Confessions of a Six Figure Professional Blogger

BlogRush or BlogBust – A Pyramid Scheme?

September 19, 2007 | Blogging, Internet News

I made a quick mention of Blogrush a few days ago and have withheld major comment on it – until now. Leave it to John Reese to use his savvy marketing to create such a buzz about this product that bloggers have RUSHed to it in droves. I actually find the name ironic because it reminds me of the California gold rush. No doubt that is exactly the attitude John Reese wanted bloggers to have.

I have seen BlogRush all over the blogosphere. And bloggers generally fall into a few different categories on this:

  1. BlogRush is awesome. The next internet boom is here.
  2. BlogRush could be cool, but we’ll see.
  3. BlogRush is just another dumb gimmick.

Well, I was in the second category. The bloggers in the first category are the ones that are just a little too exuberant about it. They are mailing out their referral link to their mailing list. They are giving rave reviews of this thing. In all, they are being intellectually dishonest with their audience. Because here’s the deal…

I tried BlogRush out on PC Mechanic for a little bit. All in all, I gave them a boatload of traffic. The way the system works, each page view I give the widget earns me a credit and, hence, a syndicated view of one of my headlines somewhere in the network. Well, first off, they are WAY behind in delivery. They have delivered upon only about a tenth of the credits I earned. But, the syndicated displays they did give me (about 2,200) across the network resulted in only 2 clicks. I say again, 2 CLICKS!

Let’s do the math on that. That’s a click-through ratio of 0.0009%.

John Reese is a marketer. Even he can’t tell me he would continue investing anything (even if not money directly) into something that produces so little.

The only answer they give seems to be to improve your headlines. I’m sorry, my blog headlines are not bad at all. They perform quite well on other sites and get picked up fairly routinely. So, it’s not my headlines. It’s the fact that end users are not responding to BlogRush. Only the bloggers are, and they are in it for the traffic. So, it’s a one-sided pyramid scheme.

And pyramid scheme is exactly how BlogRush is marketed. Those who get in early are at the top of the pyramid and have the most to gain. Especially as other bloggers sign up using my widget. That’s classic MLM.

And it is those types of people who seem to mostly be signing up for BlogRush. The headlines I have been seeing mostly are from internet marketing sites. Makes sense, as those are the types of people who generally follow John Reese.

I’ll throw BlogRush a bone here. First, this is a brand new program. It is quite possible it will improve. I would imagine that the headlines will become more related over time. But, that doesn’t alleviate the problem which is that the design of this MLM pyramid basically builds in an off-balance situation in the network, where people are posting the widget looking for traffic but no end users are actually CLICKING on the widget because they don’t give a crap.

For now, BlogRush is not a rush. It might be a rush for bloggers looking for a quick fix of traffic. They might think that by attaching themselves to anything with John Reese behind it might be gold. But, as of now, it’s a bust. Instead of a rush, it is barely even a crawl.

Don’t get me wrong on one thing. I really admire John Reese. The guy is frickin’ talented. But, at this admittedly early stage, I see little value to taking up screen space with the BlogRush widget. I will continue to follow what experiences other bloggers have with it.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

  1. BlogRush – A Second Chance?
  2. Tony Robbins, John Reese, Frank Kern On The Power of You [Video]
  3. Blog Outposts – Master This and Traffic Isn’t a Problem
  4. How to Get a Brand New Blog Off The Ground [Traffic]
  5. AuctionAds a Waste of Time

Learn The Real Story On Blogging As a Business...

  • Get immediate FREE access to the Six Figure Blogger Blueprint
  • Get exclusive stuff NOT available on this blog.
  • Get the latest updates from the weird Risley man who runs this site.

Enter email:

  • David
    I don't know. I did check the Analytics reports and, at the time, the click count was accurate. No, I'm going to wait and see on BlogRush. It is too early to write it off.
  • Webby,

    Have you checked your referrers yet? I put up the BlogRush and it said I only had like 2 clicks but I got like 5 or 6 referrals in my analytics. Also, I don't have as many impressions but my CTR isn't that bad. I wonder if they're just trying to spread around the clicks initially?

    Any idea on how they're making money off this? Sending traffic to their own site, selling "ads" on a per-click basis? If so, not a bad deal on their part.
  • Here's a fun little challenge. If we don't provide bloggers with a better click-through rate than BlogRush, we'll paypal them $10.

    We've been working on some fun software that is already beating BlogRush on click-through stats (by a lot). I'd like to take advantage of this meme, put some money on the table, earn some valuable feedback, and have some fun.

    Details on our blog at http://blog.othersonline.com/2007/09/the-others.... Let the games begin?
blog comments powered by Disqus