AllAdvantage eats Free ISP programs! (short golden years)
Written: Feb 24 '00 (Updated Jun 18 '01)
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Pros: n/a
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The Bottom Line: Pay for your dialup! Better yet, go BroadBand.
My recommendations for cheapest dialup & DSL are at http://WebPOD.com
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| webpod's Full Review: AeroFree.com |
UPDATE:
AllAdvantage is pretty much DEAD. It shuttered down on Feb 2001 and laid of hundreds of employees.
For a brief period, it was better than Free-ISPs programs, but, I guess you can't get something for nothing forever.
Troubled business model:-
* Not cheat-proof, ie. program like AutoMouse, MouseMove, AutoBrowser
* Grew too fast - lack balance in revenue/profit and operating cost.
* ..."Magazines don't pay people to read a magazine," Todd said. "They charge people because paying people to look at advertising is not necessarily an effective model."
More readings:
* cnet.com
* f*ckedupcompany.com
ORIGINAL POSTING (in 2000):
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AA pros: $100+ million capital, pays users, stable, freedom of ISP, Mac Viewbar, huge user & sponsor base
AA cons: still 25-hour limit, limited ways to earn, 800x600 plus screen requirement
FACT: There are many free ISPs and "Paid to Surf" programs out there -- it's getting harder to choose.
SITUATION: Internet users would most likely rush in trying FREE ISPs and avoid Paid-to-Surf wave fearing scams.
But I'd like to point out some thoughtful reasons on why you should prefer AllAdvantage over the rest of "Paid to Surf" programs, and yes, over free ISPs offerrings too – these include popular names like NetZero (an IdeaLab venture company), FreeI (growing worldwide!), BlueLight (K-mart/Yahoo partnership), Altavista's (co-branding of MicroISP), FreeWWWeb ("the pioneer"!) and Juno (early advocate of free internet access). Of course, if you have a decent horsepower in your computer, you can pick as many number of Free ISP/Paid-to-Surf programs in combination. (But you might want to avoid so, as from my experience, the more Internet apps you run, the more likely Windows will crash along with its integrated "Explorer", sometimes even pop you up with repeated "blue screen of death")
MYTH 1: ISPs would likely stay in business longer than (scam-like) Paid-to-Surf companies
Many ISPs especially early advocates of free internet access prior to NetZero went out of business too, within the past couple years. Recent ones include FreePC (also an IdeaLab’s (Bill Gross) ventured company like NetZero) and AeroFree. Comparatively, only one paid-to-surf company had totally gone from the internet scene in 1999. Trends change fast: hardware prices go down dramatically each year, bringing internet access cost down too; more people are shifting to high-speed access (broadband & DSL) as internet applications demand faster connection. Demand may be high for modem-speed Internet access today as more and more peoples get onto the internet their first time. But for the next 3-5 years, high-speed access will slowly replace modem-speed Internet accesses. Companies like Juno & FreeWWWeb had changed their Internet access offering many times since 1996 to accommodate this dramatic trend change of demand and pricing. Who knows what will happen to today’s popular companies like NetZero, FreeWWWeb etc in the next 3-5 years? Will free DSL offering (i.e. by FreeDSL.com) replace today’s free dial-up access and forcing NetZero etc. to modify their offering involving huge shifting cost (free dial-up alone cost them millions of dollars every month). On simpler perspective: free money is better than free dial-up – money can buy DSL or cable-modem accesses when the time is right! In fact, I’m using a cable modem myself, and see neither need nor desire to go back to regular dial-up connection, free or not.
MYTH 2: Paid-to-Surf like many MLM programs over the past 10 years doesn’t benefit the people at the bottom of the chain.
Guess what, AllAdvantage is proven to pay anybody who uses its Viewbar for at least 25 hours (that’s an average of less than an hour a day), at least $12.50 per month – that’s without a single referral. With a referal of as little as 1-2 person (your friend, family member, housemate?), it can top to around $20 per month, exactly the cost of RELIABLE dial-up access from companies like EarthLink, MSN, SurFree, MindSpring, AT&T etc. That way you can stay on dial-up connection for, as many hours you want without any need to keep the advertisement viewer program on the screen for more than 25 hours each month – unlike NetZero, FreeI etc that require you to use their ad-bar all the time you’re online – In fact, free ISP programs usually disconnect you after inactivity of a certain period (many times a day!)
MYTH 3: Free ISPs program can replace non-free ones
I’ve tried several free dial-up programs like NetZero, FreeWWWeb, Altavista’s, FreeI & BlueLight but none of them are sufficiently reliable as I had wished or as being claimed as. All of them frequently disconnect even when you’re actively browsing the web. Don’t even dream of leaving it on for a long period of time. For businesses who can’t afford paying per call telephone charges for too many dialing attempts for internet access, free ISPs can actually cost more than the non-free ones!!
MYTH 4: Paid-to-Surf programs are for Windows only.
This month, AllAdvantage releases its ViewBar for Mac -- free money for Mac users, that translates to free Internet access and potentially more. Some other programs exist too, like Ignifuge & ClickDough that rely on web browser instead of proprietary Windows software.
At this time (if I’m not mistaken), only FreeWWWeb & FreeI offer free dial-up for Mac. Both are very confusing though.
MORE REASONS on why you should just go for AllAdvantage and skip all the hype of free ISP programs:-
1. Strength is in the number.
AllAdvantage finished up a second-round funding for another $100-million earlier this year – lead investment by SoftBank. Remember how SoftBank boasted Yahoo!’s credibility with $100-million investment at the time when everyone else doubted the potential of the most popular web directory – today Yahoo is worth over $100 billion in market cap! What does it say about AllAdvantage to all skeptics out there? (Watch out in the next few months!)
* See AA press release
Yeah, NetZero does have a market cap of 2+ billions, but its trading for the past four months doesn’t seem that impressive at all – free ISP’s potential is not as high as it was cracked up to be. Unless if they start grabbing some potential technologies soon enough with that much of money, NetZero with its ZeroPort won’t go anywhere but out of the loop.
From AA History page :
"By January 31st, 2000, membership topped over 5 million registered to receive our service. As of January 31, 2000, we had activated the Viewbar™ for members in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, and the U.K. We intend to introduce our Viewbar™ service in additional countries during the 1st Quarter of 2000. During the three months ended January 31st, 2000, over 1.7 million members actively used our service, and we delivered advertisements from over 1,100 businesses. In the month of January 2000, we delivered over 6 billion advertising impressions on our Viewbar™."
2. AllAdvantage reaches more countries than any free ISP or similar paid-to-surf programs. For Internet community that’s made up of global citizens, monetary incentive is more ideal compared to complex Internet access giveaway. Let people decide which company they want as their ISP. In fact, it’ll take years before ambitious company like FreeI can reach a handful of other countries beside USA.
3. You can really make money with AllAdvantage! Top members have made total referrals as many as over 40,000. That translates to over monthly paycheck for $5000 (who needs a 9-to-5 job?) and growing! There are even people who only referred ONLY ONE member, and ended up with over 19,000 extended referrals! (Information available to A+ member – a free program by AA for people with 20+ total referrals). I myself did get a decent $40+ AA check every month since September 99 and the amount grows 25% each month!
There you go, I can’t see any reason why one could be so afraid of joining AllAdvantage but would still go free ISP. Two choices: Avoid both for privacy, or join at least one paid-to-surf program, a clear choice being AllAdvantage, the pioneer itself since March 1999.
Check out my other epinion on AllAdvantage
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