Cafe Witness

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Test-Driving BlogRush

Andy Quayle asked (via Twitter) if anyone else was using BlogRush. Having never heard of it, I checked it out and, suitably interested, dedided to give it a shot myself.

What Is BlogRush?

It's a traffic aggregator for your blog.

See the new BlogRush widget in my sidebar? Those are all links to other people's blog posts, which BlogRush thinks cover some of the same bases as my own blog posts. Kind of like Google ads, but for blog referrals instead of retailers.

How Does Blog Rush Work?

That remains to be seen, since I just installed it. But, in theory, every time someone comes to this site, one of my blog posts gets pinged out into the BlogRush referral network. If I get 100 visitors a day, the BlogRush network will ping my posts through that widget 100 times.

Where it gets interesting is in the "tiered structure" of referrals: if you sign up for BlogRush by clicking on the tab below the widget (or by clicking here), my blog(s) get additional views via the BlogRush network. (And if someone signs up through your widget, we both benefit... and on and on...)

So It's a Pyramid Scheme?

I'm not sure.

On one hand, yes, it does seem structured that way. But since the resources being aggregated are page views, not actual cash, it somehow seems more benevolent, no?

On the other hand, it could easily become a tool for spammers, so I'm very interested to see how BlogRush combats that.

And, lastly, I have no idea how this applies to RSS views. If someone reads my blog posts in a reader and never actually visits the site... does that register as a "visit"?

It's all food for thought, but I'm interested in seeing how it plays out. I'm also interested in seeing how accurate the widget aligns other blog posts with mine. Semantic web, here we come...

Labels: , , , , , ,

2 Comments:

  • Hi Justin,

    Here's something fun for you maybe. If we don't provide you with a better click-through rate than BlogRush, we'll paypal you $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-onli.html. Let the games begin?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:31 PM  

  • It can't really have success, I feel so.
    site

    By Anonymous Steven, at 12:50 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home