett-Church.
Join now – and invite all your friends to join:
· The reason I think I might make a lot of money is that I'm inviting people to join and AGLOCO™ rewards people who help build the network.
· I used the AGLOCO™ member calculator – I can get over 5,000 shares a month if I sign up 10 good people who recruit more new members.
DO IT NOW – this is the key – in order to maximize what I get (and what you might get) – please sign up now and get all your friends before someone else you know signs up and gets them first.Here is a link to sign up – it has my ID code in it: http://www.agloco.com/r/BBCK4789.
Once you sign up, you may check out http://agloco-aceh.blogspot.com for some cool ideas on how to build your network of contacts fast.

Email #5: Third-Party Validation Approach
Hey,
This note is mainly to offer you a chance to help build AGLOCO – it is a Member-owned Internet community.
Here is why I would like you to help. First – it is free. Second - it is quick and easy to join. Third – AGLOCO’s purpose is to get its members their share of the money generated on the Internet (i.e. you make money). And lastly – if you help build the AGLOCO network you can make much more.
Here is a link to sign up (it automatically records me as referring you with my ID BBCK4789) www.agloco.com/r/bbck4789
AGLOCO works with a toolbar type software called a Viewbar. Privacy is very strict so no spyware, popups or spam.
As to how much money you can make, there is a study which says the average user should get $5 to $15 a month. (But less at the beginning.) Click here to read the report. http://simmonsreport.spaces.live.com
How much can you make helping to build the network? The Simmons Report predicts $30 per referral. I just got started, but a friend of mine Jordan, has over 1,000. He only referred 20 people directly, and those 20 referred the rest. He has built a great website that teaches people how to do a few simple actions to produce similar results: http://agloco-aceh.blogspot.com
AGLOCO is in their beta phase which is the best time to help them build out the network. So please join now and help build the network. Have questions? Their website has all the details so go there www.agloco.com/r/bbck4789 or ask me.
See ya,
Your Name

