There’s supposed to be some cool technology driving it. From the Income.com blog:
“It uses some unique technology to analyze millions of blog post title impressions, average click-rates, session times, and more to come up with its live ‘ranking’ system.”
From early looks, it seems this will become another tool for the already popular, powerful and heavy-traffic blogs to get even more visitors to flock to them - but I’ll be delighted if the smaller blogs get leverage from being on it.
I respect John Reese too much to ignore his message.
And John feels I mis-represented what he said. So this is to clarify what exactly was my motive in writing the “John Reese is WRONG“ post.
John did NOT say ‘marketing to Internet marketers’ was easy.
He did say it was the ‘best’ way to make money on the Internet.
Then why did I focus on the “easy” bit?
Because knowing how the mind of many online marketers works, I am convinced that the vast majority of folks listening or watching that presentation are going to come away carrying the idea that it is EASY.
And it is not.
There were 2 reasons for my blog post:
#1 - To highlight that ‘marketing to Internet marketers’ is NOT easy
#2 - To point interested readers towards John’s video, so they could learn about the potential that existed, if they were willing to work through the challenges
If I disagreed totally with John’s message, why would I end by saying:
“Hmm… then John Reese was actually RIGHT, wasn’t he?”
I WANT you to visit his site and watch that video.
I also WANT you to go there with the right mindset - of realizing that what you’re learning about involves HARD WORK.
It was a pre-selling piece - before sending you to the ’sales page’. And John’s video does sell a coaching program… one he is probably the best person to teach, and from whom to learn - if you make the cut.
No, it is not an affiliate link.
No, I don’t get a commission if you register.
Yes, I get ‘good karma’ if I refer you there with realistic expectations.
“The Absolute BEST Way For You To Make Money on the Internet… Is Marketing To Other Internet Marketers!”
No.
John Reese is WRONG!
Right, you may now disagree, rant or rave about it - but it most definitely is NOT easy to make a living online selling stuff to other Internet marketers.
Profitable? Yes.
Potential is huge? Yes.
Scalable, expandable, massive in size? Yes.
But “easy”?
No way!
How can I say this?
Because 2007 was my WORST year selling to Internet marketers… since 1997, when I started doing it!
Look, it wasn’t really too bad - my business did grow by 20% in the year. But compared to the hot pace of THREE HUNDRED percent growth year on year for the last 7 or 8 years, this was terrible.
And strangest of all, I was doing almost everything ‘right’. I was working smarter. Optimizing most processes. Consolidating and integrating various things that were chaotic in the past.
And I was still doing the ‘core’ things right. Taking good care of customers. Respecting and protecting my clients. Focusing on only creating and promoting the highest quality products and services. Growing and nurturing my email list.
Yet, last year was S-L-O-W.
It’s getting HARDER to market to other Internet marketers.
If you’re going at this from a standing start, and expect it to be EASY… you’re in for a rude shock.
To call breaking into this niche ‘easy’ is a stretch of imagination, a flight of fantasy, a dream of wishful thinking.
With hard work, focus, knowledge, a slick and streamlined process and a modicum of luck, you can no doubt make good in this niche.
But there are other alternatives that may work better for you.
Here are some figures from ONE of my own niche businesses that have NOTHING to do with selling to Internet marketers, to compare and contrast against…
Jan 2006 - $120
Feb 2006 - $140
Mar 2006 - $130
Apr 2006 - $320
May 2006 - no
Jun 2006 - $40
Jul 2006 - $40
Aug 2006 - $240
Sep 2006 - $160
Oct 2006 - $80
Nov 2006 - $120
Dec 2006 - no
Jan 2007 - $80
Feb 2007 - $160
Mar 2007 - $120
Apr 2007 - $40
May 2007 - $70
Jun 2007 - $110
Jul 2007 - $80
Aug 2007 - $200
Sep 2007 - $40
Oct 2007 - no
Nov 2007 - $160
Dec 2007 - $80
See how constant this is?
Here’s an amazing fact about this one case study. I last modified the product and website - in 2004. Yes, four years back.
The site has good search engine ranking. It gets free traffic. I haven’t paid a cent on advertising or PPC traffic. I do not ‘market’ it in ANY way. Yet, this site has made sales CONSISTENTLY ever since it launched in 2002.
What if you had 20 sites like this one? Or fifty?
In contrast, I have OVER 50 info-products and memberships that target Internet marketers. All require constant, continuing and aggressive marketing to make sales.
Yes, the Internet marketing niche is a major share of my online business profits. But it MOST DEFINITELY is not the easiest bit to handle or grow.
