Blogging Fingers’ Good Name Tainted By RSS Gaming Con Man
By admin on Nov 12, 2007 in Creative Blogging
RSSXPlosion.com uses 45n5s valuation of RSS subscribers to claim that the, “Current RSS Subscriber Market Value is $27.78 to $35.16″. They use this to justify the selling of RSS subscribers. Not only that, but they emailed John Cow while pretending to be John Chow and sent a number of other deceitful emails.
Apparently the guy behind it all is “Scot” and he has used the names of several bloggers including 45n5, John Chow and myself without permission to help boost the credibility of the failing service.
Why This Guy Is a Fool
I highly doubt this guy’s real name is Scot. If it is he is even stupider than I thought and he has just jeopardized ever running a successful blog in this niche by throwing away relationships with some of the top bloggers here. He is a liar in every single way. In the comments on JohnCow.com he argues that blogs have no credibility, but the description of RSSXPlosion contains the phrase, “Your blog is your credibility!”.
Even More Reasons To Not Use The “Service”
- I’m no lawyer but surely falsely increasing RSS subscriber numbers and then selling advertising using those figures is false advertising and illegal.
- Anyone who uses the service runs a good risk of getting kicked out of Feedburner and may never be able to have a real subscriber count. Feedburner is now owned by the mighty Google and so even if at the moment they have not managed to crack down on fake subscribers, they will.
- If you have just started a blog and find it hard to get RSS subscribers while displaying a low subscriber count, the obvious solution is don’t display it till you have more.
- Call me pompous but I’d imagine most of the people who would consider buying RSS subscribers are struggling to write readable content, in which case having terrible content with a high subscriber count screams; “I can’t write and I’m willing to prove it buy buying an obviously fake number of RSS subscribers!”
The future looks bleak for RSSXPlosion.
I’m sensing a a rift forming among blogs in the “make money online” niche between those that are “evil and entertaining”, and those that are (or at least try to be) credible and trustworthy. I hope the “evil” bloggers chose the right side on this one.
P.S. Scot. You can keep the 10 fake RSS subscribers you offer for writing about your scam.
[…] stupidly decided to fill in the ‘From’ field as “John Chow” and is using testimonials from other bloggers without their […]
What a stupid idea. I can’t picture such a service ever being helpful or something any self-respecting blogger would use.
[…] the RSS count of blogs. The service was using John Chow name but used another email address and fake testimonials. That’s stupid but raised another issue for […]
Hi Matt,
My real name is Scot. I have no reason to not be 100% transparent in my actions and dealings online.
Even if you do believe I have discredited myself (which I find silly), the Make Money Online circle jerk wasn’t credible before I started this service, so what have I changed?
I don’t see that you’ve written anything about actual fraudulent activities that marketers take up every day. Try the ringtone industry… Many of the top players in the make money online arena have made millions from deceiving people with “free ringtones”, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.. not to mention the amount of money made by selling crap info products.
My service isn’t stealing anyone’s money, I’m not doing anything illegal, and once again I have no reason to not be 100% transparent.
I’m sure you’re an online professional and know exactly what Google is going to do to people who have gamed their RSS #’s. Who are you again? Your post does nothing but throw one-sided artificial assumptions all over the place…
And that is exactly why blogs have no credibility in the mainstream media. Because 98% of bloggers are unable to give unbiased reviews. They skew stories to make them sound the way the prefer them to just as you have.(which is fine, it’s called entertainment)
Also, let me clear something up on that note. Blogs have no credibility. My service gives bloggers credibility with OTHER BLOGGERS. (aka subscribers).
Hi Scot,
The argument that ‘if everyone does it it must be OK’ isn’t going to get you very far.
It doesn’t take a Google engineer to know that Google, along with almost all of the rest of the world doesn’t want people gaming their RSS subscriber numbers and that something will (if not already) be done to stop it.