History

2007-03-22T12:25:00.000+07:00

A Brief Company History
The Infomediary. In February 1999, four of us sat around in the backyard of a house on the Stanford campus (we were either current or former Stanford students) and created a new concept – the online infomediary. We realized that individual users of the Internet, by their actions and the information they were providing (both willingly and not), were creating tremendous value. Yet none of this value was accruing back to the individual users.
We also realized that individuals held much more information about themselves which they might be willing to share if they would share in the profits from this information, and if other conditions - such as privacy and security - were satisfied. We knew that companies were willing to "pay" for increased information about users. But no system existed to bridge the gap between these two parties.
AllAdvantage.com. So, we launched AllAdvantage.com in the spring of 1999 in an attempt to bridge this gap. By downloading and using the AllAdvantage.com Viewbar, members were effectively "renting" some of their computer screen and their clickstream data for hourly cash payments.
This "get paid to the surf the web" concept proved wildly successful with consumers. Tens of millions of people are happy to share some non-personal information and share in the profits that are being made on the Web, even though this was being questioned in the business press. The concept also proved to be highly successful in generating revenues, as most people agree that AllAdvantage.com generated more revenue in its first 12 months of operations than any online consumer/advertising company in history.
Ultimately – and unfortunately rather quickly – AllAdvantage.com failed as a company because we relied too heavily on venture capital financing and our growth in members far outstripped our growth in revenues early on. Put simply, we signed up members in Internet time and sold ads (our primary form of revenue) in old-fashioned media time. The AllAdvantage.com model started paying members as soon as they downloaded and started using the Viewbar, but it took time to monetize these incremental hours.
As the online ad market and the Internet financing markets crashed in 2000-01, the revenues from the business could not keep up with the rapid growth in members (and their associated fixed hourly costs). We unfortunately had to close the business, even though new members were continuing to join the network.
While we had no choice but to shut down the business, AllAdvantage.com did deliver everything it promised to members: We mailed out over $100 million in checks to members, and advertisers delivered the most targeted, information-rich advertising opportunity on the Web.
The company maybe failed, but the ideas behind it never did…
Where are we today? Online advertising, after stalling in 2001-02, is bigger than ever (Google, of course, has changed everything). Targeted search and contextual text ads – almost non-existent in 1999 – are now everywhere. Companies – Google and Yahoo, for example – are trying to convince users to download "toolbars" (sound familiar?) to gather more information from their members. All this information – and the companies that gather it – is worth more than ever. Yet the individual users still do not have an effective way to get their share back.
YouTube was acquired for $1.65 billion by Google in October 2006. The story of how three guys made hundreds of millions of dollars in one year is a great tale of entrepreneurial success. But what happened to the first users who posted their videos on the site and told their friends to do the same? We don't hear about them, because they did not get anything (other than free video hosting). Wasn't it really these users that helped turn YouTube into a multi-billion dollar company? Sure the site is great and the founders deserve all the credit they get, but it is the users who ultimately made it valuable. There are plenty of video sites, and if it wasn't YouTube, another site could have filled the space, become a household name and been acquired for an amazing price.
We are not trying to pick on YouTube (which we happen to love using). How about the early users of Skype? What about those who first downloaded the software, made calls to their friends in different countries and told their parents to use it as well? They did not see a penny of the $2.6 billion that eBay paid for the company in September 2005. And MySpace? How about the millions of members there? How did they do when News Corp. bought the company for almost $600 million? After all, it was the members that Rupert Murdoch was after when he purchased the site.
The point we are trying to make here is that there are plenty of social networking sites out there, but it is the members that make these sites and services valuable. Yet, they get no monetary value from it.
We could go on. But the story is always the same: users (and the information they bring with them) are valuable. Creating a system that enables users to share in all these profits is the next big thing. We call it an economic network. Others call it a global online community co-op. Or "Linux for consumers." It's a big idea. And it's happening now.
AGLOCO. We started AGLOCO at a coffee shop near the Stanford campus. We sat down with a group of Stanford graduate students to design the next generation of the Internet enterprise using the infomediary as one of the foundation blocks.
We decided we wanted to build the economic network that enables individuals on the Web to share in the profits that their data and their actions help create. AGLOCO is more than a Web site and it is more than a Viewbar company. It is a network that links people, their information and their friends together to form something bigger.
Like all networks that have come before (from the Internet itself to MySpace), this one gets stronger as it gets bigger. AGLOCO with 1,000 or 10,000 members is not much more than the sum of its parts. But AGLOCO with 1 million or 10 million members starts to become important. It's important because it changes the consumer-company relationship online and changes the way everyone thinks about their online experience.
Why It Works. AGLOCO works because the network effects are self perpetuating. It gets stronger as it gets bigger. With more members and stronger cash flows, the profits that the members share in increase – and this draws in more users and hence stronger cash flows. The incentive to join early and tell many friends is big, as early members who help build the network stand to benefit the most (similar to nearly all start-ups, where the early employees tend to share disproportionately in the success of the company).
As AGLOCO grows, the economic incentive continues to grow as it is able to offer more and more value for its members. Unlike AllAdvantage.com which incurred incremental costs for each additional member-hour, AGLOCO generates positive free cash flow from each additional member-hour and has virtually no incremental cash expenses for additional use of the Viewbar. AGLOCO will have standard operating costs (site maintenance, bandwidth, insurance, telephones, office space, sales and administration etc.), but like Google these costs should be very low compared to the revenue Members generate.
The Members Own the Company. That's right – 100% of the company is member-owned. Users make good ideas valuable. Good ideas are great, but without members, they are just that – ideas. Every decision is made by asking what is best for the members over the long-term. It's a new way of thinking, but it works because we are all in it together. So how do we make money?
We Own the Management Company. The employees and investors own the management company. The management company collects 10% of the revenues of AGLOCO (like Tom Cruise pays his agent 10%). This should be enough incentive to continue to attract a great team of highly talented people that AGLOCO needs to maximize the value to its Member/shareholders.
Trust is Everything. We lose your trust, and the network fails. We work on behalf of the members and everything we do must keep that in mind. Our members know what we are doing with their data and how we are using it for their benefit. Do you know how other Web sites are collecting your data or how they are using it? Chances are, you don't. Think about it.
No cost to a Member – Ever. AGLOCO never costs anything for Members. Ask former AllAdvantage.com members what it cost them to join and most will try to remember how much they were receiving in monthly checks (that's right – receiving).
Privacy is paramount. No spam, no pop-ups, no selling information, no emails from people you don't know, no emails to people you don't know, and no tricks. Period. Our track record is public – there are no hidden costs. The upside for members is potentially very large and the sky is the limit. The downside is essentially nil.
Be Patient. People always want everything right away. We do too. But things take time, so stick with us. It takes time, money and people to build everything, and we'll get there. Members at AllAdvantage.com complained that we were moving too slow, and then after the company was gone they realized how good it had been and complained that it had gone away! It takes time to be able to send checks for over $100 million to members. And so it will take time to set up an economic network to share the wealth of the Internet with millions of online users. However, you have a role to play and can help us speed up the process, even making some money along the way. Here's how:
Get Involved. Pitch in. Tell your friends and build your referral network. Design a Web site explaining the economic network (you can probably do it better than us). Email us your ideas. Design a cool Viewbar. Tell your company they should partner with us. Write about us on your blog. Ask yourself how you want to share in the value of the Internet. Think big. It's your company. Have fun.

