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It seems as if BlogRush is NOT a complete failure, all it took was some time to work out the kinks.
I just received this email from BlogRush and thought it very important to post it right away. Read this, it explains everything that was wrong, and that is being fixed with BlogRush. We can be expecting traffic any day now!

TO: All BlogRush Members
FROM: John Reese, Founder of BlogRush

ARE YOU READY? Because *everything* is about to change. Forget
everything else up until now…

PREPARE FOR *BIG* CHANGES! (TWO MAJOR CHANGES ARE NOW LIVE.)

BlogRush CAN’T EXIST if we’re not sending you a lot of ongoing,
targeted traffic. We fully recognize this and that’s why this is our
ONLY FOCUS.

The BlogRush team has been hard at work making major improvements for
you and we won’t rest until BlogRush is running 100% smoothly and
sending you tons of targeted traffic! This is OUR MISSION. Please
know that our entire team is working around-the-clock to make
improvements and fix any problems AS FAST AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.

(We sincerely appreciate your patience.)

We’ve encountered some problems since our historic launch just over a
week ago, and we fully recognize that we’ve made some real ‘goofs’
with the system for our Public Beta release…

For example, our data center provider (one of the largest in the
world) had a short, temporary outage (they had to replace a network
switch) two days after our launch. We had no control over this
outage but want to SINCERELY APOLOGIZE to those that saw this message
on their blogs (where the widget should have been):

“We are currently experiencing some technical issues and the site
will be back online shortly. Please come back in a few minutes.”

We were completely *EMBARRASSED* when we realized this happened.
That simple message was part of our application code and was meant to
appear only on *OUR* WEB SITE PAGES if we ever experienced an
outage. This was accidentally ‘marked’ to be a global error message
for ANY outage — including if our widget ever had a problem
loading. This was a major GOOF and we’re willing to admit it. Our
code was planned so that in the case of a problem with our widget,
NOTHING WOULD LOAD in its place. So a visitor to your blog doesn’t
see an error or anything wrong should the widget ever have any
technical issues.

This was quickly corrected and is now working properly. Should the
widget ever have any problem loading in the future, your blog will be
served a transparent space (which will show whatever background your
blog design has) and
your blog readers won’t really notice anything.

Again, our sincere apologies for our major goof. It was quite
embarrassing.

NOW ONTO SOME SERIOUS ISSUES…

We also realize that we completely underestimated the number of
unethical people that would sign up and proceed to CHEAT and try to
‘game’ the BlogRush system. These cheaters ruined the click-rates of
many of our members (and burned through a lot of their credits using
automated ‘exploit’ methods) and hurt BlogRush’s ability to send
maximum traffic to our honest members’ blogs.

BUT ALL OF THAT IS ABOUT TO BE ERASED… LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED.

In the next several days to come, we’re going to be rolling out MAJOR
changes to BlogRush. BIG changes. And these changes (again) have
just ONE primary purpose — to drive more ongoing, targeted traffic
to your blog.

We’ve listened to your valued feedback and constructive criticism and
we have been working in TURBO MODE to make the changes you want ASAP…

—– HERE’S WHAT’S COMING IN THE NEXT 48 HOURS —–

100% MANUAL BLOG REVIEW.

Our team is going to be manually reviewing every single new blog that
registers to participate in the BlogRush Network.

We’ll be applying some quality guidelines and criteria to our
decision-making process. (We’ll be publishing these guidelines very
soon.) If a blog does not meet our guidelines and criteria, THEY
WILL BE REJECTED from the network and not allowed to join — i.e.
they won’t be able to serve our widget, refer other users, or have
their blog posts distributed across our network. They will have no
access to any BlogRush services.

Our members, like YOU, made it LOUD AND CLEAR to us… BlogRush needs
to only have members that have quality blog content — not blogs
filled primarily with ads and other spammy looking JUNK.

The only accurate way we’re going to keep these junk blogs out of our
network is to REVIEW EVERY SINGLE ONE BY HAND. And we’re willing to
do it to protect the integrity of our network. I don’t care what it
costs us to hire more people (if we need them) to review 100% of any
blog trying to join our network. We will be reviewing ALL OF THEM
from here on out.

