We’re hard at work improving BlogRush — thanks to your suggestions!

We’ll soon be adding A LOT more categories to our network — Fitness, Fashion, Crafts (and specific hobbies), MMA (and other individual sports), specific religions, political types, and much, much more.

UPDATE: I’ll add categories that others post in the comments (along with the ones I mentioned above) that I am pretty certain we will add:

FITNESS
FASHION
CRAFTS
SELF HELP
WORK AT HOME
MMA
GOLF

Want To Suggest A Category? Let Us Know (Post A Comment)

By adding more specific categories we’ll be able to serve more relevant blog headlines and thus increase the click-rates across the network — which increases the traffic for everyone.

Bonus Traffic Reporting

We’re working to add “Bonus Traffic” to the Dashboard. Right now many users are getting a lot of bonus credits and clicks and you’ll soon be able to view that data.

This is only the beginning… we have TONS of improvements in the works. Stay tuned.

I meant to edit the previous “we need feedback” post and instead deleted it. That’s what I get for having 3 windows open at the same time and trying to do some clean up… anyway, thanks to everyone who posted their feedback. I was asking people’s opinions about widget placement and should we require everyone to place it high or have no requirements. The majority of comments leaned towards not having any specific requirements. So as of now, that’s the direction we’re leaning towards. We may, however, issue bonus credits for anyone that gives the widget higher placement.

You’ve asked and we’ve listened!

Introducing, BlogRush Flavors. (They’ll be available in a few days.)

You’ll be able to choose the color of your choice so it more closely matches the design of your blog.

MORE NEWS…

It seems that some people are trying to call BlogRush a “pyramid scheme” or stating “there’s just no way the future impressions will ever be able to be served based on the promises of what referrals will bring. The math is impossible like other schemes of this kind.”

Anyone that is saying this doesn’t understand how BlogRush works…

EVERY SINGLE IMPRESSION GETS REWARDED FOR *THAT* IMPRESSION AS IT HAPPENS. There is no “promise” of future rewards based on referral activity today. Each and every impression of the widget (and impression of the 5 headlines per widget) is rewarded AS IT HAPPENS. And when all the math is said and done, it also leaves 1 out of every 10 headline spaces left-over for BlogRush to use to monetize the service. So apparently some people think it’s all based on false promises that the network will eventually “catch up” and pay rewards in the future. This just isn’t the case. Every single impression that occurs is calculated and rewarded to the generations ‘above’ — that’s how the math has to work.

We’re working hard to move to the 100% Manual Review Process as quickly as possible, and other improvements.

As I’ve now said many times, our SOLE FOCUS is helping our members generate quality, targeted traffic. So we’re hard at work to make that happen.

We’re about 5 days into the launch of BlogRush and its growth has been nothing short of EXPLOSIVE. We’ve served over 40 MILLION blog headlines (i.e. blog post titles and links to the full post.) And each day that passes is serving more than the previous day — it’s truly growing virally.

By now you’ve probably seen write-ups and discussion about BlogRush all over blogs, discussion forums, and in email newsletters. Many have raved about the service while others have been very critical of it. We certainly welcome ALL criticism and feedback, good or bad. It’s the only way we will be able to improve the service to help our users generate more targeted traffic to their blogs.

Now I Know How Google Feels

Unfortunately, the bozos have come out of the woodwork and are trying to cheat the BlogRush system. We have quite a few users that are abusing the system — from running scripts to auto-load the widget, to other fraudulent methods to earn syndication credits for their account that they do not deserve.

These ‘cheaters’ are hurting the overall network and dramatically lowering the click-through rates for our good users. It’s obvious since their “impressions” are not even seen by humans and therefore are not sending any traffic to other users.

There have also been concerns about the QUALITY of blogs in the BlogRush network. Some poor quality blogs (I wouldn’t even call them blogs.. more like pages of junk and ads) have been added to BlogRush and it’s creating a problem.

What We’re Doing About These Issues

1. We’re moving to a MANUAL REVIEW process. No more automation. We will be reviewing ALL blogs submitted to BlogRush. If the quality of the blog is poor, they will not be allowed to participate. We’re going to start reviewing ALL the blogs that are currently in our network and will be disabling the accounts for poor quality blogs.

2. We’re continuing to add security measures to our system and we will be mass-removing any and all cheaters that we discover. We will not rest until the cheaters are WIPED OUT and kept from abusing our network. The manual review process will help eliminate most of them as legitimate bloggers that have put in the time to create a decent blog aren’t the types that are going to be abusing the system.

All of these changes will only benefit our users — it wil increase their click-through rates and drive more traffic to their blogs. It will also make sure that the blogs their widget links to are only quality blogs.

For everyone that has signed up for an account and has been testing BlogRush on their blog, thank you for your patience. Please know that we are working as quickly as possible to improve the service.

I was finally able to get a few hours of sleep…

When I woke up I took a look at our stats and was BLOWN-AWAY by the viral explosion that BlogRush is having across the Internet. I have “Google Alerts” setup to notify when anyone writes about BlogRush and the alert notices are flying in left and right. It truly is INCREDIBLE.

