The Death of BlogRush
Posted on by Ryan Deiss in Blogging
I gotta give props to my buddy John Reese on his decision to shut down BlogRush.
You can get all the details at:
http://www.income.com/blog/2008/10/29/the-death-of-blogrush/
Pardon my crudeness, but it takes balls to risk your own cash and pursue a big project like this.
That being said, it takes MUCH, MUCH bigger balls to make the hard decision to cut your losses and move on.
Only a Grade-A, Status Quo Coward would chastise John or relish in the “failure” of BlogRush, so be on the lookout for “haters” and tell them Ryan Deiss said they’re a “coward”.
Seriously…tell them that.
59 Responses to “The Death of BlogRush”
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October 31, 2008
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Michael Sheward
30. Oct, 2008
I’ve been more of an online newbie lurker for the past few months trying to learn how to get my own online ventures up and running. Came here from a Ryan Deiss email offering support for you as you close down this effort.
Frankly, if you gave it your best shot, be glad about the successes you’ve had here. From the reply list, it seems like your work is appreciated. My apologies for never having come upon your site before today.
So, if nothing else, use this occasion to take stock of the pluses and minuses. Perhaps even everyone can contribute to analyzing what worked and what didn’t and why. Also, what could’ve, should’ve or would you do if you tried to make some course corrections?
Don’t think of this as failure. It’s a learning exercise, like a lot of things in life. So chalk up what you learned and use it to make the next venture that much better.
Go get ‘em again.
Larry
30. Oct, 2008
Ryan -
Its unimportant whether or not Blog Rush reflects negatively on John Reese. John sealed his fate earlier this year with one of the worst launches in internet history. It was nothing short of a disaster.
His product, when finally delivered, was second rate at best. Hell he pointed to Blog Rush as being a good example of one of his main strategies for generating traffic.
His customer service is poor – only outdone by Stompernet’s customer service which might as well not exist. (If you have a working contact number for Stompernet I’m sure there are people reading this blog who would love to know it – all their past numbers are answered electronically or don’t exist). The facts are that neither of them were able to bring a new product to market – One Time Wonders.
No more relevant than rock groups who had only one hit song.
You are very young and may not realize that the mighty always fall, and fall just as quickly as they start to think of themselves as mighty. It is my hope for you that you will not fall into the same trap.
Right now I find your youthful enthusiasm refreshing. Your willingness to sit in your chair live during your recent technical difficulty says loads about you. Your friend and mentor John Reese hid behind a non existent support staff.
If you would take out a new napkin and spend about 10 minutes writing you would no doubt be able to come up with list of washed up gurus – people who were at the top just a few years ago who are no longer even relevant.
In two years you will be able to ad John’s name to that list. Until then you can idealize him all you want but for me I no longer consider John Reese to be relevant.
Larry
Mike G
30. Oct, 2008
What is missing from this discussion and your email is an analysis of “why” it failed. This is a missed learning opportunity.
David Hamer
30. Oct, 2008
Totally agree with you Ryan – I’ve been laughed at for years for some of the mad ideas and schemes – some successful some not – but either way I’ve enjoyed it all and still do!
If you’re not making mistakes you’re standing still and probably extremely bored!
Nikki Cameron
30. Oct, 2008
The ONLY failure, is not trying at all!
There’s an old saying we used when I was office mgr in a Fire Safety Equipment Co, it goes, “Some Will, Some Won’t, So What, NEXT!” It works for a lot of things!
I only wish I had known about this sooner, I would have liked to have been a part of this.
Thank you for Trying! Contact me for your NEXT project!
Blessings
Nikki C
Lucy Rackoff
30. Oct, 2008
Totally agree with Ryan’s comments. John Reese is always cutting edge, from whom we all learn quite a bit. Further, John is a class act, anyone who says otherwise is just jealous! I’m sure John has many more successes to come….
