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The people who are dissing Blogrush (dissing! old word, but good) need to take stock of their expectations. There is no Shangri-La.
If I understand the rules of Blogrush correctly, each user will get 100 impressions each day. So, my blog’s headline is displayed on 100 different blogs, at the most, each day, assuming I have enough credits to warrant that many. How many click-throughs did people expect? I have had six click-throughs today from Blogrush — so, 6 percent CTR. I have no idea if that’s good or not, but I know it’s six more readers today than I would have had without Blogrush. How could people expect a Stumble-like flood of visitors from 100 views/day?
But that’s not the best part. I have met other bloggers and been added to blogrolls because of Blogrush. The traffic from those relationships is considerably greater than click-throughs from the widget, and it grows every day.
Not to mention that I have learned a lot, and will continue to learn, from Blogrush.
I particularly liked John Reese’s post today about Blogrush: The First Seven Days and What it Can Teach You. (Although, as an English teacher I have to point out the subject/verb agreement problem with that title!) This guy is the kind of guy I’d like to work for because he understands that a great teacher admits mistakes and makes his or her learning process visible for students. Plus, he has the right attitude. That’s why I’m going to stick with Blogrush for a while.
I think Blogrush is like everything else. Success with Blogrush will be in how bloggers use it. I personally have used it as a surfing tool, and as a way to meet other Blogrushers. Like everything on the Web, it’s best when it’s used to build community.
Which leads me to the one thing Blogrush could do better: documentation. There really isn’t much in the way of help in answering questions about the product. Forums would be even better. That way, we Blogrushers could help each other, brainstorm about the product, and answer each other’s questions. This would (maybe?) take some of the stress off John Reese et. al. while making the Blogrush users more connected. I don’t like that leaving a comment on the already-overloaded income.com blog is the only way to ask questions or get help.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Andrew // Sep 25, 2007 at 10:01 pm
I agree with ya, Taylor. I don’t know why there’s such a hubbub of dissin’ going on. Blogrush seems just like all the other widgets you can toss on your blog. Except it looks a lot slicker and is super easy to put on. I remember when I first put up my code for MyBlogLog or Blog Catalog. It was ugly, klunky and had like 1 headshot on it. It took a while to slowly start filling in. Same with Blogrush. Traffic will grow in time, but short of buying links, nothing is going to bring you a true “Rush” of traffic, other than putting out the best possible content you can on your blog. So those naysayers should stop looking for the magic pill and worry more about what they want to say.
2 Taylor // Sep 25, 2007 at 10:19 pm
I couldn’t agree more. And you just reminded me of an experience I had writing movie reviews in the mid-90s. It was a lot easier to be clever when I was being negative than when I was being positive. I found a strong temptation to emphasize the negative about a film in a review, but the review would come out sounding much more critical than I really felt.
To be brilliant and informative without resorting to tricks like sarcasm and, as you put it, naysaying, is hard work.
And there’s no magic pill for that, either.
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