* We realize that several non-English language blogs blatantly
ignored our “ENGLISH BLOGS ONLY” warning on our Registration page.
Rest assured, though, they’ll all be PURGED from the network when we
do our QUALITY CONTROL AUDIT over the next several days (you’ll read
about it in a moment).

As I’ve said several times before, BlogRush isn’t some passing “fad”
or short-term service. We’re dedicated to building an incredibly
valuable resources for bloggers FOR MANY YEARS TO COME.

We’ll also be doing a QUALITY CONTROL AUDIT of all of our existing
member blogs. We’ll be reviewing every single blog that’s currently
in our network (or that registers before the Manual Review Process
becomes active.) And we’ll be completely *REMOVING* any blogs in our
network that don’t meet our quality guidelines and criteria.

As you can probably tell by now, we’re not messing around. We have
put a lot of hard work into the development of this service and we
will continue to bust our butts to make it one of the best Internet
services in the world. COUNT ON IT.

We’re also deploying several new Anti-Cheat measures to SHUTDOWN AND
WIPEOUT the cheaters and unethical users that have abused our
network. Sorry, crooks, but THE FREE RIDE IS OVER.

We’ll be dedicating an entire department to stay on top of any
abusive behavior in our network. We believe that our new measures
are going to instantly eliminate most, if not all, of our system
abuse. It’s going to take us a few more days to roll-out all of
these measures (and to complete our entire QUALITY CONTROL AUDIT) but
rest assured, BlogRush is about to go through a major TRANSFORMATION.

And a quick word to any ‘cheats’ that might be reading this
letter… it’s very possible that you may come up with something
extremely creative that temporarily gets by us, but you should know
something… IT’S NOT GOING TO BE WORTH YOUR TIME. And I’m not just
talking about the tiny amount of traffic that you’ll receive before
we shut you off.

You see, we have other plans in the works…

If you attempt to cheat or abuse our network in anyway, shape, or
form, we will not hesitate to come after you. Our company is well
funded and has plenty of resources. And we WILL use them to punish
you to the fullest extent of the law (and civil court process). Oh,
you think you can just hide behind some anonymous proxy IPs? Sorry,
it’s not that easy. ANY reason you’d have to try and cheat the
BlogRush network for traffic and any attempt you make to monetize
that traffic will lead directly to your front door — whether it’s
AdSense, any affiliate program in the world, any online pharmacy,
porn site, casino… ANYTHING. We will follow the trail and it WILL
eventually lead to you.

Our hard-working company provides the income for MANY families. As
the CEO of our company, I take this very seriously. I HAVE TO.
People that attempt to abuse or cheat BlogRush are affecting the
livelihood of all my employees and their families. And I will do
everything in my power to protect them — it’s MY DUTY.

So for all you cheaters that joined BlogRush and had your fun trying
to siphon off some traffic, hopefully it was fun. And I’ll go ahead
and make this statement right now… IF you were one of the people
that has been cheating our network I’m going to give you ONE
opportunity… quit now and we’ll pretend it never happened. I
think that’s more than fair.

BUT… if you continue after this point, all bets are off. We WILL
eventually discover what you’re doing, where you’re trying to send
traffic, and we will prosecute you. I GUARANTEE IT. Sorry, but WE
HAVE NO CHOICE NOW.

* If you’re one of our valued, HONEST users, I’m very sorry you even
have to read stuff like that. I know it’s a waste of your time.
Unfortunately, there are unethical people in this world that attempt
to abuse and take advantage of others.

MOVING ON…

—- ALSO COMING SOON! —-

**** A LOT MORE CATEGORIES! ****

You asked for it, and you’re getting it!

We’re going to be greatly expanding our directory of categories to
increase the relevancy of post links appearing in the widget on your
blog — this will also increase click-rates (and traffic) for all
members.

* Stay tuned over the next several days for more news about the
addition of new categories.