Why bother making such a fuss about this issue?
Because many people are going to watch John Reese’s video and plunge into the Internet marketing niche, hoping to make massive fortunes - EASILY!
I want to wave the ‘caution flag’ at you before you stake everything on a headlong rush to sell stuff to Internet marketers.
Remember, this is a niche I know well and understand. A niche where I’ve established my beach-head and dug deep into my foxhole over a decade. A niche in which I already have a substantial presence and reputation.
And yet, 2007 grossly under-performed the past.
Personally, I can take a downturn in my online business for 5 more years and still be able to stick in there. My reserves are deep enough.
But are yours?
My ‘bad year’ came from 2 critical WRONG guesses… ones I backed with a lot of effort over the last 12 months.
Can YOU afford to have that happen - and still stay afloat?
If your goal is to go head to head with the best marketers, to pit your wits against bright minds, to prove your skills are better - and reap the rich rewards that winners in such a hyper-competitive marketplace are no doubt entitled to… come along and join the fun and games in the world of marketing to Internet marketers.
But if you aren’t quite cut out for such a rough-and-tumble environment, don’t throw all you’ve got into this niche. It is NOT easy. Have I said it enough times yet?
Yeah, right… I’m just scared of more ‘competition’!
Nope. Not unless your name is ‘John Reese’ - and not even then, honestly.
I love going up against stiff competition. I love working against hopeless odds. I love taking risks and trying out new things.
And I love WINNING.
It’s why I play in the Internet marketing niche.
It’s why I picked pediatric heart surgery as my profession.
It’s why I enjoy whatever I do - and will keep doing it, as long as I can win.
If you too feel this way, then follow your heart and mind.
If you don’t, think critically about what you hear.
Test things out inexpensively, on a small scale.
Rely on YOUR results rather than the prediction of someone else - even a person as savvy and smart as John Reese.
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.
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!
Yesterday, I wrote a friend a long email. It was about smoke, mirrors… and common sense.
We live in an increasingly cluttered world, where we are forced to seek shortcuts to make sense of the growing volume of information and knowledge around us. We must learn to critically analyze and make sense of what people say about the things that concern us.
Yet, that is no longer easy.
People confuse us, sometimes intentionally and at other times just incidentally. But we end up not knowing what to believe.
There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors stuff going on all around us - and we need to rely ever more increasingly on our innate common sense to see through the mists and perceive the ‘truth’.
What brought on this line of thought?
Well, one thing is this discussion I recently participated in at the Warrior forum, related to the new blog traffic widget, Blog Rush
If you don’t have time to read it all, and only browse the last 2 pages, you’ll notice many levels of ’spin’ on what most common sense folks would call ‘reality’.
There are people explaining how the system can be ‘gamed’ - giving details about how anyone else can learn to - and saying it was to ‘help’ the owner of the program understand weak spots. (Really? How interesting!)
There are people accusing the programmers who left such weak spots for being incompetent. (And you’d do it differently, much better, right? Well, why haven’t you? Or when are you going to?)
There are others defending them by saying these ‘weak spots’ were left ‘deliberately’ to attract spammers out of the woodwork, so they could zap them. (Ha, ha, ha… that’s a good one!)
And then there are others saying that’s just marketing spin, that such obviously glaring mistakes happen only when programmers think they’re too smart! (Hmm… so we should hire programmers who believe they’re dumb?)
Judging from the discussion, what is a discerning reader to think?
Seth Godin wrote an excellent book with a provocative title: “All Marketers Are Liars”
The thrust of the message is NOT that marketers tell ‘lies’, but that people believe what they want to, depending upon their ‘world views’ - and smart marketers take advantage of this reality.
For those who believe BlogRush is the next best thing since sliced bread, the goof ups and glitches are just ‘beta problems’ that will be solved soon, or even ‘intentional bait’ to weed out scammers.
For those who believe BlogRush is a flop, a failure and a waste of time, it’s a poorly conceived plan executed by incompetent programmers with over-hyped marketing spin.
For those who believe BlogRush deserves more study before a judgement can be made about it, what matters is the few bits of data and results being shared from the network participants - since it helps them arrive at a decision to keep it, or drop it.
Yet, EACH BELIEVES in his or her ‘truth’ - though the ’smoke and mirrors’ have distorted and masked portions of it!
It’s true about every bit of information that’s presented to us, in various formats and media - the TV channels, newspapers, magazine stories, even personal messages and emails. Each message carries a ’spin’, depending upon the person sending it to you, and the angle or point of view they are approaching it from.
