HBIZNEWS

In August and September last year, ijango was making a lot of noise. They managed to attract a lot of attention and not all of it was good.

I decided to revisit them and see where they are in the new year, so I attended a webinar to see what was what!

Not surprisingly there was the same hyped up efforts to recruit new reps and now there are promises that iJango reps are going to be paid $1.00 per month for every “active customer” they have under them. Sorry, there was no explanation of what qualifies as an “active customer”.

There was a brief demo of the EOS browser which left me wondering at whom this “product” was targeted. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, computer savvy people don’t use these kinds of products and the computer confused will never have the patients to get it set up. It’s a product without a market.

But…

It was that $1.00 per month per customer thing that stuck in my head. Now I know why!

Unless you’ve been living in a cave lately you know about the Time Warner Cable and Fox Network controversy. If you’ve somehow missed it here it is in a nutshell…

FOX wants Time Warner to pay an amount equal to $1.00 per subscriber for the rebroadcast rights for FOX programing, (That’s about $45 Million dollars for 2010). Time Warner says it’s not worth that much and only wanted to pay $.50 per subscriber for FOX programing.

All that has now been settled but here’s where this ties together.

Ijango is telling it’s reps that the company is going to pay them $12.00 per head per year for customers that may or may not generate a dime in revenue for the company.

That’s 12 times what FOX Network was asking from Time Warner Cable! 12 TIMES!

Something isn’t right here! Again.

What exactly is going on? Why are they, (iJango), willing to pay 12 times per head what Time Warner Cable balked at paying for FOX Network?

Has iJango become that popular? Have they actually figured out how to make enough to pay out this kind  of money just for using their service and/or their browser?

Or…

Are they trying to “hype up” enough traffic to remain afloat?

Some say that iJango started out with apx. 16,000 reps and that this number has now dwindled to less than half that. They also say that, due to this decline, the web traffic has dried up to such a point that their (traffic based) business model has foundered and may now be dead in the water.

Rumor? May be. I looked at Alexa’s traffic numbers for iJango.com….

Here it is my friends!

This is a web traffic based business that has very little web traffic! A business that offers a product that will not be used by the computer savvy and can not be used by the computer challenged.

All of this means that the very people that iJango targets with it’s hype and marketing, (the technology challenged), are the same ones that will be unable to use it.

Look at the numbers for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

Here are mine.

The whole idea behind Ijango was ill conceived right from the start.

Despite those who claimed it to be new and unique, it’s an idea that’s been tried and failed. The idea failed before and is failing again because  hype and hotel meetings are not going to generate “Google like” traffic and create a place where companies will pay to advertise.
It’s not going to happen!

Is there a lack of understanding at the top of ijango?

They seem to believe that the mere act of using the internet somehow generates money, (or at least that’s the sales pitch). It’s time for a reality check folks.

No money is made by anyone until somebody buys something and iJango has nothing to sell!

Having no product for sale, I can only conclude that this business model is designed to feed off it’s own reps and that iJango is simply giving them back a few pennies every month from the $20.00 they are paying to stay in the game.

Time will tell and it’s not going to take long. From the traffic numbers, it looks like people are running away from iJango as fast as they ran toward it 6 months ago. Little to nothing they’ve promised has happened and even die hard iJango reps are stepping back to reevaluate the business.

If something doesn’t change at iJango and change very soon, I fear that this ship will go down by the bow.

Use the brain God gave you, keep the money you earn and never slow down!

Next time