AND…

**** IMPROVED REPORTING! ****

The current Dashboard stats are being under-reported for all users
right now. This is the reason that users show discrepancies when
looking at Google Analytics data (or other stats packages). We’re
currently sending more traffic to our users than we’re reporting in
the Dashboard because we are giving all users bonus credits
everyday. We’ll soon be reporting all bonus credit activity so all
the numbers will be accurate.

SPECIAL NOTE TO ALL LOW-TRAFFIC MEMBERS: In the near future we’ll be
giving our low-traffic members (those that need more traffic the
most) the BULK of our bonus credit allocations. You’ll get a ton
more bonus credits than high-traffic members because you really need
it. It’s only FAIR!

* Also we apologize to anyone that has seen a “negative” credit
balance for their account. This is a minor bug that we’re taking
care of. It doesn’t mean anything and you can just ignore it for
now. We apologize for any confusion.

**** IMPROVED NETWORK DISTRIBUTION ****

A few of our users have noticed that they’re building up credits
faster than the system is using them. This will eventually balance
itself out as the network continues to “adjust” to the growth levels
and traffic patterns of each category — because our network provides
syndication distribution based on daily average “cycles” and then
adjusts moving into the future; so it’s able to accurately predict
how fast to use a certain user’s credits, etc. — as compared to just
using them all “as fast as possible.”

—- AND HERE ARE *TWO* BRAND-NEW ADDITIONS THAT JUST WENT LIVE!!!! —-

**** BLOGRUSH “FLAVORS” ARE NOW ACTIVE!

You can go login to your account, click the “Settings” tab and then
select “Flavors.”

You can choose from (13) different widget colors. You no longer have
to only use our original “black” widget design that many users
thought was ugly! (Hey, just don’t let our lead designer hear
that… he thought his black design was “really cool.”)

Now you can select a color that more closely matches the look of your
blog. Our users have been asking for this since we launched our
Public Beta, and we’ve taken action to offer these new options.

* We have future plans for further widget customization but we’re
working on one “stage” of improvement at a time! Please bare with
us. We’re fully aware of the request for a more narrow widget as our
current one doesn’t fit on some blogs. We’re trying to produce a
solution and should have some news soon.

HERE’S THE BEST PART…

You don’t have to copy and paste new code to your blog. Just go to
that “Flavors” section for your account, select the flavor you want,
then hit the “APPLY FLAVOR” button. That’s it! Reload your blog in
another browser window and take a look.

And if you want to see what a different flavor might look like, just
pick another one, hit the “APPLY FLAVOR” button and reload your
blog. PRESTO! :-)

AND LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST…

***** BLOG POST CONTROLS *****

Under the “Settings” tab you’ll also find a new option called, “My
Post Control.” Here’s what this awesome new feature does…

You can create POST FILTERS for your blog posts…

For example, you can add a keyword or phrase and create a new post
filter. If you ever create a post on your blog (while you have that
filter active — and you can add/delete them at anytime) that
contains one of those keywords in the TITLE of your blog post, that
post…

WILL *NOT* BE SHOWN ACROSS THE NETWORK. And you won’t use any of
your syndication credits!

All bloggers post “off-topic” stuff from time to time, or short posts
that don’t have a ton of great content. Well, now you can easily
keep any of those types of posts from using your valuable syndication
credits and from being shown across the network!

This is GREAT for you because now you can control exactly which posts
of yours will be syndicated. This can help you maximize your CLICK-
RATES and, ultimately, the traffic you receive from the BlogRush
network. AND it can help retain NEW READERS for your blog (your
ultimate goal that can grow your blog’s traffic on a day-to-day basis.)

Here’s Why…

By selecting which posts get syndicated (by simply adding filters
right BEFORE you publish a post on your blog that you don’t want to
be used; or having setup one well in advance) you can make sure that
you’re only syndicating your BEST POSTS. The ones with top-quality
content. Your posts that a new visitor to your blog will enjoy and
be much more likely to make a “YES!” decision to become a regular
reader for you!

