Infomediary

AGLOCO = Infomediary

2007-01-03T17:39:00.000-08:00

Hope you all had a great holiday I had a nice two week holiday trip - relatives near Nice.

I did two Google searches today - first was AGLOCO - 820,000 pages - that is a lot of pages.

Next I did AGLOCO and infomediary - 290 pages - pretty weak as a percentage of 820,000 - obviously people are more interested in recruiting new members than they are in what makes the whole thing work. (By the way - this blog was the #1 result in that search which shows how few sites really have much to say on the subject - there were 7 ads however.)

I then did two more searches - infomediary and Google - 18,000 pages (this blog was #4 on that results page - which shows again a weak Google infomediary connection.

Next - infomediary and Microsoft - 23,000 pages - several talking about the MS Passport as Microsoft's infomediary play. (This blog was not there on that search.)

The conclusion - AGLOCO is a very attractive member machine - but most people are joining without the knowledge of just how powerful AGLOCO can become. So they are in for a good surprise.

Vision #1 - Free is Too Expensive

2006-12-19T07:22:00.000-08:00

This is more like the AGLOCO battlecry than a vision. Although the way they write about it, it becomes a vision not just for AGLOCO but all user supportted Internet communities. -

To me this includes Google and Yahoo. They have made fortnes on other peoples work. The Infomediary can correct all that.

1. Free is too expensive

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.

AGLOCO = A GLObal COmmunity

2006-12-15T15:40:00.000-08:00

Vision #2 for AGLOCO is almost a restatement of the name. AGLOCO could not make a stronger commitment to being worldwide than putting it as their name. Launching in Mandarin and English is also no small effort.

It will be interesting to see how the population of AGLOCO breaks down country wise. I may make some statements on the status of the Internet on a country be country basis.

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.

AGLOCO and Community Responsibility

2006-12-13T14:58:00.000-08:00

This sets a high moral standard for AGLOCO as an Infomediary. Infomediaries can be set with agnostic settings for content - i.e. anything goes. It would appear that AGLOCO will use community feedback to set the standards here.

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.

AGLOCO - mainly self policing

2006-12-12T10:44:00.000-08:00

Vision #4 is the Wikipedia model. Since Wikipedia is not owned by anyone – it is therefore owned by everyone. And people on Wikipedia do not ‘mind’ and actually many enjoy adding to the free collective knowledge on the Internet.

AGLOCO is not owned by anyone, but rather everyone (everyone who is a member). That sets up the same dynamic as Wikipedia. Members of AGLOCO actually own the company and when they see others trying to vandalize it or defraud it, they will come forward to ‘defend’ it just the same way as Wikipedia ‘members’ do. With people volunteering to do various jobs in protecting certain parts of the community.

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.

I like the title of this vision

2006-12-11T09:26:00.000-08:00

I like the title of this vision - am not as impressed with the text.. I think it is good as far as it goes, but I think it should go further. An infomediary is more than financial. It is about community, member safety and utility. These things can be just as important as money to some users and it should be included in the vision statement if AGLOCO is to truly become the Infomediary it can be.

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.

AGLOCO and Trust

2006-12-09T17:00:00.000-08:00

Trust is a mandatory requirement for an Infomediary. In order to be trusted AGLOCO must continuously meet the trust expectations of its members. I think it is important that they put this issue as one of their ten visions for the company.

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.

AGLOCO - Rule #7

2006-12-08T11:40:00.000-08:00

Here is the privacy vision statement. It is consistent with their privacy policy.

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.

AGLOCO - make money without changing anything

2006-12-07T12:32:00.000-08:00

Continuing on the AGLOCO Visions

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.

This is one of the great truisms of an Infomediary. Happy to see it in the Vision statement of AGLOCO.

And it is a great truism for AGLOCO as its members are already generating all the value - but right now it is going to other people - People need to 'band toghther' in an infomediary to win this back.

At AGLOCO members come first

2006-12-06T14:48:00.000-08:00

I was reading the AGLOCO vision statements last night - they are quite interesting - (they used the David Letterman #10 down to #1 system.

He are the first two - which firmly plants who they think AGLOCO is about.

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.

AGLOCO hits 390,000 on Google

2006-12-05T08:27:00.000-08:00

This was posted last night - I did my own test of both items and they are both true.

Certainly makes an Infomediary a very popular topic on the Internet.

1. On Alexa.com, AGLOCO is currently ranked as the 2,235 most popular website on the Internet.

2. A search of AGLOCO on Google results in over 390,000 page results (AGLOCO was a ‘made up’ word with less than 200 results when the website launched)

For comparison on just the Alexa popularity ranking – AGLOCO made it to #2,235 in two weeks – it took Wikipedia two years to reach the same level of popularity, Facebook took nine months, YouTube took eight months and even MySpace took three months to hit this same level.