Frank
30. Oct, 2008
I am truly sorry for John and Blogrush users for this news. Although I was turned down by Blogrush in the beginning it did not make me angry. It helped me realize how bad my blog really was. I respected John and Blogrush for that, it showed me John was about quality for his service and his users. From what I’ve been reading it seems there were people that tried to cheat the system rather than offer the quality John and Blogrush was trying to create. Though I was not part of Blogrush I feel I am better for it being around and wish John all the best in his future projects!
Frank
bronco
30. Oct, 2008
WHAT a PAK of internet marketing ”pansies..& pussies”
shedding Crocodile Tears…..boooo.hoooo.hooooo !
HELL…….you’ll have me in TEARS….he he he…..!!!
Ari
30. Oct, 2008
No reason for all the fuss. Blog Rush is not the first nor will be the last IM product to suffer a premature death. The difference being others do not announce the death or the burial….I’ll quote Forrest Gump here: “Mama always said, dying was a part of life.”
Margaret
30. Oct, 2008
Ryan, I completely agree with you. Now, how he picks himself up from this and moves on with his life to a greater success will tell us a lot about him. You have to fail sometimes to learn from your mistakes and become a better person. I am truly sorry for him. I don´t consider this a failure, just a learning experience.
Mara
30. Oct, 2008
Although I couldn’t participate with my European and bilingual but non-English-language blogs I was fascinated by the concept from the start and couldn’t believe what I learnt on the amount of abuse which of course meant an enormous amount of extra work for John and his team.
But then I expect him to have another concept at the back of his mind. – So let’s wait for it and in between reassure him of our empathy,
Mara
http://newbienews.blog.de
Chris Lockwood
30. Oct, 2008
Why shut it down rather than sell it?
Kurt Hagemeister
30. Oct, 2008
Let me say that John Reese probably tries at least 10 times more ideas than almost all IM’s. That’s why he’s so hugely successful. He probably has a very high success rate. Unfortunately, Blogrush wasn’t one of them. I signed up for it, mainly because I trust pretty much everything John highly recommends, even given the fact this was his creation. I can’t say the same for many of the other big name Internet marketers out there. They’ll recommend ANYTHING if it makes them money, no matter how crappy it is. That’s why I listen to guys like Ryan and John, and hit the delete key when I get emails from a lot of other experts.
I’m especially impressed that John announced it publicly and put “it out there” for everyone to see. If anything, I think even more highly of him now.
Kurt H.
Jean
30. Oct, 2008
What was it about?
kelly
30. Oct, 2008
I signed up for Blogrush but it didn’t work for me cos it could not detect the blogrush widget in my wordpress blog (for whatever reasons unknown to me). Perhaps Jon has other projects he wish to focus?
‘Failure’ is not the end of it, it might be a start of something. In fact I don’t view Jon’s decision to shut down Blogrush as a “failure”. Although he may try to sell it to someone who may wanna make Blogrush better? Just a suggestion.
To me, Jon is still one of the net’s greatest guru.
Mario
30. Oct, 2008
John, First thank you for Blog Rush and thinking about people verses money. Second great concept & respect that you put it into action (few do take any form of action). Thirdly, just respect that you made the tough decision but sad that didn’t work. Will try in the future?
John
30. Oct, 2008
The Magic Formula…
You get what seems a great idea. You create a plan. You take action. You work damned hard to make it work. Result…..
IT WORKS – you get rich!
IT DOESN’T – you kill it and move on
It’s called BUSINESS and John is a great businessman
10 attempts – 9 failures = 1 Success
0 attempts – 0 failures = ZIP! do the math
The whole of this IM thing is trial and error. John, Ryan and many other big names lead the way and often clear the way for the rest of us. Thanks for trying guys, keep doing it and good luck.
marketing web site
30. Oct, 2008
Problem of Blog Rush was that spammers cracked his code, and made it impossible to get good results with Blog Rush, also Jonathan Leger who also provide some linking methods showed statistically that the system was not effective in getting backlinks. Since John could not solve these problems he was indeed smart ( even if it’s painful) to discontinue this service.