AND OH YEAH, ONE MORE THING…

This is only the very beginning for BlogRush. We have so much great
stuff in store for you! As I said at the beginning of this
letter… we will continue to work VERY HARD to make improvements
and add-ons with ONE PRIMARY FOCUS…

To drive more ongoing targeted traffic to your blog.

I want to personally THANK YOU on behalf of our entire company for
your interest in BlogRush. We’ve received a lot of criticism from
many bloggers on the Internet, and we’ll be the first to admit we’re
not perfect and a lot of it was WELL-DESERVED.

But please know, we’re busy working around the clock FOR YOU. You
have our word on it.

Now go login to your account and try out some of the new “Flavors”
for your blog! And also start setting up some Post Control Filters
so you can start maximizing your content syndication.

I’ll be in touch when I have more “news” to share. Thanks for
reading this long letter. I had a lot to tell you about. :-)

Best Regards,

John Reese, Founder of BlogRush

If you have a blog and are looking to gain some free traffic, BlogRush is what you need. Sign up before everybody else does so you can get some referrals though!

I would love to hear your comments about this.

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2.5

 You can view this on RipOffReport.com as well.
Well, let me tell you the back story, and then work my way into the bad stuff. Me and my girlfriend were running low on money. We were getting kicked out of her mother’s house, and we needed to come up with roughly $800, in order to get our own apartment. Ironically, the day that we were told that we had a short time to move out, the title from my girlfriend’s 1997 Dodge Intrepid, (Which she had just purchased) came in through the mail.

Can you guess what ran through our heads at this point in time? Yes, we would pawn the car title, get a place to live, pay the payments until it was paid off, and go on with life. My girlfriend was about 4 weeks pregnant at this time, we were happy, we were going to get our own place, we were going to have a child. Everything was working out good.

Well, the next day we drove to Augusta, Ga. and stopped at a Title Bucks.(Which is a subsidiary of Titlemax). Oh wait, first we went to Wal-mart and had a copy of the key for the car made. Well, we walked into Title Bucks, there was a nice lady in there. We told her our situation and that we needed some cash. She was glad to help us. She went outside looked at the car, took some pictures, faxed them to somewhere, then asked us how much we needed. We told Karen, (That was her name) that we would need $1000. So, she entered some more stuff into the computer, had my girlfriend fill out a form, and then she chatted a little bit more about something random.

Moving on. My girlfriend then came to the part of the form she was filling out that asked for employment information. Karen informed us that she would have to have some proof of income. My girlfriend was unemployed at the time, but I wasn’t. NOW HERE’S A CRUCIAL PART. I was only 17 at the time that this took place in March of 07. I still am 17. I don’t turn 18 until Dec. I neglected to tell her this, seeing as how she had already taken both of our licenses, and scanned them, and had them in her computer.

Now keep in mind that in the state of Georgia, anyone under the age of 18 cannot enter into a legally binding contract, or any kind of contract for that matter. If a minor slips through the cracks, the contract is invalid.

Well, in coming to a close of the deal, Karen handed us each 1 piece of paper, asking us to sign the bottom. My girlfriend signed without hesitation, but I read over the whole page, then became a little skeptical. I asked Karen what the APR was. She stated clear as day to me that it wasn’t that high, only 12%.
I looked over the page again and didn’t find anything saying anything regarding an APR, and signed the page.

Karen then handed us another page to sign. Again I looked over it, didn’t see anything dealing with APR or Interest rates, and signed. Karen handed us a check, took back the signed contracts, and made copies. She handed us each back a copy. This copy had 3 pages, the middle page being the page with the APR, but I didn’t notice at the time. It slipped my mind that I had only seen and signed 2 pieces of paper before this point. Karen handed us a pay plan breaking it down for 24 months. So anyway, we then said thank you, and went to the nearest bank.