--- The AGLOCO Development Team

FREE JOIN NOW : http://www.agloco.com/r/BBCK4789

VISION

2007-03-18T22:46:00.000+07:00

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During the last ten years, the Internet has spawned a new economy: one where users create tremendous economic value but hardly get anything in return. With AGLOCO we want to change that thinking. We hope that all companies that depend on its users will eventually believe in what we do – The Members should share the value they generate for the company.

We believe that AGLOCO will be a success if we can change the entrepreneurial mindset on the Internet. Instead of only looking for ways users can help them build the company, future entrepreneurs will be asking how the users can share in the value creation.

We believe in a different way of looking at users on the internet. We developed the following philosophy for AGLOCO and we welcome your comments (philosophy@AGLOCO.com). After all, it's your company.

10. Members should be owners

The Members who are the source of value for an internet company should own that company. This brings transparency and rewards the right people who contribute to developing the company.

9. Providers should be stewards

The providers of a service where Members create the value should act as stewards, not owners. The stewards of the company have a duty to do what is right for the community, and maximize the benefits for the community. The stewards will act in the best interest of the community if the incentive system is aligned.

8. You can make money without changing anything you do

The internet currently generates value from nearly everything a user does online. From a simple internet search, to clicking on an ad, to making a purchase, someone is making money from these activities. Our job, as stewards of a large community, is to ensure a fair part of that value is returned to our Members.

7. Privacy is not a nice to have, it is a must have

Our Members privacy is paramount. After all, without our Members, the community would not exist. That is why we will never sell, disclose or give away any or all of our Members' information. A high level of privacy is far more valuable to the community than any alternative.

6. Trust is everything

The AGLOCO platform can be a gateway for an array of other services developed to provide both monetary and service benefits. Whether early virus and phishing site alerts or simply a trusted information exchange, Members should benefit from such a community.

5. Every single Member benefits

Every Member should benefit in his or her way by joining a trusted community. Whether earning money while surfing, or giving that money away to charity, we believe the platform should represent what the Internet should be: a source of benefit for a large section of the population.

4. Members that own the community should help promote and police it

A user that owns part of the community has more incentive to promote it and keep it free of malicious software and ill-intentioned individuals. We believe that the overwhelming majority of our Members will want to reach out to friends, family and colleagues, as well as protect themselves from scams and pitfalls on the Internet.

