Fortune Seeker Blog

I just spent the last 1-1/2 hours watching John’s newest video series for trafficsecrets2.0 and to say the least, I was blown away.

Now, those of you that have been around here awhile, know that I always respected John Reese, he’s one of the few teachers I could point to as true. However, when his blogrush widget came out, and my blogs were rejected, I deleted all the widgets from all my blogs and removed any links to his Income.com site.

Childish, I know. Hindsight is a good teacher.

With the prevalence of BlogRush, (it’s hard to find a marketing blog that doesn’t have it), my rant against this has been proven wrong.

His redo of the original Traffic Secrets, is an update like no other. And totally against the grain of almost any internet marketing guru out there.

Income.com looks like it is a dream come true for anyone wanting to earn a living from home on the internet, don’t waste a minute and head over there and check out his pre-launch video series.

Go to Traffic Secrets 2.0 and watch the videos. I guarantee you’ll be impressed.

And John, just in case you happen by. You have my sincere apology.

I’ll be in line to buy the upgrade to morrow at 12:00noon EST.

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I thought I was free of the disease, but it obviously got in my brain and clouded my thinking. I rambled on about how we were blogrush and power to the people stuff. I mean has my past finally caught up with me?

After four days, I came to my senses. Why on earth did I succumb to the BlogRash again?

Because it’s a very clever marketing virus and sometimes I’m not that smart, that’s why.

I mean who doesn’t want to be popular. Traffic is what we all crave, even Z-list bloggers like me. Personally, I don’ t want to think I’m blogging for an audience of one, even though that happens more than I care to admit. But, when the hype comes from someone you respect, you tend to overlook it. At least, I do. Is that a fault?

Like I said, I had four days to think on my Rash decision to put the widget back on my site. As I re-read my post and visited other disillusioned blogophyles that were rejected by the rashbot, the scales fell from my eyes.

You see, I started this site to help people that want to earn money online. (Pretty noble of me.) And part of that mission was to steer you away from the things that are not in your best interests. I’m sorry to say, but BlogRush is one of them.

I realize that what I have to say isn’t that important to the majority, but I was surprised to learn that I was not alone and that not all dissenters were Z-listers. And these real blogs shared my opinion that BlogRush hyped its way to the top and wasn’t worthy of our support.

So, after my re-evaluation I realized that everything I hated about this program was the same, except now there were graphs on a new dashboard.

But wait, they posted a cure, a way to delete my blogs from their system. I pressed the delete button and I am free at last.

I am sorry to say that I am removing John Reese from my favorites list also. I’m seeing him in a new light and it doesn’t flatter him.

For an excellent read on the whole hypefest known as blogrush, check out this article by Snoskred “The Echo Chamber Effect”

Look at this collection of blogs rejected by blogrush:

• SeoPedia: This site is loaded with content and worth a visit, but somehow doesn’t pass the mysterious BR Quality Review criteria.
• Techipedia: Tamar Weinberg, a brilliant young woman from New York, learned her awesome PR4 site was not worthy, probably because she saw through the hype from the start and never put the widget on her site.
• 134u.com: not enough posts?
• JohnCow: He was rejected and then got a personal letter from John Reese explaining that they had made a mistake. I noticed the widget was back on his site, and he paid homage to the IM gods with his lashing the naysayers.
• LocalSEOGuide: Check out the first comment. John Reese. Also check out the widget back on display. This site has excellent quality, but obvious mistakes (read: getting alot of internet exposure) like this one, get an immediate reply from Mr. Reese. A “case study in crisis management” is how the LocalSeo guide put it.
• Cindalou’s kitchen blues Another PR4 content rich site, I guess they don’t like recipes.
• Steve-Olson.com Yet another PR4 blogger with nothing to offer the blogrash community.
• WorldFamousPhotos.com

I’m sure there are a ton more, feel free to post them in the comments section below.

Okay, the revised BlogRush is released and my micro-protest against BlogRush had the effect I expected and that was… Absolutely “ZERO”.

I’m still not convinced of the benefits (if any) to the small blogger, but I’m going to give John Reese the benefit of the doubt and give BlogRush 30 days to prove to me it has any value to me.

I’ve got my Google Analytics set up, Sitemeter logging visitors, and my own webhosting stats configured to compare my stats with theirs. We’ll see.

I still believe strongly that we (the blogosphere) are BlogRush and that without us it doesn’t exist. And that we as a group, have enormous clout if we want it.

But, alas, most people are too enamoured with the internet marketing gods to stand up and say, “Huh?” 

I think deep down they think if they defend the gods and support them in their pillaging, that they’ll be deemed worthy of some scrap from their table.