As many of you know, I’ve been marketing online “since the beginning” even in the early days of AOL & CompuServe, before the Web really took off. Well, in my 15+ years of online marketing experience I’ve *never* witnessed ANY marketing-related tool or service explode so fast in growth as I am seeing for BlogRush.

It will be downright ’scary’ (I mean that in a good way) to see where BlogRush is in 6 months from now.

AND WE’VE ONLY JUST BEGUN!

We have so many awesome additions and new features planned! As I ‘briefly’ mentioned in a previous post, we’ll be adding a ’sister’ site to our Income.com Network called TrafficJam.com. This site will help ALL BlogRush members automatically generate even MORE traffic. Just wait and see.

Our SOLE FOCUS is to continue to work hard to drive even MORE targeted traffic to our members’ sites. That’s it. Because with out that, nothing else matters.

Thanks so much to everyone for their valued support, feedback, and encouragement!

I wasn’t kidding when I posted last night that we were “going to make history!” at 3AM or so in the morning when we finally we able to launch.

~John

UPDATE: 9:30PM EST, Saturday, Feb. 15th: Thank you to everyone that offered to help out with this! We’ve selected some people from the comments and we’re going to see how they work out. If we still need additional tutorials made we will be contacting more people. THANK YOU!

Unfortunately, we had a slight mishap with one of our team members that was supposed to be creating “How To” tutorials to show people how to add BlogRush to different types of blog platforms… WordPress, Blogger, Movable Type, TypePad, etc. It was pretty much just a misunderstanding as this person didn’t understand the blogging stuff as we original thought — no biggie, it happens.

SOOOO… I’m looking for someone that wants to make some extra cash. I will reward you handsomely. Not only will we pay you a nice bit of cash, but I’ll also throw in a copy of Traffic Secrets 2.0 (as soon as it’s completed.)

Here’s what I need:

- I need someone to make some short, but thorough and truly step-by-step Camtasia videos showing how to successfully add the BlogRush widget to several different types of blogs… Wordpress, MT, Blogger, etc. etc. The more you can demonstrate, the better. And/or (if Camtasia isn’t possible) to show step-by-step breakdown (showing little screenshots of each step) of how to add the code successfully to many types of blogs.

I’m looking for someone that is a good teacher and will make it simple and easy for anyone to understand how to sign up for an account and then to get the code to load on their blog. * We have a lot of newbie users that really need the step-by-step hand-holding. Unfortunately, we were supposed to have all of this for our launch but our team member ran into some personal issues.

SO… if you are interested in helping me out and doing this work, please post in the comments below and use your real email address. Please explain in detail what you can do (i.e. how many blog types you can demonstrate, etc.) and how you would do it… Camtasia videos for each, just a written tutorial with screenshots or (ideally) BOTH. If you can express your “qualifications” or at least WHY you think you could do a good job, that would help — i.e. you’ve used a lot of the different blog platforms, or you’re just a whiz with that stuff anyway, etc. etc.

Also, any tutorials to help people create RSS feeds if they don’t have one. And/or how to setup an RSS feed on a blog platform that provides it, if they didn’t set one up yet.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS! You’d really be helping us out.

Thank You!

~John

UPDATE: 4:41AM EST. YOU CURRENTLY *DO NOT* NEED TO CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS TO ACTIVATE. IGNORE THAT MESSAGE. YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO GO BACK TO THE SITE AND LOGIN! POST HERE IF YOU ARE GETTING AN ERROR MESSAGE PLEASE!

Thanks to everyone who made a ‘run’ for the contest. I’ll be announcing another similar contest in a few days. Make sure you’re on our email list. The top 10 listed in their actual posting order (last post) were the winners!

IMPORTANT MESSAGE CONCERNING EMAIL ISSUES

If you are not receiving your confirmation email, make sure you look in your “Spam” or “Junk” folders. Some users have reported that Gmail and Hotmail auto-filtered those messages. Other ISPs might have also. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do us a huge favor… if you locate your email in your Spam or Junk folder, please find the appropriate link or button that says “Not Junk” or “Safe” or whatever the label is for your mail system. This will no only help you continue to receive our emails in your InBox, but it will help other users possibly not get filtered too. (THANK YOU!)

HAVING PROBLEMS?

Please post in this post’s comments section if you are having problems. And DETAIL your issue so we can try and help you.

WE ARE WORKING AS FAST AS WE CAN TO FIX SOME OF THESE BUGS. WE APPRECIATE YOUR FEEDBACK AND CONSIDERATION! PLEASE KEEP REPORTING YOUR PROBLEMS! Thank You.

-John Reese

Check it out at www.blogrush.com

Thanks for joining us for the ride, everyone!

Please go create an account and get the widget on your blog.

CONTEST: The First 10 People To Add The Code Successfully To Their Blog Wins…

A FREE COPY OF TRAFFIC SECRETS 2.0!!!!

* First 10 to post in the comments in this post and we are able to verify.

GOOD LUCK!

UPDATE: 3:02AM. “How long does it take to upload some files???”

Posted at 2:52AM. Saturday morning. (Early!)

* I was just told by our Lead Developer that he’s giving the 15-Minute Warning!

Let’s hope it’s actually 15 minutes and not another 3 hours. (hehehe. I know, I know cheapshot at the development team.) They’ve been busting their butts and we’re almost there!!!!!!!