3. A community with a shared sense of responsibility

We stray away from advertising and products that are socially unacceptable. We strive to create an active and socially responsible community.

2. A global community

The internet unites the world across cultures, borders and languages. AGLOCO wants to bridge the divide in global understanding and promote itself as a cross cultural, socially aware and responsible community.

1. Free is too expensive (our favorite)

A free service is always great. However, if Members produce what becomes the core value of the company – as we have seen with recent online mega-deals - then we believe Members should receive a good portion of the financial benefit that the company derives.

--- The AGLOCO Development Team

How it Works

2007-03-18T16:49:00.000+07:00

AGLOCO: The Internet's First Economic Network
Today’s hottest Internet businesses are all about the power of social networks. Companies like MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube have become worth billions because businesses have realized that these social networks are generating huge advertising and marketing opportunities. As these social networks grow, the economic potential for its owners – and the advertisers who target the site’s users – is remarkable.

At AGLOCO, we asked a simple question: The users created the community, where’s their share of the profit?

It was from this question that AGLOCO set out to create the Internet’s first Economic Network, harnessing the power of Internet-based social networks to directly benefit the Members who help to create the community.

Becoming a member of AGLOCO is as simple as completing a brief sign-up page (name, age, location and email address.). Once you’re a Member, you will be asked to then download the Viewbar™ software. (Note: the Viewbar™ software is currently unavailable, as it is in closed testing. It will be ready for public download in a few weeks, and members will be notified when it is available.)

AGLOCO makes money for its Members in many ways:
Search: Every time you use the Viewbar™ to do an Internet search, AGLOCO earns money from the search engine providers. (For example, Google pays as much as $0.10 on average for each search that is directed to its search engine.)
Advertising: The Viewbar™ itself displays ads that are targeted based upon the websites you’re visiting. When you click on an ad and make a purchase, AGLOCO receives a referral fee, which we pass on to our Members. (Please note: Individual members do not receive any compensation for clicking on ads in the Viewbar™, and the Viewbar™ can detect if someone is clicking ads in a fraudulent manner.)
Transaction commissions: Many major retailers pay commissions when you refer customers who make a purchase. AGLOCO collects that commission and passes it on to our members. (For example, Amazon pays an 8.5% commission to most websites who refer customers, and has cut deals for even larger percentages. The bigger the AGLOCO community, the better commission we can negotiate for our Members.)
Software distribution: Numerous software companies pay websites to encourage the download of new software releases (for example, Adobe’s Flash and Acrobat Reader software), and trial versions of new programs. AGLOCO members not only get access to the latest and coolest software, they get paid for it.
Service distribution: Many online service providers will look to the AGLOCO community as a source of new and active users for their services. (For example, eBay, Skype, and PayPal, among others, all pay fees to people who help them recruit new active users to their services)
Product distribution: When Members agree to use a product, such as cell phones, high-tech gadgets, office supplies, new credit cards or financial services, AGLOCO can collect referral fees. Some companies even offer special rebate and cash-back programs.
AGLOCO Members make money in four ways.
Members earn a monthly share of the AGLOCO revenue based on the use of the AGLOCO Viewbar™ that month.
Members earn part of the company based on the use of the AGLOCO Viewbar™ that month (currently a maximum of five hours are rewarded). Click here for details.
Members who use our referral system to help build the AGLOCO network will earn more. (AGLOCO only has significant value as a large network and people who help build it should be rewarded. – We also feel that the early users who told friends about YouTube or MySpace or even Google probably deserved something too, but no referral system was available to record their work).
Members will also get a share of any commissions AGLOCO gets when a Member purchases a product or service from an AGLOCO Sponsor company.
Why should I join now?
First, it costs nothing to Join and takes less than one minute.
Second, you can help build the AGLOCO community by recruiting new Members TODAY.Right now, inviting your friends to join AGLOCO is as easy and productive as it will ever be – but you need to invite your friends before someone else beats you to them.Remember, the bigger the AGLOCO community, the more attractive AGLOCO is to potential business partners and advertisers.
Recruit your friends and family by contacting them through email. (But remember we have a strict anti-spam policy.)
Use your blog and your existing social networks, such as MySpace and Facebook, to contact your friends and encourage them to join a new community that will actually let them earn money.