David Norden
P.S. I am not in politics but if you want some solid new ideas about how to market sites and blogs to create communities who will give you money, visit the following page explaining Obama marketing strategy for his web site (don’t miss the youtube video below the page explaing what you can do on his site):
http://secretmarketinglinks.com/2008/10/30/obama-web-site/
IRA Investment
30. Oct, 2008
Blogrush dead? I missed it, probably not.
thanks
Seth Chong, Copywriter
30. Oct, 2008
Only people with true entrepreneurial blood in them will do so.
I agree with you Ryan.
Sincerely,
Seth Chong
Peter Tremayne
30. Oct, 2008
Thanks for letting us know Ryan.
I personally never ‘got it’ to begin with, but understand his desire to run with such a project.
It was still a success because he must have grown his subscriber list by hundreds of thousands.. I wish I had that type of ‘failure’!
At they say “all publicity is good publicity”.
~ Peter Tremayne
Fruity Plugins
30. Oct, 2008
Yes,
that’s the secret:
NEVER, EVER GIVE UP
Good luck to John on his next venture.
All the very best, Allen
stewart
30. Oct, 2008
John has had some great ideas so I’m guessing the failure of blog-rush will turn out to be a minor glitch into some fantastic ideas coming forth. I’m looking forward to what John will do next:)
Yisel Guajardo
30. Oct, 2008
Every entrepreneur has had failures
and we understand that it’s not always
easy to admit it and just move on.
Most would spin the story into something
else.
The lesson is that it’s okay to admit it publicly, be real
with everyone, and just move on.
Way to go John!
will
30. Oct, 2008
I’ve seen about a million and one blackhat exploits of blog rush!
Jay
30. Oct, 2008
RIP Blogrush – Im surprised it didn’t work, I guess its a new era in terms of advertising and how users percieve it.
Tom Justin
30. Oct, 2008
The world is full of safe players. They have few failures. Many are wonderful people. They bring us our coffee at Denny’s, take in our dry cleaning, deliver our mail, etc.
Many are big dreamers, fewer are big doers. The latter make our economy thrive.
The winners in life collect more of everything, including rejections and failures.
So, while he doesn’t need our approval or disapproval, most winners don’t, we should thank him for the attempt, because the idea was big enough to create wins for all who used it.
When I see “From: John Reese” in my mailbox, that’s one I open. And from what I’ve seen the past few weeks, Ryan Deiss gets the same attention too.
Tom Justin
http://www.TomJustin.com
Wayne
30. Oct, 2008
Ryan give this hate stuff a rest. The world needs more positive vibes. Kudos to John for doing what he thinks is right.
Peter Palatnik
30. Oct, 2008
“There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.” – Elbert Hubbard
John has just showed to the entrepreneurial community what success is all about: failure.
You can’t succeed if you are not willing to fail, but most of all, the ability to learn from what works and what doesn’t, that’s what convert John Reese and other successful role models into real-life heros.
Of course, we can expect the anti-heros to start copulating across the net saying that John Reese is a failure.
HaHa: Bring it on cowards! (aka losers), we already know we are different from them, those who will never have the guts to let their own music play, those who sadly will sell themselves short.
Every single product John has created has been to help people and make our community better; now I am pretty sure John will use this experience to teach us all a lesson we can take home.
Hopefully John can share this invaluable experience (and when I say share I don;t mean for free. Keep reading, I have a proposal to make).
So what went wrong with BlogRush? (personally I am still shocked) aparently, this online venture had all the right elements into place to be a smashing success, and yet, today we learn from Ryan that BlogRush is death. I am more than eager to hear what lesson John can teach us. Don’t you?
Today’s Mission: Let John Reese Know
Ryan, if you’re reading this post, can you pass John an important message? (or better yet, are you reading this post John?) He should really consider to dissect the whole process behind BlogRush, from its inception to it’s finale and package it into the form of a free Report (first) and let us know about the general aspects of what worked and what didn’t.
