Sep 17 2007

Bloggers Are the Biggest Copy Cats

Over the weekend we saw the rise of two programs that can benefit bloggers, that is Blog Rush and DealDotCom. Over the weekend I also saw nearly every blogger I read (which is a lot) post about these two programs.

Just Because John Chow Does It…

Doesn’t mean your going to make money on a program too. Just because in his next earnings report he will be posting how much he made, doesn’t mean you will. He WANTS you to sign up under him. Then the referrals you get, he will get part of that too. John Chow will tell you that DealDotCom is “one of the best affiliate programs on the net”, but just because he says so, doesn’t make it one.

Offer a Different Point

We saw this in the emergence of the top 100 making money blog list, everyone posted about it. I tried to make my post somewhat different, but I also wanted to mention it because we are a top 20 blog.

However this past weekend I saw tons of posts that were almost duplicate (with different wording). With dozens of other blogs why should I read your post? Why should I sign up under you as a referral? Why are you and the rest of the blogosphere boring me with a post I’ve read 10 times already?

A Shining Light…

I’m becoming more of a fan of Bloggrrl. She wrote the only post that was different from everyone elses. It’s titled Why I Will Not Make Money with DealDotCom. It’s an interesting post and she even got to throw in another affiliate program, that flowed with the post. She is still banking on the hype, but making the post her own.

Why I Didn’t Jump on the Bandwagon

Besides the reasons posted above there are other reasons why I didn’t buy into the hype. Does DealDotCom remind you of anything? Agloco is the first one that came to mind. I’m not saying that they won’t pay, I’m referring to the huge hype before the launch, and then the huge let down once it did launch. I’m not going to tell anyone they can make money off of a site that I’ve never made money on.

With Blog Rush, it’s a bit different. I replaced the mybloglog widget with a blogrush code. Before I posted about “how great Blog Rush is” I wanted to know more about it. Why post about “how much traffic you can get” with blogrush if you don’t even know yourself?

When blogging be unique and different, don’t just throw your post in the bunch. Chances are if you aren’t different from the ‘big guns’ they will get the referrals and you won’t.

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    1. Link Love Episode 3 | Blogging Bits wrote:

      […] Digg Just because John Chow does it, doesn’t mean your going to make money on a program too – Bloggers Are the Biggest Copy Cats Most hard questions have simple answers. The hard part is in the doing – The ‘Simple Web’ […]

      September 23rd, 2007 at 11:38 am
    2. September 2007 Stats and Earnings wrote:

      […] Bloggers are the Biggest Copy Cats […]

      October 2nd, 2007 at 3:40 pm
    3. Having Integrity While Blogging wrote:

      […] already wrote about why I didn’t jump on the Blogrush and DealDotCom bandwagon. Just as several others did, I received a tip from Jim Kukral about the launch of WidgetBucks. I […]

      October 4th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
    1. Bloggrrl said:

      I’m glad you enjoyed that post! I’m still debating Blogrush. I signed up, but I just don’t know about that widget. I’ll probably try it for a bit just to see. Still. Personally, I wouldn’t click on it.

      September 17th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
    2. Stefanie said:

      Even though this post has a serious tone it is still very funny! I am very anti John Chow for this very reason. Everybody worships him and it makes me sick. They want to make the same amount of money as him (hey 17k a month could do me well!) but they use him as a referral for things! They will never make that amount of money because they aren’t going to have hundred of referrals under all their programs like John Chow does. I am all about signing up for programs under someone else because I like to help people, but not John Chow! Why help a very rich man get even more rich. Go to a little blog and sign up under them. Everyone should boycott John Chow and then we’ll see what his earning reports look like!!!

      September 17th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
    3. Rhys said:

      Dammit Matt! If you had posted this last week, I would’ve included you in this list

      http://www.gospelrhys.co.uk/2007/09/10-black-sheep-bloggers.html

      Full kudos to bloggrrl though, she is brilliant for that post.

      Incidentally Stefanie there’s a similar blogger called Jem (but she’s a non-profit blogger) who is one of my readers. I get tons of traffic from her because she’s a PR6 blogger and more giving than John Chow would ever be. Hell, even if I make a post about making money online, and she likes it, she links to my post, with my referral code still in there **evil smiley**

      But however her readers worship Jem worse than John Chow, so like her, whilst I have every respect for John Chow, I have little respect for his readers.

