What do you do when expectations raised by a hyped up launch of your traffic widget remain unfulfilled due to implementation problems and abuse by ‘gamers’?

Why, turn it from a ‘traffic widget’ into a ‘Seal of Approval’ - one that indicates your blog is ‘high quality’!

That’s the brilliant marketing master-stroke John Reese just used to turn an embarrassing beta test into a coveted ‘badge of honor’ bloggers are fighting over having.

For weeks we’ve heard the collective moaning and whining about how BlogRush did not deliver traffic enough to make it worthwhile displaying the widget on one’s blog.

The BlogRush team went into fire-fighting mode, and after a mass-audit, deleted TEN THOUSAND accounts.

In and by itself, that isn’t unique or special. The genius twist was to position all of them as falling BELOW the high quality standard BlogRush expects of its member blogs - instantly creating ‘perceived value’ for the widget as validation of a blog’s quality!

The reaction is astonishing. People are now falling over themselves to check to see if their blog ‘made the cut’… forgetting (at least for the moment) that the BlogRush widget still doesn’t deliver quality traffic in large numbers as they once dreamed it would.

Has BlogRush transitioned from ‘traffic widget’ to ‘quality seal’?

Will it serve bloggers better in that new role?

Share your thoughts.

Update:

I just noticed this.  Interestingly enough, the Income.com blog has comments turned off.

Hmm… Isn’t it better to control the conversation in some small way, at least by centralizing it on the owner’s blog - rather than having it distributed across the vast reaches of the blogosphere?

Seems John Reese is making a mistake there. What do you think?

UPDATE #2:

Earlier in this post, I explored the shift in positioning of BlogRush from ‘traffic widget’ to ’seal of quality’ badge. At the end, I asked:

Will it serve bloggers better in that new role?

I explored this line of thinking further, and feel it makes for an interesting ‘business plan’. Let me know if you agree - or not.

BlogRush inactivated 10,000 accounts after manual review, because they failed to meet their quality control requirements.

I’m guessing here, but that’s probably 10% or less of their total user base.

Also, I’m guessing at least an equal number of member blogs would be interested if BlogRush was to give them an OFFICIAL ‘BlogRush Approved’ seal - a kind of Better Business Bureau or VeriSign button for blogs.

So what if John Reese offers this - with a modest application fee for a review. I’d suggest $25 per blog, which at 10,000 blogs would net $250,000.

This will last for a year. At the end of the year, another $25 payment will be necessary to continue being listed. This ensures long term viability.

If a blog meets the quality standards, it would be approved and will be permitted to display a visual indicator - e.g. a special ‘GOLD skin’ version of the BlogRush widget (or with some other unique identifier built into the widget skin design itself). It would be served up from the BlogRush servers, and therefore BlogRush would control which blogs can display it.

Also, on the BlogRush website, the approved blogs would all be registered in a directory. Listings in the directory will link TO the individual approved blogs - and the GOLD skin widget would link BACK to the directory. This makes it easy for anyone to check and find that the blog is indeed of authentic ‘BlogRush approved’ quality. And from a SEO perspective, and traffic potential, just this link on BlogRush.com would be worth a multiple of the $25 application fee, making it a no-brainer.

Now, make it fancier. Beside each blog’s listing on the directory, include a ‘RATE THIS’ or ‘REPORT THIS’ button. In case a blog ‘adjusts’ its quality standards after being approved and included in the directory, users can now report it to the BlogRush team - which could revise/revoke the status according to what their reviewers find. You have a community-policed system, like Blogger blogs.

Then, take the $250,000 and budget $20,000 a month for a team of 100 reviewers, each of whom will be paid $200 a month. Too little? You’re nuts! In India, in a public sector hospital, my salary as heart surgeon was Rs.14,500 (approx. $350) per month - for 48 hours a week. To many people, that’s a royal income. Find them. Hire them.

If it takes a reviewer 3 minutes to approve a blog, each can review 20 blogs per hour. At 5 hours a day, each reviewer can look at 100 blogs daily. 100 reviewers can analyze 10,000 blogs DAILY. Or 50,000 blogs per week. Easy. That’s 200,000 blogs per month!

Now, if you have 10,000 GOLD blogs, each can be reviewed upto 3 times a week, and still you’ll have enough human-power to look at another 100,000 blogs per month - meaning the cash flow could finance quality control measures for the entire network, not just GOLD blogs. The GOLD group will keep overall quality high!

What do you think about this idea? Will/Can it work?

John Reese, if you read this, and decide to go ahead with the idea, please let me know - it’ll be nice to update this post with that information!