How can you make sense of it all?
Easy. Rely on your most powerful tool that’s kept you alive, safe and happy for YEARS - your common sense. It’s a beacon that cuts through the smoke and mirrors and reveals the truth… if you let it.
Maybe not naturally, instinctively, easily. You’ve got to give ‘common sense’ a chance - even if it means going against the popular trends and fashions. Look at situations objectively. Make predictions, and then test your conclusions against what happens later.
If what you predicted didn’t come true, look back at what you may have missed - and LEARN from the experience. The next time around, your common sense will be an even better, more reliable guide.
But here’s what’s sad, and will keep the ’smoke and mirrors’ crowd in business for a long time to come…
Hey, I’ve been reading a lot about “How To Maximize Your Blog Rush?” referrals, and hear that ‘catchy’ headlines are critical to it. So I was trying this one out!
John Reese explained how BlogRush is being tweaked for better results, and suggested bloggers use more catchy headlines in blog posts to attract more clicks through the widget. Just as you’d use more curiosity evoking SUBJECT lines in your email, or attention grabbing headings for classified ads.
I’ve been looking around for some more ideas to increase clickthrough, and came across some nice ones.
Incidentally, I had missed out this review of BlogRush by Terry Dean, who bases his early opinions on experience with other traffic exchanges and says “In other tests I’ve done of similar “traffic exchange” services… I’ve never seen them as all that effective.”
Describes an interesting method of setting up a unique RSS feed specifically for your BlogRush syndication - and including your best blog posts in that feed! Not sure how that fits in with the BlogRush TOS, so check before you implement it.
Darren has great referral credit numbers, but isn’t delighted with the clickthrough traffic he’s been receiving so far. 78 people had shared their data at the time I visited the blog.
John’s downline is quite extensive too, and even he mentions the clickthrough traffic he’s getting from the system isn’t anything to write home about - yet!
Not a happy camper! “I’m giving BlogRush more than its giving back.”
One of the comments on this post was: “Wow. It’s amazing how quickly something goes from first day media darling with a potentially snazzy pyramid scheme to something that needs kicked to the curb”
“And if they are overwhelmingly excited by what they find, blog readers will keep clicking on BlogRush links to find useful, entertaining, meaningful, relevant, exciting content - and maybe even make it their first-choice blog surfing tool! …
“And that’s POTENTIAL GOLD - for Blog Rush, as a concept.
“If that early visitor experience using BlogRush can be made a delightful one that makes them go ‘WOW’, BlogRush could become the magic widget of the blogosphere.”
Pretty thorough look at all the functionality BlogRush offers users, including some potential ways to drive more traffic to your blog by using it intelligently. Yaro Starak is a blogger I like and learn from, and this review has the mark of someone who knows his stuff.
Not quite a direct ‘review’ of Blog Rush, but a broader based analysis of the concept of using widgets as the tools to build a social network across blogs, and build buzz. Nice ideas for developers to consider.
From a blogging enthusiast and specialist comes a review with a unique slant - which segments the universe of bloggers by their purpose, and discusses how BlogRush is (or isn’t) relevant to each.
After a lot of thought, I finally went out on a limb and shared my own prediction for BlogRush - along with my reasons why, and what factors might alter this outcome.
= = = =
What do YOU think?
Post a note on the forum and have your say. Or just leave a comment.
I’m ready to go out on a limb and make a prediction about John Reese’s BlogRush. This post could have been titled…
BlogRush PSYCHOGRAPHICS - How Owners,
Bloggers & Readers View Blog Rush
But I chose the other title so I got my prediction out upfront. If you want to know my reasons, and get a ‘different’ review of the ubiquitous widget that’s popping up on hundreds of blogs literally overnight, read on.
You’ll find this interesting because it’s not about the Blog Rush tool, it’s about YOU… how you think and feel about BlogRush… as a blog reader, a blogger or (as you’ve likely dreamed of) as the owner of BlogRush himself.
As a non-techie person, what and how the widget does its target matching, and what scripting genius went into creating it matters very little to me. But as a marketing student, and someone interested in studying people, following the rise of BlogRush has been a fascinating experience.
The first question I asked myself is this:
What do people expect from BlogRush?
There are 3 groups of ‘people’.