Be a part of the Internet’s first Member-Owned Economic Community.

Join AGLOCO - Own the Internet!

Meet the AGLOCO Team

2007-03-17T23:21:00.000+07:00

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Development Team:

Akshay Mavani;
A.K. coordinates strategy and represents our Indian Members. He brings experience as an electronic engineer, and worked in sales and strategy in China and Hong Kong before attending Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
Alex Tsai;
Alex is our resident product management guru. An economist and business major by training, he brings over eight years of experience in database marketing, ad-serving and rich media, distributed computing, client software as well as consulting.
Allison Cui;
Allison is AGLOCO's China specialist and represents our Chinese Members. She worked as a software engineer in Shanghai, China before attending the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Anne Sophie Mayos;
Anne-Sophie handles AGLOCO's website and her sense of style makes sure it is always up to date. Originally from Paris, she designed media information sites for millions of online users at France's leading television channel.
Brian Greenwald;
Brian works in business development at AGLOCO. A scientist by education, he worked in marketing and development for several biotech companies before attending Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
Cannon Bonar;
Cannon is AGLOCO's ambassador within the teenage community. Currently a student at Central Middle School, he will represent our teen Members (and he tried hard to think of a cool-looking name for our company).
Dan Jorgensen;
Dan is AGLOCO's Member recruiting coordinator. He worked in sports marketing and online advertising before helping AGLOCO create its network.
Javier Alvira;
Javier is our in-house blogger expert. A native of Spain, he worked as an engineer in telecommunications around Europe before joining Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
Jim Jorgensen;
Founder of AllAdvantage and Discovery Zone. Jim's experience of paying $100 million to members in 1999 and pioneering the “returning value to Internet users” idea, is an invaluable source in guiding AGLOCO's new Development Team members.
Moshe Pinto;
Moshe is AGLOCO's resident lawyer, he negotiates and executes contracts. Prior to joining Stanford's Graduate School of Business, Moshe worked as a corporate lawyer and political strategist in Israel and the US.
Nick Punt;
Nick advises AGLOCO's technological and community development. He worked as a video game designer and online communities' product manager prior to attending Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
Ray Everett-Church;
Ray was the world's first corporate Chief Privacy Officer, pioneering the field of corporate privacy professionals. An attorney and technology expert, he is responsible for ensuring the privacy and security of AGLOCO's Member information and providing guidance on privacy and anti-spam issues.
Sam Flax;
Sam is AGLOCO's Chief Architect for the design of our economic network. Sam's 30 years in Russia and then 20 years in the US give to AGLOCO a unique perspective on managing and implementing our database.
Steve de Bonvoisin;
Steve coordinates AGLOCO's communication and strategy implementation. Originally from Belgium, he has lived and worked on four continents and brings experience in economic consulting and as a reporter for a leading economic newspaper. He is attending Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
Trey Reasonover;
Trey is our in-house community dynamics specialist. He became a Web 2.0 addict after working as a strategy consultant, and attends Stanford's Graduate School of Business.

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OWN the INTERNET

2007-03-12T12:08:00.000+07:00

What is AGLOCO?
You may not know it, but you are very valuable. Online retailers, search providers and advertisers pay billions of dollars to reach you while you surf the web.AGLOCO (A GLobal COmpany) feels you should be paid tosurf the web, and with their ViewBar they are going to do just that.

How Do I Earn Money?
AGLOCO receives money by advertisers who reach their Members through their Viewbar software. They then, pay that money to you.

