Comments on: Are ShoeMoney And John Chow Gaming Their RSS Subscribers?

By: What is proven by the John Chow vs Shoemoney RSS competition?

What is proven by the John Chow vs Shoemoney RSS competition? — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:06:00 +0000

[...] nearing completion, now is a good time for my take on the situation. While I pretty much agree with Derek’s take on the situation, there are a few other aspects of it that I have noticed as [...]

By: derek

derek — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 03:08:46 +0000

@Armen :: Thanks for sharing your thoughts. The contest will be ending soon so it will be interesting to see if either of them experience a drop.

@MPB :: Looks like it.

@Blog Tools :: As I mentioned, I did subscribe to Shoe via email as well but I didn’t sign up for John’s email feed and I passed on the toolbar as well. Good luck with the prize!

By: Blog Tools

Blog Tools — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 02:30:14 +0000

I was thinking the same thing, now not only am i subscribed to both via reader, I am subscribed to both via email.

If each person subscribed from reader, bloglines, and email that would triple their stats + new subscribers. Good for them, not so much for the rest of us.

After the contest I will definitely be unsubscribing from email. Hope I win a prize first

By: Male Pattern Baldness

Male Pattern Baldness — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 08:21:19 +0000

I guess it’s just a promotion campaign.

By: Armen

Armen — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 03:36:14 +0000

Put simply…stupid! They’ve just drawn in their little band of ‘Chowites’ and ‘Shoeites’. Like pigs to the slaughter.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate both guys, and I think Chow is far from the evil guy he personified as, but, this is a silly game indeed.

By: derek

derek — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 03:28:20 +0000

@Leo :: Keep your thoughts about sheep to yourself!

@Matt :: Are they really getting new subscribers though? I am sure there are some but I have to believe a good number of them are people simply signing up via email or another feed reader to try and win prizes.

@Dave :: It will be interesting to see if the numbers drop once the contest is over. I don’t think they’ll drop too much only because most people will be too lazy to unsubscribe from the multiple sources at the end.

@Moonwalks :: I like the concept of the contest but the way they both seem to be encouraging existing RSS subscribers to just sign up for additional feeds doesn’t appeal to me.

@Nick :: Thanks, I have to imagine a healthy percentage of the new subscribers are actually old subscribers that have added email or one of the other options. We’ll never really know but this just doesn’t really seem to be about marketing to me.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 17:22:57 +0000

I think you make a very good point here Derek. Even though they have both made the RSS count go up, I wonder how many of them are people who already were signed up through a reader that just signed up via email to try and win a prize vs how many new subscribers they are actually getting.

Like Dave, I wonder how much their numbers are going to decrease after the contest.

By: Moonwalks

Moonwalks — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:58:09 +0000

It seems lame and useless to me. Is just a matter of personal ego I think and they lost direction. I know I won’t fall for that.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:43:32 +0000

I was thinking the same thing….why do I need to sign up for the e-mail feed if I’m already subscribed via RSS. I wonder if the numbers will go down decently once all these contests are over.

By: Matt Jones

Matt Jones — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 12:51:50 +0000

I sort of agree with you. They are largly just gaming the subscribers they have, but just the fact this contest is on gets them both loads of new subscribers.