Privacy is a high priority at AGLOCO

2006-12-04T16:19:00.000-08:00

And here is the introducion to the AGLOCO privacy policy. Note that it opens by saying that AGLOCO is an Infomediary:

####

As an Infomediary, the purpose of AGLOCO.com is to use technology to enable businesses to interact with consumers in highly personalized ways, without forfeiting the privacy of the user. Therefore privacy is at the core of AGLOCO™.

We do not give, sell, rent, share, or trade any identifiable personal information regarding our members to any third party, with the exception of third-party contractors and service providers who work with AGLOCO to provide the Viewbar and other services, and who are strictly prohibited from later use of the information that they may have access to. We will disclose personal information to local, state, or federal law enforcement officials when we believe in good faith that the law requires it.

This Privacy Policy provides both members of the AGLOCO™ service and visitors to the AGLOCO.com website with information about what information we collect, to what uses that information is put, and to whom that information may be given. If you become a member of AGLOCO™, the membership agreement encompasses the provisions that are explained by this document. If you are only a visitor to our website, this Privacy Policy is our promise to you about how information about your visit will be handled.

This document is a "work in progress," insofar as certain portions may be updated from time to time as the programs and services we offer to our members change. However the principles upon which this document is based will not change, nor will our fundamental commitment to protecting the privacy of our members. We also welcome your continuing input into this policy. Please give us your feedback at privacy@AGLOCO.com.

AGLOCO™'s Privacy Policy and our information practices are based upon the eight principles of Fair Information Practices first issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 1980. These guidelines continue to be the touchstone of all modern privacy laws and regulations, and the concepts set forth in them remain at the heart of privacy protection principles that guide all responsible businesses today. More information about the OECD's “Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data” may be found at: .

Privacy and the Infomediary

2006-12-03T19:07:00.000-08:00

I saw this post on John Chow's blog -- it has a great note from Ray Everett-CHurch. Ray was the first Chief Privacy Officer on the Internet (interestingly enough this was a position created by the Interent's first major Infomediary, AllAdvantage.)

*#*#*

Ray Everett-Church is the AGLOCO Chief Privacy Officer. He was also the Chief Privacy Officer at AllAdvantage. Ray has been reading the comments in the 1000 AGLOCO Sign Ups post and this is what he had to say about the spyware issue.

I couldn’t disagree more with the characterization of the Viewbar as spyware. In my experience, spyware has four main characteristics: 1) It’s installed without your permission; 2) It surreptitiously tracks you; 3) it is difficult if not impossible to turn off or remove; and, 4) it sends your information to an unknown and untrustworthy entity where you have no control over what happens to it.

AGLOCO’s Viewbar (nor AllAdvantage’s Viewbar before it) does not have those characteristics. Indeed, AGLOCO’s Viewbar is the opposite of spyware: you must actively install it, you have to turn it on in order for it to track you and earn your hours, you can easily turn it off and uninstall at will, and finally you know who’s tracking you and our Privacy Policy gives you explicit information about what happens with your data and how you can delete it from our system if you desire.

I know a thing or two about spyware: I was an expert witness in a series of twelve lawsuits in which I testified against one of the major perpetrators of spyware on the Internet. They actually hired me in part because of my experiences at AllAdvantage with permission-based and privacy-protecting advertising technologies like the Viewbar.

If you’re interested (or can’t sleep!) you can read brief excerpts from my 80-page expert witness report (the whole report is, unfortunately, under seal by the federal court). I submitted the excerpts when I testified at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s Workshop on Spyware in 2004. My written materials are here.

I hope that helps clarify things a bit more.

Regards,
Ray Everett-Church
AGLOCO Chief Privacy Officer

Called the “dean of corporate privacy officers” by Inter@ctive Week Magazine, Ray Everett-Church is an internationally recognized expert on privacy law and Internet-related public policy. He is also the author of Internet Privacy For Dummies.

User owned Infomediary - AGLOCO

2006-12-01T13:46:00.000-08:00

Here is an excerpt from one of the AGLOCO information pages – I want to look at the Infomediary messages in it.

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 their 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.

AGLOCO has all the markings of a classic infomediary system with one great addition- the users own the Infomediary. This seems a great addition to the model as now the ‘payout (in cash, discounts, services utilities etc. that users get is all built on the fact that if the Infomediary succeeds the users get the lions share of the value (also all it appears as the management has limited themselves and the vcs to 10%.

I will continue to look at this.

AGLOCO - a straightforward business model

2006-11-29T22:22:00.000-08:00

Another AGLOCO member sent me this note - I thought it addressed an interesting point on the AGLOCO member marketing system.

Discussing AGLOCO on a mailing list I'm on, one of my friends responded to a posting that said "it sure feels like a ponzi scheme" with the following...
which I think is an interesting way to phrase things:

Actually, it feels nothing at all like a Ponzi
scheme. The core revenue model does not pay
current participants with money from new
participants. All participants are paid by
advertisers. Payers and recipients are
essentially independent communities. That's
not a Ponzi scheme. I have no idea whether
there is a survivable business model, but it
actually seems like a straightforward attempt
to match willing consumers to willing sellers.

