Blog Rush has continued to suffer from a bad case of  ‘gremlins’ in their system ever since they launched about a week ago. Regardless of their apparent growing pains, they at least have one extremely enviable trait. They communicate with their members and are big enough to admit when mistakes are made. Furthermore, they explain (sometimes ad nauseum) what their mistakes were and how they are doing to remedy these glitches.

As a member of this Blog Rush community, I am eagerly awaiting a seamless system that will deliver additional traffic to my blogs. Time will tell if they will be able to pull off this rather promising endeavor. I am attaching their latest communique for those of you that have not yet joined Blog Rush.

———————————————————————————-

“TO:  All BlogRush Members
FROM:  John Reese, Founder of BlogRush

ARE YOU READY?  Because *everything* is about to change.  Forget 
everything else up until now…

PREPARE FOR *BIG* CHANGES!  (TWO MAJOR CHANGES ARE NOW LIVE.)

BlogRush CAN’T EXIST if we’re not sending you a lot of ongoing, 
targeted traffic.  We fully recognize this and that’s why this is our 
ONLY FOCUS.

The BlogRush team has been hard at work making major improvements for 
you and we won’t rest until BlogRush is running 100% smoothly and 
sending you tons of targeted traffic!  This is OUR MISSION.  Please 
know that our entire team is working around-the-clock to make 
improvements and fix any problems AS FAST AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.

(We sincerely appreciate your patience.)

We’ve encountered some problems since our historic launch just over a 
week ago, and we fully recognize that we’ve made some real ‘goofs’ 
with the system for our Public Beta release…

For example, our data center provider (one of the largest in the 
world) had a short, temporary outage (they had to replace a network 
switch) two days after our launch.  We had no control over this 
outage but want to SINCERELY APOLOGIZE to those that saw this message 
on their blogs (where the widget should have been):

“We are currently experiencing some technical issues and the site 
will be back online shortly.  Please come back in a few minutes.”

We were completely *EMBARRASSED* when we realized this happened.  
That simple message was part of our application code and was meant to 
appear only on *OUR* WEB SITE PAGES if we ever experienced an 
outage.  This was accidentally ‘marked’ to be a global error message 
for ANY outage — including if our widget ever had a problem 
loading.  This was a major GOOF and we’re willing to admit it.  Our 
code was planned so that in the case of a problem with our widget, 
NOTHING WOULD LOAD in its place.  So a visitor to your blog doesn’t 
see an error or anything wrong should the widget ever have any 
technical issues.

This was quickly corrected and is now working properly.  Should the 
widget ever have any problem loading in the future, your blog will be 
served a transparent space (which will show whatever background your 
blog design has) and
your blog readers won’t really notice anything.

Again, our sincere apologies for our major goof.  It was quite 
embarrassing.

NOW ONTO SOME SERIOUS ISSUES…

We also realize that we completely underestimated the number of 
unethical people that would sign up and proceed to CHEAT and try to 
‘game’ the BlogRush system.  These cheaters ruined the click-rates of 
many of our members (and burned through a lot of their credits using 
automated ‘exploit’ methods) and hurt BlogRush’s ability to send 
maximum traffic to our honest members’ blogs.

BUT ALL OF THAT IS ABOUT TO BE ERASED… LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED.

In the next several days to come, we’re going to be rolling out MAJOR 
changes to BlogRush.  BIG changes.  And these changes (again) have 
just ONE primary purpose — to drive more ongoing, targeted traffic 
to your blog.

We’ve listened to your valued feedback and constructive criticism and 
we have been working in TURBO MODE to make the changes you want ASAP…

—– HERE’S WHAT’S COMING IN THE NEXT 48 HOURS —–

100% MANUAL BLOG REVIEW.

Our team is going to be manually reviewing every single new blog that 
registers to participate in the BlogRush Network.

We’ll be applying some quality guidelines and criteria to our 
decision-making process.  (We’ll be publishing these guidelines very 
soon.)  If a blog does not meet our guidelines and criteria, THEY 
WILL BE REJECTED from the network and not allowed to join — i.e. 
they won’t be able to serve our widget, refer other users, or have 
their blog posts distributed across our network.  They will have no 
access to any BlogRush services.

Our members, like YOU, made it LOUD AND CLEAR to us… BlogRush needs 
to only have members that have quality blog content — not blogs 
filled primarily with ads and other spammy looking JUNK.

The only accurate way we’re going to keep these junk blogs out of our 
network is to REVIEW EVERY SINGLE ONE BY HAND.  And we’re willing to 
do it to protect the integrity of our network.  I don’t care what it 
costs us to hire more people (if we need them) to review 100% of any 
blog trying to join our network.  We will be reviewing ALL OF THEM 
from here on out.

