A Blogrush Question

When I visit other blogs, especially those of my fellow Thursday Thirteeners, I notice a variety of badges, pictures and widgets that adorn other people’s side panels.  Some are decorative, others announce some belief or other, and others provide links to other sites.  One that I have seen a lot of recently, so it is obviously spreading fast, is the Blogrush widget.  I have been thinking of putting one of these in my own side panel, but before I do that, I’d just like to ask those of you who already have it what your impressions are.  Does it do you any good, or is it just  one more item to download before your page opens properly?  Any comments, anyone?

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Comments

[PJ]

According to those in the know, it's not worth the hassle. Some very popular bloggers have reported getting very little traffic from their participation, and have also worried about the implication of linking to various websites which they haven't personally approved. A google search will probably throw up several opinions, such as this one: http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/09/18/blogrushcom-dont-believe-the-hype-youve-been-wamboozled/

That said, the company behind it may have improved things in the last few weeks, so it's worth looking into both sides of the argument.

[marilyn]

I always wonder about these kinds of things too.... I'm glad you asked. I guess I won't bother till we hear more.

[Linda R. Moore]

I think it's ugly, and also the stats are presented in Flash, which is entirely useless to me as I do not have Flash installed. I consider that a stupid thing to do, and therefore won't have anything to do with it until they get a clue. ;)

[samulli]

I tested it when it went online, but I didn't get any useful hits from it, so threw it out again. I read meanwhile they have reorganized it quite a bit and threw out a lot of spammers, so that the links shown in the widget should be more relevant now. But I haven't bothered yet to try it again. I have this nice little plugin called "what others say" in my sidebar instead. With that I can customize exactly which links are shown. I don't get anything in return, but that wasn't the reason for me to install Blogrush in the first place, so it doesn't make a difference to me.
You could just try it to see if there's anything in it for you. In the end your own opinion is the one that counts in this anyway.

[Tracie]

I thought BlogRush was a great idea, great concept, and I even got traffic from it at first. Now, I'm ready to chuck the darn thing out the window.

[shesawriter]

I've been seeing these too and wondered the same thing. I had no idea what they were and I was curious.

[No nonsense girl]

I am not interested in trying to blogrush. :-S

Have a great weekend!!! :)

[Titania]

I guess I will go against the grain with the rest of the comments. It is in it's infancy state so it is too soon to jump to any conclusions one way or the other. Blogexplosion was the best at one time for generating readers. Not so anymore. Goes to show how things change. I will stick with it and see what happens. A suggestion is if you have loading issues I found when switched to Foxfire browser, blogs load up super fast no matter what gadgets are on it. I will never go back to Internet Explorer.

Mybloglog is by far the top of the line for generating new readers. I give it a two thumbs up.

Again , you may want to wait on the state of blogrush.
As far as the first comment goes concerning blogs with already high traffic not getting proper kudos this is because this site is not catering to them. They stated that on startup. This site give us little folks at chance on earning our piece of the pie. I like that. As big as blogosphere goes, I need all the help I can get. I just have to wait in see.

The vote is all yours. Get all the facts from all sides first and then make a judgment. :o)

[Wylie Kinson]

I must be stoopid because I've never noticed this blogrush beast on sidebars. Sorry - that's no bloody help, is it :D

[pussreboots]

I added it about a fortnight ago and I have seen about a 10% increase in my traffic. The site is a little buggy but you can blog specific sites and keywords from showing up on your blog. It takes a little due diligence in the first few days just to make sure you aren't getting unwanted content I've so far been pleased with it.

[Siani]

It's only generated a tiny amount of traffic for me. I like the fact that I can add filters, to stop naughty words from appearing in my widget. Also, it usually loads pretty quickly. But I'm considering getting rid of it, because it takes up a lot of room for so little traffic generated.

[MamaArcher]

I had a ton of hits when they first launched and they have slowed down quite a bit. I do still receive traffic from the widget though.

[Cindy Swanson]

The jury's still out for me, Nicholas. I've noticed only a very small increase in traffic. I'm going to give it a little more time, though.