Shortly after I started this blog, I discovered BlogRush, a new product that purportedly helps send traffic to your blog. I must say, I have been very unimpressed so far. I am not issuing a verdict at this time, as they still may be able to pull it together, but so far … not so great.
The concept of BlogRush is that you create an account, select a category, and then put this Blogosphere widget on your site (look over on the right, below the Google ads). I selected Writing and Literature as my category, even though I easily could have selected any of several others. Your Blogosphere widget then will show links to five other blog entries from your category. The number of times you get to appear on other people’s Blogosphere widgets is based on a complex Syndication Credit formula, which itself appears to be based largely on your own site traffic. (How they make any money off all this is beyond me. I assume they’re hoping to corner a specific market so that Google will buy them.)
BlogRush, in theory, has this cool dashboard that shows you your information. So far, it’s never worked. Based on the emails I’ve received from founder John Reese, they encountered several problems after the launch, many caused by people trying to cheat the system. Imagine that–people trying to cheat the system. Who woulda thunk.
Mr. Reese has sent out a number of lengthy rambling emails discussing the issues they’ve had. Some of these emails have been rather … well, odd. The most recent one was a 2,484 word, 95 paragraph email that featured lots of emphatic asterisks, words and phrases in all-caps, and a nice peppering of exclamation points (or, as they say in England, exclamation marks). The email included passages like this:
So for all you cheaters that joined BlogRush and had your fun trying to siphon off some traffic, hopefully it was fun. And I’ll go ahead and make this statement right now… IF you were one of the people that has been cheating our network I’m going to give you ONE opportunity… quit now and we’ll pretend it never happened. I think that’s more than fair.
BUT… if you continue after this point, all bets are off. We WILL eventually discover what you’re doing, where you’re trying to send traffic, and we will prosecute you. I GUARANTEE IT. Sorry, but WE HAVE NO CHOICE NOW.
* If you’re one of our valued, HONEST users, I’m very sorry you even have to read stuff like that. I know it’s a waste of your time. Unfortunately, there are unethical people in this world that attempt to abuse and take advantage of others.
Kind of weird, huh? This appeared near the bottom of Page 3 of 6 if you pasted the email into MS Word. The email ends with this:
I’ll be in touch when I have more “news” to share. Thanks for reading this long letter. I had a lot to tell you about. :-)
(There’s that sideways smiley face again.)
To be honest, the whole letter was a waste of my time, although it did introduce me to BlogRush “flavors,” which means I can have that widget on the right over there show up in a variety of bright, cheery colors. (There are thirteen “flavors,” including Licorice–which is what I’m using–grape, chocolate, watermelon, and the always tasty aqua.)
There are other oddities as well. Along the bottom of the BlogRush Web site are some handy links to FAQs, terms, privacy, contact, help, etc. Once you log in, however, you automatically are redirected to your under-construction dashboard. Even if you try to get back to the home page, you can’t while you’re logged in. And the dashboard does not include these links. There is a help tab that has some of the information (on a page that currently has several broken images), but not all. So, the only way to get to the privacy statement or terms or the video on the home page is to sign out. Also, the Blogosphere widget on my site occasionally links me to sites that don’t include the Blogosphere widget on theirs. Maybe those are some of those cheaters we were warned about.
Like I said, I’m not giving up on this product yet, but I’m very close.