I only manage my client’s affiliate every weekend and Performics’ ConnectCommerce is down. It’ seems like I’m gonna have to wait for now. Waste of time.
Sigh.
BlogRush, a free service that was created to help bloggers get more readers for their blog just decided to shut down.
This is the email from John Reese:
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
I’ve used BlogRush once but never found it helpful to my blog. It was a cool service though. However, even the coolest service these days cannot survive without a bullet-proof business model.
It’s just sad to see another free service go to the dead pool.
Good luck to John and the rest of the BlogRush team.
I don’t know if this has been announced already. But I just noticed a URL parameter on Google Ads. Coordinates.
They’re probably starting to track click coordinates on graphic ads. Google can/should provide Google Adwords users heatmap statistics on graphic ads pretty soon. A feature already being offered by Crazy Egg for some time now.
This is just too good to pass.
Try it at http://home.microsoft.com (It’s still there, until they fix it)
jQuery.com pulled the Javascript Rockstar graphic responding quickly to user feedback.
The jQuery team left an Easter egg on the website as a token of appreciation. Just enter the famous Konami code to view it.
Hint, it’s really cool!
Personally, I say it looks good. Not great, but good. Some jQuery users however don’t like the redesign. Get the scoop on jQuery’s blog.
I’ve created a new userstyle.org + stylish version of my old Cleaner FriendFeed for the new FriendFeed Beta that was launched hours ago. Grab it here.
Here are the screenshots (before and after)
Before Cleaner FriendFeed
After (Cleaner FriendFeed Beta applied)
So what were the changes?
* Cleaner and cool look and feel (FriendFeed Beta is already clean, this makes it a lot cleaner)
* Different font style
* Highlights friends comments with baby yellow (instantly know that the user is already your friend)
* Highlights your comments with baby blue (it’s cool to see your own comments from river of comments. Looks good when you are a distance away your computer, makes your comment a marker in conversations)
* Dims comments from non-friends (normal color of FriendFeed comment)
* Separated each posts with a bottom border
This userstyle brings the FriendFeed conversation to another level by instantly letting you know…
1) Your own comment (Powder Blue)
2) Your friends comments (Light Yellow)
3) Your non-friends comments (Normal FriendFeed Comment Color)
As FriendFeed becomes popular, you’ll definitely need some kind of instant and attention grabbing color that catches your eyes and tell you where you left off in a conversation.
Hope you like it.
You can download/install it over here.
I just got my free Adobe Flex 3 Book courtesy of Adobe. This is going to be another addition to my knowledge as a newbie in Flex.
What I got was a pocket guide, really small but packed with newbie information to get you started and most of all get you up to speed on Adobe Flex 3.
You can also grab a free book here and expect 3 weeks for shipping. Mine came 2.5 weeks via FedEx.
Thanks Adobe!
First off, what is Baidu? Why does it make sense to submit all your websites there? Ok, simply put, Baidu provides an index of over 740 million web pages, 80 million images, and 10 million multimedia files. According to Compete, the Baidu has more than 1.5 million monthly visitors. And that’s the main reason why.
I can’t understand Chinese. How and where do I submit my site? Here’s how:
1) Go to this URL: http://www.baidu.com/search/url_submit.html
2) You should see something like this:
Just enter your URL (web address) on the first input box.
3) Enter the code that you will see just right at the bottom (It’s Y2C2 in my case. That code changes randomly).
4) Click the submit button beside it and you’re done!
Easy huh?
Here’s the URL again http://www.baidu.com/search/url_submit.html, bookmark it for future use.
Here’s the English translation if you really wanted to know.
