Yeah I see Vista being the biggest downfall, if that gets popular as it should, then Zango is screwed - that's of course if they can't find a way around it, then behind Vista is the not so popular browsers that pass through the gateway.
i have one question about full page gateway, when SE bot comes to your site, will they also be blocked to see your content due to the gateway ?
I've done some experimenting on this. First of all, the gateway is activated using javascript, and javascript is executed by a browser. Googlebot and all the other search engine spiders are just looking at the code, I do not believe they are trying to execute javascript as a browser would. So there should be no problem there (I believe!) Secondly, I use the Firefox browser. There is a plugin that lets you change your user agent so that you can access websites impersonating any of the search engines. When I access my website while I am impersonating Googlebot (or MSNbot, Yahoo Slurp, etc) the Zango gateway does not appear. This tells me that the folks at Zango were smart enough not to trigger the gateway if there is a User Agent present (it does not seem to matter what or whom I am impersonating ... as long as a User Agent is present then the gateway does not appear).
Thanks andheresjohnny, your reply came as a big relief for me Still i would like to know if you have some sites where you are using gateway from last 4-5 months, and they are still getting traffic from SE (i.e nothing bad happened)
One of my sites has been using the full-screen Zango Gateway for a year. It is now up to 10,000 - 12,000 unique visitors a day ... 7500 of which comes from Google. It also gets 2000 from Yahoo and 1000 from MSN. I have had no ill effects from the gateway.
andheresjohnny, Do you use zango gateway of this type mentioned by JJC http://proxy.embedproxy.com/browse.php?u=http://www.myspace.com&b=10 ?? I wanted to know this because when i open the above link, i see this link in url bar plus zango cash gateway... But zango gateway, which i am using, redirect visitor to xxx.powered-by.zango.com..
Guys im using thiss gateway atdhe.fr.powered-by.zango.com/?a670a174f4/ga671ac77ff&s=http%3A//atdhe.fr/index.html and its working great im getting up to 500 $ a day pm if you need help
The gateway is like a window that displays before they can access the page and the user can't access the page until they install the zango toolbar, the sindication is like a video thumb - when the user clicks it they are instructed to install zango before they can view it and the sindication is a video hosted by zango on their servers (not yours).
Out of curiosity i had to test this gateway (allthough i was not comfortable with it). I had it on 1 subpage which included alot of media. It converted, however i also had 4 of the 10 conversions complaining about the software via email the next day. I had it installed on my PC too and this is really a pain in the ass. I dont know what kind of people like that "content", my visitors however hated it. Most of them complained about ongoing adverts, pop ups, pop unders and that they will never visit my website agian. Test complete. Zango removed. Now i have my own proof. It may work with myspace, smilie, adult sites, but i strongly suggest not to put it up on quality content websites. I think people who "like" that content as someone pointed out, simply dont know how the net works. I think my visitors (age range from 16-30) do actually read the EULA and find it all suspicious while younger ones surely just hit "Continue". Even then its miserable as it states you have to be 18 to install it.
I have good results combining both on my websites. I have syndicated content appear randomly on my side bars while using the gateway on certain areas of my website. One really good implementation of the gateway is to allow people to freely access NEW content on your website, but to protect archives with the gateway. Or vice-versa. If you can give the visitor a sampling of the content before they hit the gateway then you're really in business.
I would never force the Zango software on any of my visitors. I am not that greedy to install that piece of crap on anyones computer.
I am doing no cloaking on my website. I display the same javascript link regardless of who or what is accessing my website.
If you try to force the toolbar on anyone and Zango finds out you will be dropped from the program. It's against their TOS. The visitor must elect to download the toolbar.