I’ve leveled some criticism at BlogRush lately, as have some others. I’m not much for neutrality: if it works, I’m for it. If it doesn’t, I’m against it. In spite of my criticism, when BlogRush first came out, I said in my first post about it that I respected John Reese. That’s true. Here is a good reason why:
Unfortunately, the bozos have come out of the woodwork and are trying to cheat the BlogRush system…
…There have also been concerns about the QUALITY of blogs in the BlogRush network. Some poor quality blogs (I wouldn’t even call them blogs.. more like pages of junk and ads) have been added to BlogRush and it’s creating a problem.
This was precisely the thrust of my criticism: low quality headlines and blogs that weren’t worth clicking on.
John has responded with a plan:
We’re moving to a MANUAL REVIEW process. No more automation. We will be reviewing ALL blogs submitted to BlogRush. If the quality of the blog is poor, they will not be allowed to participate.
and:
We’re continuing to add security measures to our system and we will be mass-removing any and all cheaters that we discover. We will not rest until the cheaters are WIPED OUT and kept from abusing our network.
I hope he can make it work. In the meantime, I don’t think I’ll reinstate the BlogRush widget. I’m not desperate for traffic: I’m growing it organically through creating the best content I can and promoting/networking myself with other people.
I’m a little surprised that everyone got this excited over BlogRush anyway. In the end, it’s just a new “BlogCatalog” or “MyBlogLog” except that you get credit for your own blog’s activity and signing other people up.
I use both those communities, and for different reasons, but neither of them is much of a traffic draw when compared to other methods I use daily.
Jayne, thanks for commenting. I think the difference in the hype was that BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog were never specifically touted as a way to get free traffic through a pyramid scheme. BlogRush’s appeal is entirely selfish: get free traffic. None of these widgets are really of any benefit to your readers. I don’t have any of them.