      Also Stefanie, may like to check out a blog by Geedos, he pissed a lot of JC’s readers off by propelling himself to the upper echelons of the top commenter list by leaving relevant comments.

      September 17th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
    4. Jayne said:

      Excellent post, and great points.

      I’m not planning to join Blog Rush just yet, as the last thing I need is ANOTHER widget on my sidebars, and I’ve seen tons of them myself, but never clicked on them, so I wonder if anyone else would either.

      This is my first time here, and I really like your blog!

      September 18th, 2007 at 2:54 am
    5. cardiogirl said:

      I agree that bloggers jump on the bandwagon much too quickly. Clearly marketing works and BlogRush (to name but one company) has clearly targeted its audience and its message with fantastic results.

      Now having said that I, too, have added BlogRush to my blog (cringes internally). However, I have not written about it yet. Someone somewhere said she got 40 hits due to BlogRush in the first 8 hours.

      So far I have had the widget for about 12 hours with no hits. It said on its homepage that you must wait at least 24 to 48 hours for results.

      So I hear you on the hype, brutha. My first response to BlogRush is that I do not like how large the widget is. It’s kind of garish (in my opinion) but I guess if it’s going to deliver results than I can overlook that. Time will tell.

      Good post!

      September 18th, 2007 at 2:58 am
    6. kher Cheng Guan said:

      I know bloggrrl purposely wrote a different view about dealdot.com. That’s the only thing. But she also joined in the crowd writing about this new talkabout affiliate to put up as a post in her blog like the rest. According to her post she said she didn’t signed up! And she even wrote 5 reasons why she is not signing up. Now she said she has the gut to say that she signed up just to try and see!!You believe her post now? Just linkbait, don’t be so naive! That’s why I mentioned the word “purposely” in the opening line. Did you see her accompanied visual of cross-dressers? This is her forte. Sexual innuendoes. Read back all her past posts.

      September 18th, 2007 at 8:06 am
    7. Stefanie said:

      Thanks Rhys, I’ll have to find those blogs! I wanted to make a JC haters club, but my husband said that was going a little too far!! hehe

      September 18th, 2007 at 9:56 am
    8. Robert MacEwan said:

      Let’s see if I get this right. Bloggers are copycats. Everyone has jumped on the dealdotcom train and we are different because our postings were negative?

      @Stefanie,

      JC as in JohnChow or JohnCow? Chow gives a portion of his money to charity so I fail to how this is bad. Cow is the crackdealing semiretarded autistic stepbrother of Chow but isn’t secret about making the blingbling money. Chow would give money to a church where Cow would hire a stripper.

      September 18th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
    9. Matt said:

      Stef: Yeah it could be a little humorous in there, especially when I was referring to the John Chow thing

      Rhys: Thats okay you have a great list of bloggers in there anyways, I wouldnt want to outshine anyone, lol just kidding.

      Kher: It was still a good post nonetheless. She still banked in on the buzz of the it, but still managed to promote an affiliate program that wasn’t dealdotcom

      Robert: I’m not sure what you mean? We love the cow here 😉

      September 18th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
    10. Bob said:

      So why not jump on the blogrush bandwagon? Doesn’t cost a thing. Why waste time on yet another john chow bashing post? What’s wrong with the guy? He doesn’t really kill pandas you know.

      September 18th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
    11. Matt said:

      Bob

      I’m not trying to bash john chow, I read him daily etc. What I am bashing is the bloggers who basically try to do everything he does. He signs up for dealdotcom, within a day theres 50 posts talking about how great it is, yet no one even knows! Because its not officially launched yet!!

      The bloggers who start promoting it after him, are really only gaining him more money, and will get very little for themselves, if any.

      September 18th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
    12. Karen Bryan said:

      I”ve signed up for Blogrush but what is important is how many clicks you get to your blog posts from the Blogrush widget. So what if you get your blog title displayed thousands of times if nobody actually readers your posts. If Blogrush can offer links to quality blogs in your topic area and your blog titles are eyecatching and visitors are impressed by your wonderful selection of interesting, informative and entertaining posts and become regular readers it will be great. I’m waiting to see if it’s all hype or if there is substance.

      September 19th, 2007 at 2:26 am

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