Oct
29
The Death Of BlogRush
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Today is a sad day for me. I’ve made the tough decision to shutdown BlogRush. There’s just something that stinks about seeing one of your babies (i.e. ideas) end up failing.
While the service is still going strong (serving a few million impressions a day) I just don’t see things improving for our users. The click-rates across the network are dreadfully low (and getting worse) as so many Internet users now ‘tune out’ links and other ads on sites.
Because of this, and many other issues, I’ve made the tough decision to shutdown the service. During the next 24 hours we’ll be shutting things down. If you’re running the widget on your blog you’ll want to remove the widget code.
I expect that there will be many BlogRush critics that will rejoice in hearing this news and relish in saying, “I told you so” and that’s fine. At least I had the guts to take a risk and to at least give the idea a try. I’ve become a successful entrepreneur (online since 1990) because I am not afraid to fail. I’ve had many ideas that didn’t work, and this one certainly won’t be the last.
I know that my overall success is a direct result from taking action and trying a lot of things. THAT is the real secret to building wealth.
In regards to BlogRush, many of my blog readers might remember when I came up with the idea at 4AM and even made a blog post about it. You never know when a great idea might come to you. So always be prepared to be ‘ready’ for it.
But most importantly, be ready to TAKE ACTION and at least TRY, or nothing will change in your life.
Here’s the letter that’s going out to all BlogRush users and will be posted on the site shortly:
—-
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008To: All BlogRush Users
After careful consideration, we have decided to shutdown the BlogRush service. If you have the widget code on your blog you will need to remove it.
When BlogRush launched in late-2007 it spread like wildfire all over the Web. Thousands of bloggers were talking about it and the service exploded to become one of the fastest growing free services in the history of the Web. During the first year of the service it successfully served 3.4 Billion blog post headlines and the BlogRush widget could be found on blogs all over the world; even up until the moment we closed down the service.
BlogRush didn’t grow without its fair share of problems — from security issues to abusive users trying to ‘game’ the system to much lower click-rates than expected. We also had some problems with trying to fairly control the quality of the network, and in the process made many mistakes in deciding what blogs should stay or go. All of these issues, ultimately, limited the service’s full potential.
Our team worked very hard to try and build a service that would truly help bloggers of all sizes get free traffic to their blogs. This was our primary focus. Not once did we ever try to monetize the service with ads or anything else. BlogRush never made a single penny in revenue. We wanted to be able to help our users FIRST and then worry about monetizing the service later.
Unfortunately, the service didn’t work out like we had hoped. (It happens.)
I want to say “Thank You” to all of the great bloggers that at least gave BlogRush a test to see if it would work for them. We sincerely appreciate you giving the service a try.We have received several offers & inquiries about acquiring BlogRush, but we are choosing not to go that route. While many might think this is crazy, we truly feel it’s the ‘right’ thing to do for our users. Believe it or not, it’s not always about the money. In fact, BlogRush will have lost a small fortune when it’s all said and done, and it was by choice.
There were many things we could have done to monetize the service but we wanted to make sure it was going to benefit our users first.
Last but not least I want to say that I hope the failure of this service doesn’t in any way discourage other entrepreneurs from coming up with crazy ideas at 4AM (like I did with this one) and from “going for it” to just try and see if something will work.
Without trying there can be no success. And as we all know, ideas are worthless without action. The Web wouldn’t be what it is today without entrepreneurs trying all sorts of crazy ideas.
On behalf of the entire BlogRush team, we wish the best of luck to everyone with their own blogs, ideas, and crazy ventures.
Sincerely,
John Reese
Sep
22
* Sorry for the ‘blog vacation.’ I was traveling throughout Europe for two months on a much needed vacation. Regular posting will resume soon.
I always laugh when I see people on business and marketing forums say this…
“There are no secrets!”
“You can learn everything for free online!”
Etc. etc.
When it comes to consulting and/or selling one’s expertise there will always be those that believe every piece of knowledge or discovery is already known by others. And these same people believe that information can easily be found on the Internet — so they believe they have no need to invest in consulting, buying a training course, etc.
There is A LOT of extremely valuable business and marketing information that is not ‘publicly’ known. New discoveries are made everyday. Anyone that ever thinks they know it all in ANY market or area of expertise is an IDIOT. We should ALL constantly strive to learn more about our respective interests and industries.
As far as “secrets” are concerned, this is a different story. The word “secrets” has, and probably always will be, one of the most powerful words in the history of copywriting. And this is the reason that this word is often used to describe valuable information and is a popular choice to use in book and course titles. i.e. my own Traffic Secrets 2.0 product.
But even if every piece of knowledge and information was being freely discussed on the Web, from articles to discussion forums to blogs, etc., the information itself is essentially WORTHLESS.
When it comes to Internet Marketing information it doesn’t matter if you know a few tricks to get top rankings in Google, or ways to pre-sell a prospect to increase the conversion of an affiliate offer, or a few words you can add to an order form to decrease shopping cart abandonment…
The only thing that matters is YOUR STRATEGY.
How you use the tactics and techniques. When? How often? What tactics can you combine? In what order do you execute them? And so on.
I’ve known many Internet marketers that actually know more information and knowledge about IM than some ‘gurus’ do. Yet these marketers FAIL. They don’t have much success building their online business. They struggle and struggle often. They end up feeling bitter and thinking that the techniques don’t actually work — or at least as well as some say they do.
The problem is simple… they know or have all the puzzle pieces, they just don’t know what to do with them.
In order to succeed and see positive progress in ANYTHING you do for your business you must use a solid strategy. A plan of action that fully defines what needs to be done and when. And then a plan for how to use the results (good or bad) to progress from that point forward.
So my advice is to pay less attention to learning so much about individual tactics and techniques and focus on a bigger picture of how to use MANY things together in a solid plan.
Even if you knew everything, or could find it somewhere, you’ll still need to know ‘what’ to do with it. Don’t ever forget that.
If you’re one of my Traffic Secrets 2.0 customers then you know exactly what I’m talking about as the TS2 course is all about carrying out a specific strategy to produce a ton of targeted traffic and not just a bunch of individual ’secret’ tricks.
Aug
5
Happy TS2 Customers!
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Customers are receiving their courses and are excited about getting started!
If you need anything to do with your order, please don’t hesitate to contact Andy Hussong (andy@income.com) and he’ll be glad to help you right away. You can also call our office at (407)310-1000.
Here’s a great photo from TS2 customer Antonio Thornton…
* Matching TS2 pacifier not included.
Jul
31
TS2 Is Now Shipping
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I just got the confirmation from our fulfillment center that Traffic Secrets 2.0 is finally shipping. They received the foam inserts and reassembled the course cases and they are good to go.
Tracking numbers are being assigned and you will receive it via email as soon as your course has a tracking number. They are processing several thousand orders so your continue patience is sincerely appreciated. You should be receiving your tracking number soon and then your course shortly thereafter.
Thanks to everyone for their patience and understanding. We did not expect the unforeseen problems and this is the first product we’ve ever experienced a shipping delay with. Please know that our entire team was working very hard to remedy all the problems as fast as we could.
Jul
29
TS2 Update #3 (Tuesday, July 29th)
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Just a quick update for everyone that’s patiently waiting for their copy of Traffic Secrets 2.0…
The fulfillment center is just waiting on the final shipment of foam inserts (for securing the CDs that were coming loose in the case). They have been rushed to them and they should be receiving them any moment. Any soon as they receive them they will hurry as fast as they can to reassemble everything so the CDs are no longer loose — and, of course, start shipping everyone’s courses out ASAP as soon as that is done. So we’re almost there.
Just wanted to keep everyone up to date.