Then let us get our hands into an eBook supported with a nice up-sell in the form of a multimedia Course using ‘The Death Of BlogRush’ as a real-life study case on what to look for whenever you plan to produce a product online.
Who knows, we might just support John Reese financially, making this experiment a ‘community experiment’ where we all benefit from.
So count me in as your first thirsty client looking for a glass of water and willing to by a second and third one…is there anyone else? Then let Mr. John Reese know.
Sincerely,
Peter Palatnik
P.S. John, you should really give it a though on this dude. I think you have the creativity to use this knowledge and teach one of the greatest lessons on how to turn a “failure” into a smashing success.
keith
30. Oct, 2008
Well, some people love Blog Rush still. The concept is great… Not an easy task though…I believe we improved upon his great idea! Take a look at this site. http://www.TheWidgeteers.com Free to join!
George Feelgood
30. Oct, 2008
I have known John for over 2 years now…humble, grounded and downright brilliant.
Any marketing material from John is characteristic of one thing.. No mention of his guru status…a tough trait to have for all these so called IM gurus.
Tough decision as well to lay blogrush to rest, but this reflects the trend in IM…I’m not sure many marketers understood the power of blogrush, but it’s humbling to note the decision that john took…
Feelgood
increase web site sales
Gary Fisher
30. Oct, 2008
It takes guts to shut down a project that doesn’t work out, but first it takes brains to recognize the problem and humility to let go. But what John really displayed is heart, both for the sincere effort he put into making BlogRush work and for the honest way he dealt with users when it didn’t.
The competent angler doesn’t worry about the fish that got away; he just gets his line back in the water and pulls in the next one.
Jean-Michel Lebeau
30. Oct, 2008
Sad thing but this guy has guts and there is no way this is going to stop him from starting tons of others successful projects and I’ll be there in first place to see this happen.
Bert
30. Oct, 2008
It happens everyday. Chrysler is still talking about a possible merger with GM. Why? Things have a way of not working. It happened to me and to other many times.
John Reese’s decision should not be summarized as a failure. Thomas Edison never attributed his 800 tries of light bulb to failure, but 800 ways of not doing it.
We are with you John. We stand with you on your decision. And we wait to see more of your innovations in the future.
Deb@Wealthy Affiliate
30. Oct, 2008
Ryan,
Thanks for letting us know about BlogRush. I stopped by Johns blog and left a nice comment…I think the positive feedback John gets will far outweigh the few “I told you so nuts”.
There is a reason John is where he is…he is not afraid to try. A true leader…
Karalyn Eckerle
30. Oct, 2008
If you’ve never failed, you’ve never tried. It’s that simple. Kudos to John for his efforts. Having worked in the legal field for years I can tell you some of the saddest people I’ve met are those still chasing an old dream that isn’t working. It becomes an albatross around their neck and takes the joy out of everything else in their life. Good work, John. Here’s to new successes in your future. I’m sure you’ll have many.
Article Marketing
30. Oct, 2008
That’s business some things work, others don’t. The haters will swarm and later be forgotten! John will still make millions.
Trish Jones
30. Oct, 2008
Darn it Deiss!
You beat me to it!
I thought I’ll blog about the death of Blog Rush and “Big Up” John Reese for taking such a brave decision before America awakes … looked as though I dozed too long.
I agree with you 100%. And, I’ve been here with one of my membership sites. But, you gotta know when it’s time to shut up shop and not keep pouring money into something that’s not serving you as well as you’d hoped.
Trish
Erwin Tan
30. Oct, 2008
John is one of those that I highly respect and follow all these while.
It’s really a pity that Blogrush has to be shut down. I felt that it’s a pretty decent widget and it has been free for the public all these while.
I wish to see the revival of Blogrush in near future.
