BlogRush – What is it?

The other day a co-worker, Scott, tells me about this new blog syndication network called BlogRush. It’s a simple widget that you place on your site and it will show blog entries of other blogs. How is works simply is for every time the widget loads from one of your pages, you earn a credit. That credit in turn will buy you a spot on someone else’s widget. You show a blog, your blog is shown. A simple one-to-one exchange. So sites that you have no affiliation with whatsoever can potential drive people to your blog. How cool is that?

They also have a pretty nice referral system where the impressions on the sites of people you refer also earn you credits. Could be really cool if you get a lot of people to use you as their referral.

I’ve had it running for about 4 days now and so far it says I have 173 credits. I don’t really have any confirmation that my blog showed up on any other blogs but why would they lie? So far I would have to say that I like it.

On negative thing that I have noticed is that it seems that my site is running slower since I installed it. I actually read that on another blog about BlogRush today and that’s what made me realize it. In fact, their site is slow currently and I hope that this is not an indication of how things are to come, but rather a sign of growth exceeding projections. Hopefully they will straighten this out soon.

So go out there and add it to your blog. And while you’re at it, it can’t hurt to refer me so check them out here. Also if you have tried it, let me know what you think. I would love to hear other experiences with it. If you haven’t, give your opinions on it.

What do People Look for in a Blog?

I’ve been blogging for maybe a year now but nothing serious. Picked it up more in the past few months with my discovery of WordPress. It’s a truly great tool. I’ve never been much of a writer nor do I think I ever will be one. But I do feel that I have a lot of opinions about different topics and find this as a good way to get those out. But I got to thinking about what people look for in a blog.

Blogs are an important part of the internet today. Quite possibly the foundation of the Web 2.0 phenomenon. But why are some blogs more popular than others? Are they better written, have better content, what? I read quite a few blogs on a regular basis and wonder what those guys have that the average Joe doesn’t. I watched a video blog on ProBlogger.net last night that mentioned one blog that happens to come at the right time. He did a blog asking people what they thought about who had a chance to win American Idol and before he knew it, he had tons of people looking to talk about American Idol and who would win at his blog.

That seems like the easiest way to “make it big” in the blogsphere. That one hit that gets you noticed. Many blogs would love to have one article featured on Digg or one of the other popular book-marking sites out there. This will usually work to get a lot of users to your blog for a short period. But if my personal experience is common, I very rarely go back to a site that I have dugg.

I’m not sure of the magic mix to get a successful blog going but hopefully I find out someday. Would be fun to look back at this entry and think to myself that this was all crap and something else pushed me over the hump. If you like what I’m doing and want to know more, subscribe to my blog via email or via my RSS feed. Always feel free to leave me a comment, I like to hear what people have to say.