* We realize that several non-English language blogs blatantly 
ignored our “ENGLISH BLOGS ONLY” warning on our Registration page.  
Rest assured, though, they’ll all be PURGED from the network when we 
do our QUALITY CONTROL AUDIT over the next several days (you’ll read 
about it in a moment).

As I’ve said several times before, BlogRush isn’t some passing “fad” 
or short-term service.  We’re dedicated to building an incredibly 
valuable resources for bloggers FOR MANY YEARS TO COME.

We’ll also be doing a QUALITY CONTROL AUDIT of all of our existing 
member blogs.  We’ll be reviewing every single blog that’s currently 
in our network (or that registers before the Manual Review Process 
becomes active.)  And we’ll be completely *REMOVING* any blogs in our 
network that don’t meet our quality guidelines and criteria.

As you can probably tell by now, we’re not messing around.  We have 
put a lot of hard work into the development of this service and we 
will continue to bust our butts to make it one of the best Internet 
services in the world.  COUNT ON IT.

We’re also deploying several new Anti-Cheat measures to SHUTDOWN AND 
WIPEOUT the cheaters and unethical users that have abused our 
network.  Sorry, crooks, but THE FREE RIDE IS OVER.

We’ll be dedicating an entire department to stay on top of any 
abusive behavior in our network.  We believe that our new measures 
are going to instantly eliminate most, if not all, of our system 
abuse.  It’s going to take us a few more days to roll-out all of 
these measures (and to complete our entire QUALITY CONTROL AUDIT) but 
rest assured, BlogRush is about to go through a major TRANSFORMATION.

And a quick word to any ‘cheats’ that might be reading this 
letter…  it’s very possible that you may come up with something 
extremely creative that temporarily gets by us, but you should know 
something… IT’S NOT GOING TO BE WORTH YOUR TIME.  And I’m not just 
talking about the tiny amount of traffic that you’ll receive before 
we shut you off.

You see, we have other plans in the works…

If you attempt to cheat or abuse our network in anyway, shape, or 
form, we will not hesitate to come after you.  Our company is well 
funded and has plenty of resources.  And we WILL use them to punish 
you to the fullest extent of the law (and civil court process).  Oh, 
you think you can just hide behind some anonymous proxy IPs?  Sorry, 
it’s not that easy.  ANY reason you’d have to try and cheat the 
BlogRush network for traffic and any attempt you make to monetize 
that traffic will lead directly to your front door — whether it’s 
AdSense, any affiliate program in the world, any online pharmacy, 
porn site, casino… ANYTHING.  We will follow the trail and it WILL 
eventually lead to you.

Our hard-working company provides the income for MANY families.  As 
the CEO of our company, I take this very seriously.  I HAVE TO.  
People that attempt to abuse or cheat BlogRush are affecting the 
livelihood of all my employees and their families.  And I will do 
everything in my power to protect them — it’s MY DUTY.

So for all you cheaters that joined BlogRush and had your fun trying 
to siphon off some traffic, hopefully it was fun.  And I’ll go ahead 
and make this statement right now… IF you were one of the people 
that has been cheating our network I’m going to give you ONE 
opportunity…  quit now and we’ll pretend it never happened.  I 
think that’s more than fair.

BUT… if you continue after this point, all bets are off.  We WILL 
eventually discover what you’re doing, where you’re trying to send 
traffic, and we will prosecute you.   I GUARANTEE IT.   Sorry, but WE 
HAVE NO CHOICE NOW.

* If you’re one of our valued, HONEST users, I’m very sorry you even 
have to read stuff like that.  I know it’s a waste of your time.  
Unfortunately, there are unethical people in this world that attempt 
to abuse and take advantage of others.

MOVING ON…

—- ALSO COMING SOON! —-

**** A LOT MORE CATEGORIES! ****

You asked for it, and you’re getting it!

We’re going to be greatly expanding our directory of categories to 
increase the relevancy of post links appearing in the widget on your 
blog — this will also increase click-rates (and traffic) for all 
members.

* Stay tuned over the next several days for more news about the 
addition of new categories.

AND…

**** IMPROVED REPORTING! ****

The current Dashboard stats are being under-reported for all users 
right now.  This is the reason that users show discrepancies when 
looking at Google Analytics data (or other stats packages).  We’re 
currently sending more traffic to our users than we’re reporting in 
the Dashboard because we are giving all users bonus credits 
everyday.  We’ll soon be reporting all bonus credit activity so all 
the numbers will be accurate.

SPECIAL NOTE TO ALL LOW-TRAFFIC MEMBERS:  In the near future we’ll be 
giving our low-traffic members (those that need more traffic the 
most) the BULK of our bonus credit allocations.  You’ll get a ton 
more bonus credits than high-traffic members because you really need 
it.  It’s only FAIR!

