With all the buzz surrounding David D’Arcangelo and Implix (owners of GetResponse and WebsiteWizard) and their launch of the Web Prosperity business opportunity, I decided to weigh in with my own review of the Web Prosperity opportunity to help you wade through all the hype.
Web Prosperity Review: First, What Is It?
Web Prosperity has been promoted as a new internet marketing MLM program that allows you to pay just one monthly fee to receive all the following services:
- An autoresponder service;
- Goto meeting-like features, such as web and telephone conferencing;
- Audio and video marketing tools (similar to Audio Acrobat and YouTube);
- A contact manager;
- An online address book;
- An online calendar.
Certainly, nothing to write home about… you can get all of these services from reliable providers at a reasonable cost or even for free (as in the case of video marketing… YouTube and GoogleVideo, anyone?)
However, what was attractive about Dave D’Arcangelo’s pitch is that you can get all these tools in one place for a single, much lower monthly fee than if you were to purchase them separately.
Well, let’s see:
- An autoresponder with aWeber or GetResponse runs about $18 - 20 a month…
- Audio Acrobat costs just $19.95 a month (and includes audio and video storage with streaming and embedding)…
- Goto Meeting costs $49.95 a month and WebEx starts at $39.95 a month…
So, if you add all that up, just those three services would cost you about $80-90 a month. WebProsperity is offering to roll all these services together for just $29.95 to $59.95 a month. Not too shabby - it certainly sparked my interest after I did the math.
And, by referring others to use the service, there’s always the opportunity to get the cost of your services paid for by your referrals, or even to make a bit of extra money on the side.
What’s The Deal With The Pre-Launch Delay?
That’s what a lot of people are wondering. Launch day was supposed to be Tuesday at 12 noon EST.
People were told to hurry and lock-in their free pre-launch position… the impression that was given was that there was only a limited time to enroll to get a top position in the company’s Web Prosperity freedom compensation plan.
It’s a launch that never happened. When people went to the site yesterday at the planned launch time, they were unable to access the site - presumably, so many people tried to access the site that the servers were unable to handle the load.
A few hours later when the site came back up again, the launch day countdown clock had seven days added to the countdown timer.
There was no advance notice or email letting anyone know that the launch day was going to be moved back… which leads one to conclude that they simply could not handle the demand on their servers on their intended launch day, and were forced to push it back in order to improve their site servers to handle the load.
Ah, The Plot Thickens…
On Tuesday, January 26th, at 12:55 PM, the following announcement was posted on the Web Prosperity corporate blog:
“Over the last 24 hours we have received a flood of emails asking, begging and pleading with us to extend the WebProsperity Pre-Launch and continue to accept free sign-ups.
You asked, we listened and responded!
We’ve made a decision to extend the Pre-launch by one week. The WebProsperity Founders’ Launch will begin on Tuesday, January 13th at 12 Noon EST (9 AM Pacific, 5 PM UK, 6 PM Europe). Please mark this final date in your calendar.”
In reply, I posted this comment on the WebProsperity blog in response to their announcement:
“Should have been announced in advance… I’d say you left a lot of people hanging. Still, I’m eager to see what the service is going to entail.. Thanks!”
Not exactly glowing feedback, to be sure… but at least positive, honest, and constructive.
Even so, at the time of this writing there are over 40 comments that have been posted to the site after mine… but my comment is still “awaiting moderation.”
Interestingly, 100% of the comments that are being displayed publicly on the blog with regards to the announcement that the launch was being pushed back are positive (well, gushing actually). There are zero negative comments on the blog regarding the unannounced change of the launch date.
Obviously, someone is in damage control mode over at WP HQ… and at first blush, this seems a prime example of how NOT to run a budding Web 2.0 company.
NOTE: When you choose to operate a company using Web 2.0 tactics in a Web 2.0 world, transparency and honesty are not just a moral obligation; they’re part and parcel of the game.
I honestly don’t think that the folks at WP are bad… I just think someone is making bad choices about how to handle what was obviously just a minor technical snafu.
If indeed that is what happened, all they had to do was say, “Hey, we goofed, we didn’t plan for this type of server load, and we’re fixing the issue right now. Sorry for the delay but we’re still on for the launch as soon as we make sure we’re able to handle the demand.”
That’s it. Honesty and transparency. People actually appreciate companies who operate on those principles - especially in today’s day and age when the market as a whole is highly suspicious of corporate greed and cover-ups. Hopefully, they’ll get a clue and handle future mishaps a bit differently.
So What’s My Final Verdict?
I haven’t totally written off Web Prosperity yet. I’ve actually used Implix products for years, and I’m an enthusiastic fan of their services. So, if I could get the services I’m already using, all bundled into one neat, low-cost package, I’d be a very happy camper.
Quite frankly, I’m looking forward to seeing what the actual product package is going to look like, and tinkering around with their suite of web marketing tools to see what the system is capable of.
Now, as for the business opportunity - I’d say the jury is still out on that… even though I know that some heavy hitters will likely see huge windfalls from marketing the program during prelaunch.
However, I did in fact sign up on the notification list during the prelaunch, so if you’d like to get your name on the list or learn more about the company, just go to:
http://shop.webprosperity.com/
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Questions? Comments? Input? Please let me know by commenting below…
Tags: Arcangelo, Autoresponder Service, Aweber, Business Opportunity, Compensation Plan, Contact Manager, Dave D'Arcangelo, David D'Arcangelo, David D'Arcangelo and Implix, Getresponse, Goto meeting-like features, Implix, Launch Day, launch that never happened, Marketing Tools, Mlm Program, New Internet Marketing, Online Address Book, Prosperity, Telephone Conferencing, Video Marketing, Video Storage, Web Prosperity business opportunity, Web Prosperity business opportunity review, Web Prosperity Review, Webex, WebPropserity freedom compensation plan, Websitewizard, Youtube
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