As for blog credibility, that is another debate entirely and for now I will say it depends on the type of blog. You can expect a post about it soon…
You are not directly stealing anyone’s money but why else would someone want to increase their subscriber numbers other than to charge more advertising? Sure, social proof to again increase numbers is a reason but ultimately the purpose of increasing numbers is to monetizing a blog using the RSS count as a popularity statistic
You are doomed to wallow in black hat/frowned upon methods by being so open and yet so false. Its ok to be “evil”, but not that evil.
If I were in your position now I would take down the site and apologize. I’m sure that would get a whole load of bloggers writing about how you have seen the light.
“You are not directly stealing anyone’s money but why else would someone want to increase their subscriber numbers other than to charge more advertising.”
That’s like saying “why else would anyone want to purchase a firearm, of course you COULD go hunting with it, but I’m going to continue to be biased.”
quote:”Blogs have no credibility. My service gives bloggers credibility with OTHER BLOGGERS.”
You’re an idiot.
If we’re playing the name-calling game let me just say.. you’re a tool. Quite literally.
“And that is exactly why blogs have no credibility in the mainstream media.”
Bullshit. You don’t know enough about the media to make that statement. Actually, you don’t know enough about blogging. You realise that even newspapers are biased because they are written by people, right? Newspapers aren’t products of machines or computers.
I don’t know how things work over in Thailaind, “Angel”; but I don’t really care.
This all coming from someone who says “I feel like sticking it to Google really.”
By doing none other than selling text links on your blog aka altering the algorithm of Google aka SELLING PAGERANK. Moron.
You’re a fool. The media is the media whether it be in Thailand or whatever hole you crept out from. But of course, you wouldn’t know that because you’re ignorant.
Did I mention anything about your pathetic service to justify your rant about me selling links? I’m telling you how the media works because you are completely clueless.
Me correcting you has nothing to do with anything you just wrote. How can you expect to offer a service to bloggers if you continually lash out at them?
hmm I didnt think about Google and Google did buy Feedburner - Google will definitely be on their tail
I think blog has a lot to do with media exposure because of opinions, I mean popular News broadcast has blogs themselves, because its a different point of view
Good work Matt, I didn’t think you would want to be associated with such service
You’re right. Blogs are all about opinions. Blogs are entertainment which is why they go over well with newscasts.
Not amazed at all that something like this would be on the internet. I would agree that each subscriber is actually worth that much, IF the subscriber is real and actually comes to your site. Otherwise there is really no way to make money with fake subscribers unless you are selling you site which then you have just committed fraud if you didn’t tell the buyer about the fake subscribers.
This scam would have to run along with the scams that pay you to click on advertising. MORALLY WRONG!!!!!!
I almost fell for it. What a fool.
I have been about this whole ordeal at Johncow’s blog and I can’t imagine that he is doing this. tell you the truth, I thought about it for a little bit and then again, it is just unethical. I would rather have no subscribers to my blog at all then to pay him and have it boosted.
Besides people don’t start blogs only to sell it. Getting your blog where you want requires time, work and patience.
Scot, you are cutting the same branch on a tree that you are sitting on. you better lay low cause you are getting hit pretty hard. All your income from RSSexplosion for now will be through new bloggers but now the secret is out and since JohnCow showed the email it shows what kind of subscribers you are actually sending their way. So probably stopping this for now would be a good idea
That was a bit of linkbait John is using against me.
Of course I do not sign up to your rss subscription with random e-mails– this is a business not a circus.
the snapshot that Cow put in his blog from his feedburner account did make it seem more like a circus rather than a business
Dude false identities is not only immoral, but very illegal and for a better term it’s just .. lame.
[…] Blogging Fingers’ Good Name Tainted by an RSS Gaming Con Man […]
Wow, everywhere I go, this guy is around! It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this. Sad thing is, people will probably continue to use the service due to the fact that they can’t attract subscribers themselves…
Oh well, we’ll see what happens.
[…] Yes, subscriber counts do offer social proof and provide a perception of quality, but they are not a replacement for real authority and valuable content! Certainly not worth paying a dollar per fake subscriber like some services are charging. […]