#1 - John Reese and his team, the creators and owner of BlogRush. They hope that:
by giving bloggers a way to drive targetted traffic to their blogs, they’ll get thousands, if not millions of blogs to display their widget
by incentivizing bloggers with offers of even more traffic, they’ll get these bloggers to recruit even more into the fold
by making it easy to install the widget, they’ll include even less techie bloggers in the network
they’ll have a huge member base, they’ll delight them with a wonderful experience with the free tool, and this will lead to future business
by telling more people and recruiting them as members, they’ll get more of it
#3 - Blog visitors and readers:
maybe notice the new widget that’s appeared on many blogs they visit
in time, some will be curious about what those links are
overall, it’s just one more thing to ignore (or is it?)
Having come up with this list, I then asked myself the next question.
Can (And Will) Blog Rush deliver on these promises?
Let’s begin with the blog visitors who are exposed to BlogRush on their favorite blogs. What happens?
To understand better, here’s a little background (from my own data). My average blog visitor spends 45 seconds on it, and returns once a week (again, on average).
Here’s how I see my typical (or ideal) blog visitor behaving on my blog with the BlogRush widget.
The first few times, they’ll notice the shiny new thing on the sidebar and wonder what it is. A few may even click on the links to see.
Soon, and especially after noticing it on multiple blogs, ‘banner blindness’ will kick in - and they’ll ignore it completely to focus on the blog’s content.
They’ll read, watch or listen to the blog content - and then, at the end, do one of 3 things:
Read the next post - this happens without any effort on my part
Look for more related content - maybe affiliate links or ‘related links’ presented at the end of my content
Leave the blog and go somewhere else - and I’ve encouraged monetization of this process by placing Adsense ads at the bottom of my content block.
Ah, that’s a potential application for BlogRush, right? By placing the widget at the end of a post, I can give my visitors other options - and since the widget delivers relevant links targeted by the theme of my blog, these should add value to my reader.
EXCEPT…
I don’t have any incentive to do it - since BlogRush only rewards blog owners for ‘impressions’, not ‘clicks’.
I could get the same ‘traffic exchange’ credits and benefits from placing the widget right down at the bottom of my blog, or on the right side bar near the end where it won’t be obvious unless a visitor SEARCHES for it!
Hmm…
Ok, so if I go ahead anyway and make BlogRush visible easily, will a blog visitor really be interested in clicking on these links?
It depends on what kind of visitor sees it. Visitors to my blog, fall into 3 broad categories
readers
skimmers
clickers
Readers spend, on average, 3 to 4 minutes on the blog. I assume they actually read my posts. For instance, if you’re reading this, you’ve already spent over 30 seconds here, and will read for another 2 or 3 minutes - if I continue to grip your interest.
Skimmers spend half to one-third as long. Maybe they look at post titles, read the first paragraph or two, and then go to the next item that grabs their attention.
Clickers come to my blog ready to leave. They do leave, unless I grab them by the eyeballs and hold them back… by being daring, outrageous, controversial, hilarious, or shocking.
And, very likely, this last group is the one that BlogRush will deliver TO your blog from other places in greatest proportion. It is also that group which will click OUT of my blog - if they can see the widget easily!
It’s obvious that ‘converting’ this crowd into taking action on your blog is the hardest of all three categories - so bloggers will have a real challenge with BlogRush traffic… unless your profit model itself is based on them clicking a lot of things on your blog (think Adsense or affiliate pay-per-click style revenue streams).
But wait, there’s more…
What about readers and skimmers? Won’t they click on BlogRush links too?
Of course they might - after they’ve had their fill of your content, as long as you’ve kept them hooked with valuable material, they’ll likely want to find other related links - and BlogRush will offer them.
And then, depending upon the links served up by BlogRush, 3 things could happen.
- The links may SUCK. And if they do, a blog reader who is disappointed a few times will stop clicking on links in it - ever again
- The links may be SO-SO. Again, that’s just as bad. A less than delighting user experience will not be rewarded richly
- The links may ROCK. And if they are overwhelmingly excited by what they find, blog readers will keep clicking on BlogRush links to find useful, entertaining, meaningful, relevant, exciting content - and maybe even make it their first-choice blog surfing tool!
Think it won’t happen. Think about GOOGLE in 1999.
I first started using Google as my first choice search engine for this very reason - they threw up relevant, helpful results in the top 10, when competing services like Yahoo and MSN Search were filled with junk results that took time to wade through. (Now, Google has become the same, sadly!)
And that’s POTENTIAL GOLD - for Blog Rush, as a concept.
If that early visitor experience using BlogRush can be made a delightful one that makes them go ‘WOW’, BlogRush could become the magic widget of the blogosphere.