Make More Money With Referrals
With AGLOCO Referrals, you not only make money surfing the web, but you get paid for your referrals surfing the web.

How Do I Signup?
Easy, Click Here To Signup and start earning your fair share!

To Help With The Big Question; What Exactly Is Agloco?We Can Look To The History Of Agloco (AllAdvantage).

A Brief Company History
The Infomediary. In February 1999, four (either currentor former) Stanford students sat around in the backyard of a house on the Stanford campus and created a new concept – the online infomediary. They realized that individual users of the Internet, by their actions and the information they were providing (both willingly and not), were creating tremendous value. Yet none of this value was accruing back to the individual users.They also realized that individuals held much more information about themselves which they might be willing to share if they would share in the profits from this information, and if other conditions - such as privacy and security - were satisfied. They knew that companies were willing to "pay" for increased information about users. But no system existed to bridge the gap between these two parties.
AllAdvantage.com.

So, they launched AllAdvantage.com in the spring of 1999 in an attempt to bridge this gap. By downloading and using the AllAdvantage.com Viewbar, members were effectively "renting" some of their computer screen and their clickstream data for hourly cash payments.This "get paid to the surf the web" concept proved wildly successful with consumers. Tens of millions of people are happy to share some non-personal information and share in the profits that are being made on the Web, even though this was being questioned in the business press. The concept also proved to be highly successful in generating revenues, as most people agree that AllAdvantage.com generated more revenue in its first 12 months of operations than any online consumer/advertising company in history.Ultimately – and unfortunately rather quickly – AllAdvantage.com failed as a company because it relied too heavily on venture capital financing and the growth in members far outstripped the growth in revenues early on. Put simply, it signed up members in Internet time and sold ads (the primary form of revenue) in old-fashioned media time. The AllAdvantage.com model started paying members as soon as they downloaded and started using the Viewbar, but it took time to monetize these incremental hours.As the online ad market and the Internet financing markets crashed in 2000-01, the revenues from the business could not keep up with the rapid growth in members (and their associated fixed hourly costs). It unfortunately had to close the business, even though new members were continuing to join the network.While they had no choice but to shut down the business, AllAdvantage.com did deliver everything it promised to members: They mailed out over $100 million in checks to members, and advertisers delivered the most targeted, information-rich advertising opportunity on the Web.The company maybe failed, but the ideas behind it never did…

Where are we today? Online advertising, after stalling in 2001-02, is bigger than ever (Google, of course, has changed everything). Targeted search and contextual text ads – almost non-existent in 1999 – are now everywhere. Companies – Google and Yahoo, for example – are trying to convince users to download "toolbars" (sound familiar?) to gather more information from their members. All this information – and the companies that gather it – is worth more than ever. Yet the individual users still do not have an effective way to get their share back.
YouTube was acquired for $1.65 billion by Google in October 2006. The story of how three guys made hundreds of millions of dollars in one year is a great tale of entrepreneurial success. But what happened to the first users who posted their videos on the site and told their friends to do the same? We don't hear about them, because they did not get anything (other than free video hosting). Wasn't it really these users that helped turn YouTube into a multi-billion dollar company? Sure the site is great and the founders deserve all the credit they get, but it is the users who ultimately made it valuable. There are plenty of video sites, and if it wasn't YouTube, another site could have filled the space, become a household name and been acquired for an amazing price.