* Also we apologize to anyone that has seen a “negative” credit 
balance for their account.  This is a minor bug that we’re taking 
care of.  It doesn’t mean anything and you can just ignore it for 
now.  We apologize for any confusion.

**** IMPROVED NETWORK DISTRIBUTION ****

A few of our users have noticed that they’re building up credits 
faster than the system is using them.  This will eventually balance 
itself out as the network continues to “adjust” to the growth levels 
and traffic patterns of each category — because our network provides 
syndication distribution based on daily average “cycles” and then 
adjusts moving into the future; so it’s able to accurately predict 
how fast to use a certain user’s credits, etc. — as compared to just 
using them all “as fast as possible.”

—- AND HERE ARE *TWO* BRAND-NEW ADDITIONS THAT JUST WENT LIVE!!!! —-

**** BLOGRUSH “FLAVORS” ARE NOW ACTIVE!

You can go login to your account, click the “Settings” tab and then 
select “Flavors.”

You can choose from (13) different widget colors.  You no longer have 
to only use our original “black” widget design that many users 
thought was ugly!  (Hey, just don’t let our lead designer hear 
that… he thought his black design was “really cool.”)

Now you can select a color that more closely matches the look of your 
blog.  Our users have been asking for this since we launched our 
Public Beta, and we’ve taken action to offer these new options.

* We have future plans for further widget customization but we’re 
working on one “stage” of improvement at a time!  Please bare with 
us.  We’re fully aware of the request for a more narrow widget as our 
current one doesn’t fit on some blogs.  We’re trying to produce a 
solution and should have some news soon.

HERE’S THE BEST PART…

You don’t have to copy and paste new code to your blog.  Just go to 
that “Flavors” section for your account, select the flavor you want, 
then hit the “APPLY FLAVOR” button.  That’s it!   Reload your blog in 
another browser window and take a look.

And if you want to see what a different flavor might look like, just 
pick another one, hit the “APPLY FLAVOR” button and reload your 
blog.  PRESTO! :-)

AND LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST…

***** BLOG POST CONTROLS *****

Under the “Settings” tab you’ll also find a new option called, “My 
Post Control.”  Here’s what this awesome new feature does…

You can create POST FILTERS for your blog posts…

For example, you can add a keyword or phrase and create a new post 
filter.  If you ever create a post on your blog (while you have that 
filter active — and you can add/delete them at anytime) that 
contains one of those keywords in the TITLE of your blog post, that 
post…

WILL *NOT* BE SHOWN ACROSS THE NETWORK.  And you won’t use any of 
your syndication credits!

All bloggers post “off-topic” stuff from time to time, or short posts 
that don’t have a ton of great content.  Well, now you can easily 
keep any of those types of posts from using your valuable syndication 
credits and from being shown across the network!

This is GREAT for you because now you can control exactly which posts 
of yours will be syndicated.  This can help you maximize your CLICK-
RATES and, ultimately, the traffic you receive from the BlogRush 
network.  AND it can help retain NEW READERS for your blog (your 
ultimate goal that can grow your blog’s traffic on a day-to-day basis.)

Here’s Why…

By selecting which posts get syndicated (by simply adding filters 
right BEFORE you publish a post on your blog that you don’t want to 
be used; or having setup one well in advance) you can make sure that 
you’re only syndicating your BEST POSTS.  The ones with top-quality 
content.  Your posts that a new visitor to your blog will enjoy and 
be much more likely to make a “YES!” decision to become a regular 
reader for you!

AND OH YEAH, ONE MORE THING…

This is only the very beginning for BlogRush.  We have so much great 
stuff in store for you!  As I said at the beginning of this 
letter…  we will continue to work VERY HARD to make improvements 
and add-ons with ONE PRIMARY FOCUS…

To drive more ongoing targeted traffic to your blog.

I want to personally THANK YOU on behalf of our entire company for 
your interest in BlogRush.  We’ve received a lot of criticism from 
many bloggers on the Internet, and we’ll be the first to admit we’re 
not perfect and a lot of it was WELL-DESERVED.

But please know, we’re busy working around the clock FOR YOU.  You 
have our word on it.

Now go login to your account and try out some of the new “Flavors” 
for your blog!  And also start setting up some Post Control Filters 
so you can start maximizing your content syndication.

I’ll be in touch when I have more “news” to share.  Thanks for 
reading this long letter.  I had a lot to tell you about. :-)”

—————————————————————————-

That was a rather long winded explanation of events, but I find it rather refreshing in some sort of twisted way. If you are still reading this, I would recommend that you sign up at Blog Rush and keep your fingers crossed.

You can signup here: Blog Rush

http://www.blogrush.com/r17167097

http://abcarticledirectory.com/blogspot/

Technorati , , ,