AGLOCO website tells alot

2006-11-29T08:28:00.000-08:00

This is an Infomediary blog - a word 'coined' by two McKinsey consultants, Marc Singer and John Hagel, a decade ago. They wrote that the Internet allowed Infomediaries to exist because of the low cost of information transfer. They also wrote that a big piece of the Infomediary position was trust and privacy.

I see AGLOCO providing both trust and privacy. Ray Everett-Church ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Everett-Church )is a key ingrediate in the company and you can see his imprint all over the website from the first class privacy policy to the security tight sign up system.

The compant has 15 'founder/development team' listed and 40 contributors. Almost looks like a non-profit venture with all that help in a stat-up. And for a good cause - redistributing wealth to the 'little' guy.

I like the 8 Stanford graduate students on the team - diverse yet driven. Cisco, Google, Yahoo, eBay (even YouTube) have serious Stanford roots. Jim Jorgensen, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jorgensen ), from a previous Internet Infomediary attempt is there as well. AllAdvantage paid out over $100 million to its members and dispite its eventual failure when the Internet adverising market collapsed in 2000, it seems to have had a clean record of paying people and keeping its privacy promises.

All this bodes well for AGLOCO over the long run.aa

AGLOCO is a week old and looks like a winner

2006-11-28T17:39:00.000-08:00

Lots of action for the new Infomediary AGLOCO in its debut week. Based on numerics they must be frowing very fast - Google search for AGLOCO now has over 170,000 pages in results. This in a week -- is astonding.

People are advertising all over the Internet (Google, Yahoo and MSN - and also on thousands of random sites.)

This could easily be the net BIG THING to hit the Internet. And I think it is great. THE USERS TAKE CONTROL........ABOUT TIME.

Stay tuned for more.

AGLOCO is certainly NOT a classic pyramid scheme

2006-11-18T15:25:00.000-08:00

We have been hearing a lot over the last few days about the upcoming launch of AGLOCO, short for ‘a global community’. I checked out some pre-launch blogs and am kind of surprised at what is being said at the moment. I got to sign in as a pre-launch member and had the opportunity to have a look at the site.

It looks pretty straightforward to me. Certainly this is NOT a pyramid scheme as some online news articles have suggested. Members get paid, not the other way round….it seems pretty hard to have a classic pyramid scheme if everyone gets paid and no one puts money in…

Come to think about it, Google, Yahoo and the others are begging us to download their so-called toolbars. What are we getting out of that?

Once you download and install Google’s stuff as part of your browser, you’re stuck with it – and worse it is really spyware. They collect your info – and I would question their privacy – they know your habits and preferences, use it all to sell ads….and who gets the money from that? Certainly not me or you.

AGLOCO is saying your preferences should be used by you to generate preferences for you, and you should at least get a fair share of the value created. Sounds more than fair to me, especially since we’re not getting anything at the moment. What’s more, if you don’t want the viewbar to run at any point, you just have to minimize it and it stops running. How’s that for keeping control of your computer and online experience?

As for privacy, well Ray Everett-Church is on their team. I read his wikipedia page This is the guy Fortune 500 companies call up to help them design their internet privacy policies. This is the guy who has testified before the Senate, and Congress. This is the guy the U.S. government calls up to see whether legislation being drafted is in line with online privacy. I am definitely more re-assured about the privacy of my info knowing this expert is on their team rather than anyone else out there collecting my data.

Some blogs are suggesting this is just a new and huge spamming ploy. Once again I think their having Ray Everett-Church is major point. AGLOCO seems to have the toughest anti-spam policy of any network. You spam – you’re out. It may not stop everyone. – But since AOL already reports that over 50% of ALL emails sent to AOL members are spam, I hardly think a couple of bad apples (who will be thrown out) make the whole system bad – even wikipedia suffers from being vandalized.

Finally some are saying that only those who get in early will benefit from the network. Fair enough, I got to be a pre-launch member and so I will be able to benefit upfront. However, they have purposefully limited the number of referral levels to five, so as to allow anyone on the internet to build their own network. Pretty fair and justified to me....

So in essence, what does anyone have to lose in this? Absolutely nothing it seems. What can we get out of it? Think about it….if this community grows into the millions, we can go back to those advertisers, search engines, social networks and online retailers who are craving for our business, and make sure that whatever deal is made, each and every individual AGLOCO member gets a share of it.

And to make it better, the members own the company. Which start-up offers you cash and the company for basically continuing to do what we are already doing online?

Frankly, I think some people out there need to think and do a little more research about what they are writing about….

New Infomediary Coming - AGLOCO

2006-11-17T22:18:00.000-08:00

Internet's first Economic Network built with an Infomedairy Privacy and revenue system

Test system

2006-07-14T14:18:00.000-07:00

Test System