I have always preferred reading shoemoney (link removed in response to Shoemoney removing link over johnchow.com. Why? I always felt he knew his stuff a bit more than John. I also hated the cheating attitude of John.
This most recent RSS contest has left me with a sick (exaggerated a bit) taste in my mouth from Jeremy Schoemaker and the lack of explanation. I don’t have the exact numbers on the RSS contest but here is what happened for those that don’t know and I will also go into why I don’t like it.
John from what I could tell wasn’t cheating but beating Jeremy fair and square. At the end of the month he was really beating him where Shoemaker couldn’t catch up.
Then BAM, Shoemoney.com throws up an astounding number and all believe that Schoemaker had been hiding his number by putting a Feedburner graphic that was lower than what he really had. Schoemaker did always put in the saying… time will tell who really won with quality subscribers. This is his way of getting out of this all.
Then the problems started showing. Shoemoney.com’s numbers dropped dramatically. I let John know and he knew something was fishy and he said he was having dinner with Jeremy and would beat him up (jokingly). Today Shoemoney is below what JohnChow.com is showing and JohnChow started with a couple of thousand less than Jeremy. Good job Chow.
None-the-less Jeremy cheated. I would have been fine if he laughed about it sooner than now and gave a good explanation of what he did. He didn’t. He took the winnings (link on JohnChow.com) and hasn’t said anything.
I would bet that he will do this soon, but I hate it that it went this long. It was funny for a day or two, but to continue for longer is something I don’t like.
He will come out I am sure in the coming days and clarify, but from an avid Shoemoney.com fan (who did subscribe), I am turned off knowing that JohnChow the cheater didn’t cheat.
I will be called a Shoemoney hater I am sure, but I am not. I am an avid reader. I would have liked an explanation although I am not owed one. Just would have been nice and interesting for sure on how he did it.
Oh well, who cares I suppose. I will tell you my whopping 130+ subscribers are all real.
So what is your take? Should you cheat to win?
*** update from John Chow *** John emailed me tonight saying this:
He told me how he did it and asked that it be kept just between us so I doubt he will be revealing how it was done on his blog.
John
So don’t expect anything from Shoemoney.com tomorrow about how he did it. Also the h8r post may be gone. Only time will tell. It is set to run tomorrow last we knew.
*** Update from Jeremy Schoemaker Jeremy has emailed me tonight and as of right now it looks lie he is not going to make the post tomorrow.
I stopped looking at their counts after the contest ended. But it does look like you are right. While they’re both huge, popular blogs, I don’t like the tone that they have sometimes. I actually prefer More Merchant to them… and I’m not just saying that so you’ll like me better
Anyway, any word on how the buzz group is going?
Thank you Joe for the great compliment! Now if we could pump out 12000 subscribers.
We appreciate you and your comments (all the readers).
The buzz group is coming together. I am going to take a couple of more people to make it even better. You should hear something today or tomorrow.
[...] I like his site, and will continue reading it even though he is set to call me a h8r with his post tomorrow. Here is the post. It won’t be out till tomorrow as you can tell by the url. the traffic will be nice, but I am not a h8r. If you are a reader of this site you know that I am a person that pushes honest and no cheating on the net. That is why I liked him before the RSS contest with John Chow, and that is why I wrote the post. [...]
[...] why bring Jake up? Well he took time out of his 5 day job life to post about how I make him SICK! This post brought shoemoney.com a total of 112 new visitors who have never EVER visited before and [...]
I think your missing the point. This was not a typical contest of winner/loser. This was a great marketing tactic enjoyed by both John and Jeremy.
How, as an “avid reader” of their sites, could you not expect a few “blackhat” tricks to be pulled out? Part of the draw was to see who might figure out the best way to game it.
I’m completely against cheating but this was not “that” type of a contest. At least IMHO.
Anyway…Jeremy is one-up on John this round, and I for one am looking forward to the rematch.
OK, I see your point on that. I don’t necessarily like it as I prefer a good contest with real results and in that John seems to have won.
Excellent work! Your post was directly refuted on Shoemoney’s blog – people pay over $1,000 for that kind of coverage!
But why only 4 comments?
Hey one other thing… I thought you had 130+ readers, but now you only have 123 feed burner subscribers. Are people canceling subscriptions over your post?
Thanks Thor! I am not sure why the few comments. Possibly Shoe viewers don’t convert as well as mine.
The press is good, but actually the amount of visitors is lower than I expected.
I am sure tomorrow many more visitors will come and with them more comments.
No the 130 was from the day before. It often fluctuates 10% in any given day.
Shoemoney is thanking you for all the subscribers you gave him.
I really do like this post, it has a lot of opinion based information that bases on how some of us think too.
-Mike
Thanks Mike. I am glad you like the post.
For a post slamming Shoemoney, You call John Chow cheating twice and a cheater once.
Subtle, man…subtle…
Hm,
To be honest I think they don’t really care who cheated, and who didn’t.
All they care about is the extra subscribers they got due the whole hype that surrounded this latest marketing ploy.
I am sure they will exaggerate their war of words further with new contest – pretending to one-up each other… but all in all it’s a matter of getting more publicity.
Full credit to them though, good ideas – all of them.
If you really want to know how he did it, i’ll tell you.
Autosubscription using JS. Of course, the moment ppl realize a bogus feed is present they out it.
Which is why the numbers dropped.
Oh wait a minute.. I shouldn’t be posting this.. someone of significance in FB circles might notice.. or was that how he explained it ‘behind the scenes’ – a demo
It’s all hype. That’s the game that both of them play. I read both and take everything with a grain of salt. It is how it’s going to benefit them in the long run. It’s just like their inflated website stats with the same people over and over again, not all uniques.
You’re an idiot.
Who is an idiot? I am getting free advertising for my site! You also don’t know what I had worked out with John and Jeremy.
Joke is on you.
[...] Jake Rinard was taking a shot at Shoemoney accusing him of cheating in his recent Feedburner subscription win over the infamous John Chow. [...]