We are not trying to pick on YouTube (which we happen to love using). How about the early users of Skype? What about those who first downloaded the software, made calls to their friends in different countries and told their parents to use it as well? They did not see a penny of the $2.6 billion that eBay paid for the company in September 2005. And MySpace? How about the millions of members there? How did they do when News Corp. bought the company for almost $600 million? After all, it was the members that Rupert Murdoch was after when he purchased the site.The point we are trying to make here is that there are plenty of social networking sites out there, but it is the members that make these sites and services valuable. Yet, they get no monetary value from it.
We could go on. But the story is always the same: users (and the information they bring with them) are valuable. Creating a system that enables users to share in all these profits is the next big thing. We call it an economic network. Others call it a global online community co-op. Or "Linux for consumers." It's a big idea. And it's happening now.
AGLOCO. They started AGLOCO at a coffee shop near the Stanford campus. They sat down with a group of Stanford graduate students to design the next generation of the Internet enterprise using the infomediary as one of the foundation blocks.They decided they wanted to build the economic network that enables individuals on the Web to share in the profits that their data and their actions help create. AGLOCO is more than a Web site and it is more than a Viewbar company. It is a network that links people, their information and their friends together to form something bigger.

Like all networks that have come before (from the Internet itself to MySpace), this one gets stronger as it gets bigger. AGLOCO with 1,000 or 10,000 members is not much more than the sum of its parts. But AGLOCO with 1 million or 10 million members starts to become important. It's important because it changes the consumer-company relationship online and changes the way everyone thinks about their online experience.

Why It Works.
AGLOCO works because the network effects are self perpetuating. It gets stronger as it gets bigger. With more members and stronger cash flows, the profits that the members share in increase – and this draws in more users and hence stronger cash flows. The incentive to join early and tell many friends is big, as early members who help build the network stand to benefit the most (similar to nearly all start-ups, where the early employees tend to share disproportionately in the success of the company).

As AGLOCO grows, the economic incentive continues to grow as it is able to offer more and more value for its members. Unlike AllAdvantage.com which incurred incremental costs for each additional member-hour, AGLOCO generates positive free cash flow from each additional member-hour and has virtually no incremental cash expenses for additional use of the Viewbar. AGLOCO will have standard operating costs (site maintenance, bandwidth, insurance, telephones, office space, sales and administration etc.), but like Google these costs should be very low compared to the revenue Members generate.

The Members Own the Company.
That's right – 100% of the company is member-owned. Users make good ideas valuable. Good ideas are great, but without members, they are just that – ideas. Every decision is made by asking what is best for the members over the long-term. It's a new way of thinking, but it works because we are all in it together. So how do we make money?

We Own the Management Company.
The employees and investors own the management company. The management company collects 10% of the revenues of AGLOCO (like Tom Cruise pays his agent 10%). This should be enough incentive to continue to attract a great team of highly talented people that AGLOCO needs to maximize the value to its Member/shareholders.Trust is Everything. They lose your trust, and the network fails. They work on behalf of the members and everything they do must keep that in mind. Agloco members know what they are doing with their data and how tehy are using it for their benefit. Do you know how other Web sites are collecting your data or how they are using it? Chances are, you don't. Think about it.

No cost to a Member.
Ever. AGLOCO never costs anything for Members. Ask former AllAdvantage.com members what it cost them to join and most will try to remember how much they were receiving in monthly checks (that's right – receiving).

Privacy is paramount.
No spam, no pop-ups, no selling information, no emails from people you don't know, no emails to people you don't know, and no tricks. Period. Agloco's track record is public – there are no hidden costs. The upside for members is potentially very large and the sky is the limit. The downside is essentially nil.

Be Patient.People always want everything right away. We do too. But things take time, so stick with it. It takes time, money and people to build everything, and we'll get there. Members at AllAdvantage.com complained that they were moving too slow, and then after the company was gone they realized how good it had been and complained that it had gone away! It takes time to be able to send checks for over $100 million to members. And so it will take time to set up an economic network to share the wealth of the Internet with millions of online users. However, you have a role to play and can help speed up the process, even making some money along the way. Here's how:Get Involved. Pitch in. Tell your friends and build your referral network. Design a Web site explaining the economic network. Email agloco your ideas. Design a cool Viewbar. Tell your company they should partner with us. Write about us on your blog. Ask yourself how you want to share in the value of the Internet. Think big. It's your company.

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