I and all my fellow FortuneSeekers will not bow down to the IM gods. We know they are mere men and women and that most of these “gods” have deluded themselves with their own hype and greed.

I’m not saying that John Reese is among those self-deluded, but he has definitely taken the position that BlogRush is his. A real mistake in my humble opinion.

This a 2.0 world we’re in. We want to be part of the community, not serfs and peons with no rights.

So, why the change of heart?

I got the email from the John Reese autoresponder and I stopped in for a visit.

I’m a sucker for graphs and statistics and the new dashboard has me drooling. Yeah, well, that was a little too graphic, but let’s just say I really wanted to see it in action.

So, I’m going to re-install the widget through November and report any increased traffic that can be specifically attributed to BlogRush and if it’s as insignificant as I imagine, I’ll do as John Reese suggests and remove the widget.

I hope you’ll follow along.

As you can see, I took John Reese’s BlogRush widget off of my site. In fact, I took it off all my sites.  A protest that I don’t think will turn the world on end, but it does make me feel better.

For those of you that don’t know, the BlogRush widget is supposed to be a blog traffic exchange. I mean who doesn’t want free traffic?  See my post below.

Well, it all started the other day, when I submitted a new blog of mine, SynchroBeats.com, an information blog on binaural beats.  When I say new, I mean brand spanking new. It only has one post, but I’m working on about five different ones. I didn’t want to just slap up a bunch of regurgitated crap that’s on most of the other sites promoting binaural beats. I’m really excited about this site and want it to be special.

I’m convinced that these binaural beats have relieved alot of the stress I was under and I have a clarity of thought I haven’t had in a really long time.

So, anyway, there’s a new procedure over at Blog Rush, in that all blog submissions are now being reviewed by a live person to be sure it’s not a spam site (at least, that’s what I thought). So I put the link on my site and went to bed.

The next morning, I went to my site to write some articles and I noticed the widget was gone. So, I logged into the BlogRush dashboard to see if the site was down or something and was shocked to see that my blog was rejected!!! I’m a spammer?? I don’t even have adsense on this site. I do have some links to products I’m representing, but give me a break.

Not only that, all my other blogs were now under review.

Man, I don’t know who John Reese got to review these blogs or even what the criteria is, but obviously I’m not good enough.

I started giving it some thought.

For the last month I gave him a free place on my site to post links to other peoples blogs. What little traffic I get, could be lured away by a competitors blog on my site. Tell me again why this is good for me?

I thought I’d do some checking of the five or so regulars on this widget, most of them didn’t even have the widget on their sites. Where’s the exchange??

Now he wants the widget displayed prominently and said if we don’t like it, leave.

Hey John, I left.

I would ask anyone trying to monetize their site, going through the hassle of creating quality original content to generate natural search engine traffic, why you would invite your competitors to your site to take that traffic away?

I don’t see the value or the benefit and anyway, I don’t measure up to the other crap on the network.

My advice? Join Authority Site Central, real traffic and amazing content to help you grow your blogs to the money source they can be.

You see I’m just one of the little guys trying to make a go of it.

Any friend of mine knows that I love all things John Reese. His Traffic Secrets collection was the first product I ever bought that I can’t live without. I’m serious.

My son accidently threw away the box that had 12 of the Traffic Secrets cds in it. I panicked. I couldn’t call John and say, “You know that Traffic Secrets collection I just bought…”

I had to buy someone elses set on eBay cause it’s no longer available from John.

So I was reading the feed from his blog on Income.com and he is going to launch a new product.  He says it’s going to be historic. When a guy that made a million dollars in 18 hrs online and has been marketing online since before the web says something is historic, I need to know.

Anyway, like the thousands of other Reese-aholics, I eagerly awaited the launch of his first product on his Income.com site, BlogRush. It was supposed beta launch around midday, yesterday amd I was there at 12:00 noon hoping to be one of the first to sign up.

I logged on and nothing…..Oh, he’s good.

A master at building the suspense in a launch.   Remember, this is the guy that made a cool million dollars in 18hrs, did I mention that he spent $0 on advertising that launch? What’s he up to?

An update? They’re having technical problems with the server. Goes to show you that things happen even if you own the internet.

I waited until 9:30p and still no launch. I went to bed anxious. Was the world coming to an end as we know it? After a night of terminator-like dreams I awoke to find the cyberspace gods had intervened and all was well.

BLOGRUSH-Beta is online and…It’s the fastest and easiest way to drive a flood of targeted readers to your blog…Absolutely free.

Well, that what the page says.  I’m still logging in to set mine up.

Is it history in the making? Obviously in the literal sense it is already historical, we’ll just have to see. 

Check it out and be sure to tell John that theFortuneSeeker sent you.