RSS Five good reasons why I won’t be running BlogRush anytime soon
Filed in Geekiness
Image derived from supermoving under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.
There’s no need for me to post BlogRush’s link: it’s getting enough buzz as it is. I did install it, though–for about five minutes. If you were quick, you might even have seen it.
Here are five good reasons why I won’t be installing the BlogRush widget any time soon.
- The widget is not customizable and looks butt ugly no matter where I put it.
- If I put it below the fold nobody’s really that likely to check out the links. I suspect that most everyone who uses it will put it below the fold, meaning its value to me is likely minimal as my links won’t be seen.
- Of the five links displayed, one had a sleazy spam title like “Get rich quick” which strangely enough doesn’t seem to have much to do with travel, motorcycles or biker philosophy.
- It immediately slowed down loading of my site. (There’s a reason those community widgets are at the bottom of the third sidebar–that sidebar loads last, and on their off days things therefore do not grind to a halt.)
- This is the one that clinched it for me: the statistic reports are in Flash. With all the standard web technologies out there, like PHP and ASP and HTML and so on and so forth…why the heck are they using Flash–something that requires a plugin? And gee, why do they redirect me to the Flash download page instead of just a confirmation page with links? I wasn’t done exploring their site–but being evicted from it sure makes me feel that I am now.
There’s no good reason at all to use Flash, which as far as I know also excludes people who are blind or use text-based browsers for various reasons, and I will be voting with my feet until such a point as (a) they let me color my widget to blend in and (b) I’ve heard that it really has stunning results (and since everyone is buzzing it I’ll find that out soon enough) and (c) they provide reports in a standard web format of some kind.
Bah humbug.
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7 Comments, Comment or Ping
Bunk (1 comments.)
I too think that the loadin looks butt ugly and is nothing of distracting from ones blog site(unless your main them colors are orange and black lol). I also have heard some negative feedback from some users who say that the blogrush actually messed up their sites in some form. I am like you, Im not touching the thing. Ill stick with a grassroots way of getting traffic to a blog any day over that.
Sep 19th, 2007
Lynne (3 comments.)
Now that so many bloggers have installed it and the rush to post about it is dying off, I’m starting to hear similar comments to this. Bloggers are saying they’re not seeing an increase in traffic and that it is causing site loading problems. I agree, it’s butt ugly too!
Sep 19th, 2007
Susan Helene Gottfried (21 comments.)
Yeah, it’s definitely loading more slowly. The jury’s still out about the increased traffic.
On a happy note, I’m discovering new places, which is another goal of mine. I’m getting a bit caged in, feeling like the only time I find new sites is through Thirteening.
Sep 19th, 2007
Rose DesRochers (9 comments.)
I won’t be running it on my blog either and I’m tired of seeing all the affiliate links for it.
Sep 19th, 2007
Linda R. Moore
Yeah, Bunk, there’s some control with grassroots and it works well in the blogosphere. I’m with you there.
Sep 22nd, 2007
Linda R. Moore
Lynne, Rose: indeed!
Sep 22nd, 2007
Linda R. Moore
SHG: I find lots of new places to visit through the MyBlogLog etc. widgets–it’s kind of fun seeing new faces every day. :)
Sep 22nd, 2007
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