*Fingers crossed*
Daniel Sandercock
30. Oct, 2008
I agree, takes courage to actually switch off when its your own baby… Follow the data, if its not doing what it should be once all avenues have been pursued close-up and move on.
Volker
30. Oct, 2008
Hi Ryan,
I believe there is a pros and a cons in it.
As an entrepreneur you have to take risks, you have to test things in the real market as long as you can avoid to make people lose money or time; or both.
Having said so, I wonder whether all the hype has made some people stop their real Income Bringing Activities in order to be part of this ‘revolution’, bringing in cash left right and center.
I guess that’s the way the internet marketing world is set up and that’s the way people have to learn to be focused on their main priorities.
I am a bit proud of myself that I’ve told some of my clients not to dig into it as they were on the edge to earn real bugs; so they did and without missing another revolution.
Still my respect to John Reese.
All the best,
Volker
Jennifer
30. Oct, 2008
I for one am heartbroken at the collapse of Blogrush, I used it and loved it. Sometimes things just don’t work out the way we planned. He took a big risk with this and hats off to him for trying. Lesson learned:”Nothing ventured nothing gained”. I know that is not very original but I think it sums it up very well. Instead of tearing him down let’s give credit where credit is due, he tried.
Don
30. Oct, 2008
Blog rush will be missed! I enjoyed the traffic while it lasted!
gruumpyjacksa
30. Oct, 2008
It’s a pity, but i guess business is not a charity. my blogs were never “good enough” for blugrush, so i headed over to link2blogs.com – the “average joe” copy of blogrush. suddenly my affiliate page displays a different item. which is a pity, because i still see a lot of clicks going through to it.
likewise, a lot of people will miss blogrush. i have finally made a blog that would have been “up to standard”, so……
Just for interest, i use a little widget called blogupp – google analytics tell me i get quite a few visitors from there. unfortunately there is no referral program to build decent amounts of credit.
as for blogrush….. the fact that it diminished in effectiveness over time does not make it any less of a magnificent concept. the pc you buy today will be obsolete in two years – does that mean you should not buy it ?
just my 0.02c
William Clements
30. Oct, 2008
John has the guts and plenty of glory.
So he loses a battle here and there –
don’t we all?
The worst thing would have been to not
take the risk at all.
“A life without risk is like no life at all.”
-Unknown
Besides, John has hundreds of thousands
of ways to make his next million… he
doesn’t need BlogRush for that.
Let’s hope his next project, income.com,
is a more rewarding business modal for
both him and us.
Thanks, Ryan, for publicly supporting
John — this demise will become juice
for the negativity machines in forums.
What a shame.
Will
Michael Gravette
30. Oct, 2008
John Reese, for the 4 years I’ve been following him, has been an icon for testing. I’m sure he would admit many failures on the way to the millions he’s made. Most of his test were behind the scenes. Blogrush was a public test. Just like all his test, he lets go when they don’t give the results he expects. Very few have put their money and reputation on the line like John has. He’s always been a gutsy marketer and is to be respected and admired.
non chexsystems bank
30. Oct, 2008
Sometimes you miss, that’s life. But the lesson is killer “ya can’t get in the game from the couch”. Not one player in history has ever ram a play sent in from an arm chair QB
Loren
30. Oct, 2008
I signed up for Blogrush TWICE and it never worked. I think I logged a support ticket. I saw other people using it and I thought it looked cool but in my experience it was broken.
Lori
30. Oct, 2008
I had jumped on trying out his service when it first came out and have always appreciated how he tries to do things that will benefit everyone and be so hands on himself with what he works on.
I applaud him for taking the chance to make a go of this service as well as I applaud him for making the decision to take it down and move on if it wasn’t turning into what he had hoped it to become.
I completely believe it takes people like him to keep the internet growing with the times.
Blessings,
Lori
Reed Floren
30. Oct, 2008
I agree Ryan, it takes guts to do what John did and it’s unfortunate that it didn’t work as planned but I’m sure he learned something from it and the list generated from it will be worthwhile to him.