Now, let’s step back from how blog visitors might perceive BlogRush, and see how bloggers and blog owners view this tool.
BlogRush promises a lot. Traffic. A lot of it. More, if you recruit a ‘downline’.
We’ve talked about what kind of traffic is likely to hit your blog through BlogRush. Now let’s see how MUCH of it you’ll get.
Marketing such a program to make it sound exciting is easy. The ‘10 level referrals’ make it possible to project huge numbers. It’s like if I gave you one gold coin today, and doubled it every day, you’d have a fortune bigger than Bill Gates in less than a month.
And ‘believers’ get carried away by the ‘coin every day’ myth, hoping all they have to do is install the widget on their blog and traffic will magically start pouring into it.
But who’s got the ‘gold coin’? And why would they give it to you?
BlogRush, in essence, is a traffic exchange. EXCHANGE. Not fountain, or spring, or gifting service.
You send it traffic - it sends you traffic BACK.
Which reads: He (or she) who has traffic gets MORE traffic.
I feel sorry for the hopeful blogger who is just starting out, and dreams of jumpstarting his blog readership by adding the widget to his sidebar - and then waiting for the flood to begin. There are better ways to get the initial burst going - I detailed many in the ‘How To Launch a New Blog - in 14 days’ tutorial.
Where’s the danger in this? After all, if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, right?
Wrong. Bloggers are passionate. And passionate people can be VICIOUS - when things go wrong.
Many are being roped in by the dream of free, easy traffic. When they are let down (or even FEEL let down), I fear a backlash of ire across the blogosphere, all condemning the ‘dream merchants’.
Can BlogRush weather that storm and stand up to the hostility?
And then, there’s the ‘incentivization’ benefit from telling friends to sign up for BlogRush too.
It runs TEN LEVELS deep. Sounds exciting. And it is, if you’re one of the first 10 or 50 people to be telling the world about it.
Oh sure, you still ‘might’ hook a big blogger in your ‘downline’ - but don’t count on it. Plus, there’s a definite upper limit to this… until the widget has proven it’s value, not in terms of traffic delivery but in DELIGHTING READERS.
How do I mean?
In this scenario, the ‘early adopter’ is one who is desperately seeking more blog traffic. They are all aboard the bandwagon - because they have little to lose from a bad visitor experience!
But if BlogRush is to go ‘mainstream’ and if big bloggers are to start using it, the widget itself needs to offer value. And to bloggers with a loyal following, just ‘extra traffic’ doesn’t cut it.
I would never risk offending my blog visitors by shoving a widget with links in their face if I felt it directed them to ‘inappropriate’ websites - poor content sites, competitors, or other forms of undesirable links.
BlogRush has a built in filtering process, which will get better with time. The crunch comes when it is fine-tuned and humming along… how delightful will the user experience be?
No one but John Reese and his team know the answer to that (maybe not even them!) And in that user experience will rest the ‘next level’ of growth - NOT in the viral marketing ‘buzz’ that’s all over right now.
The final piece in the puzzle, the last group of players in this game, are the creators and owner of BlogRush.
They doubtless have spent days and weeks planning a strategy and executing it. John Reese is a smart guy. His experience with running one of the most popular safelist programs, Opportunity.com, should come in use here.
And John Reese’s attitude of being obsessed with providing ‘client value’ in everything he does is a strong plus point that bodes well for the future of BlogRush.
Then why is the title of this review:
Why I Think BlogRush Won’t Work - And Why I Hope I’m WRONG!
… instead of ‘BlogRush Will RULE’ ?
Because I believe the chances of BlogRush making it ‘over the hump’ of broader based user adaptation is very small. There has been a rush of ’stars in their eyes’ opportunists crawling all over this thing.
If they don’t destroy its potential value by spamming and scamming the database with junk content, they’ll whine and groan when dreams don’t come true to the point an unbiased user trying to make a decision based on merits later on will find it hard to cut through the clutter.
The baying of the masses will drown the voice of sanity… and BlogRush may be a hapless victim of mass psychology… wisdom that says: “Go with the herd!”
But I hope I’m wrong - because John Reese is a guy I want to see win at EVERYTHING he does. Because he’s one of the nicest people I’ve never met (yes, NEVER yet - though I hope to meet him someday, it hasn’t happened… yet).
And for that reason, I’ll hope my instincts are wrong in this instance, and that BlogRush will rise to higher and higher levels.
But I’m not betting my farm on it!
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Did you like this review - or not? Please leave a comment either way - I’ll at least know someone’s reading this stuff!