Well, a month passed, we had our apartment, our car, our baby on the way. I looked at the payment sheet to see how much I owed Title Bucks. On my way to work I payed them. I did this about 3 times. After the second payment was made, I decided that it would be a good idea to actually look at the receipt that I was handed. The principal was still $1,170. So I was wondering what had happened to the $300 I had already payed them. Shouldn’t it of been closer to $900 left to pay? Heh, silly me. I then reviewed the contract and noticed the middle piece of paper that wasn’t handed to me to sign. APR = 180%

I decide that I’m not going to pay that. I’m going to pay off the principal all at one time. But before I can save up that money, it’s time to pay them another $150. This time the payment was late. When I went in to pay the third time, there was a completely different staff working there. Brian, the new person, became very upset with me that I was late and charged me $20 more in late fees.

Time passes, the Kirby job didn’t work anymore, bills don’t get paid. All the while my girlfriend is pregnant and I’m struggling to find some way just to feed her.

Well, then it all started. Brian couldn’t get in contact with us, so he proceeded to call my girlfriends entire family that lived in the same city. Then he called my parents. Looking for us and the car. One day I happen to get the call from him and in a very stern voice he tells me that I need to come up there and pay. I tell him okay. Time passes, I don’t pay. He then calls our all family members again, with the addition of friends of ours. I end up talking to him because he called when I was asleep, and I just answered the phone. You can imagine how irate i was to wake up to his arrogant speech about how we need to pay.

Then disaster strikes. My girlfriend has to go to the hospital. There’s something wrong with the baby. A few days later they have to do an emergency C-section. My daughter was born on 7/7/07. My girlfriend was only 5 months pregnant. My daughter dies 30 minutes later, on 7/7/07.

My girlfriend was in the hospital for about 3 weeks after this too.

Then guess who calls again! Brian, that wonderfully angry little man.
I tell him that I don’t know where the car is, and he hangs up.

This continues for about 3-4 days when he calls back and informs me that he needs to find that car, or else he is going to have to take legal action to get the car back. Well, by then I’m just so pissed off that I tell him to stop calling me, take legal action if he wants to, and that I’m sure it will go over well with the charge against him of harassing a minor. He then realizes that I’m 17 and looks it up on his computer.

The calls stopped. No family members were called. It was great. He gave up.

And he really had. It wasn’t until my girlfriend’s cousin gets in a pissy mood and decides to call Title Bucks and tell them where the car is. We knew nothing of this until it was too late.

We’re sitting there one night, my girlfriend goes and gets something out of the car. The keys were inside of the house because we never locked it.

We go to sleep around 4.

The next morning at 6 when somebody went out to get in the car, it was gone.
We reported it stolen because after all I am 17 and their contract was not valid. The officer then informs us that even though all of that is true, that they had a right to come and get their collateral, and if I really was 17 to get a lawyer and take it to court. Well long story short, everybody loses their jobs.

Inside of the car, which is god knows where now, were a ton of our clothes, some personal notebooks of mine, my cell phone, random things that had some use, and MY DAUGHTER’S ASHES.

We call a day later and ask them when we can get our stuff, (This was a different person on the phone) (We asked for Brian but he had quit or left that office or something) Well, the guy said that they were inventorying the car and that they would call us back in a few days and let us know.

2 weeks pass

I call up there this time. Speak with yet another person that I haven’t ever talked to. I ask how long we have to come and retrieve our personal belongings. He says 60 days. I ask, just to make sure, if there was going to be a problem, if they were going to mess around and not give us our stuff. I explain that the Ashes were in the car. He assures me that it won’t be a problem, that all we have to do is sign a release form and take our stuff.

The car was repossessed on July 25.

August 30th after finding a vehicle to use, we go to collect our belongings.

And would you believe it, there was a completely different person there, he wasn’t the one I had talked to on the phone. We tell him what we’re there for, he says okay, and looks it up on his computer. He asks us to hold on for a second.

He messes around with the computer some more, and then calls somewhere asking about the stuff in the car. He’s on the phone for about 5-10 minutes.
He messes with the computer and then turns to us and says. They’ve sold that vehicle.

My girlfriend flips out, cusses at him, and walks out the door. I stay and chat.
I say, that’s fine, but where is my stuff. I tell him about the ashes of my daughter. He apologizes and then says, but there is nothing that he can do.
I’m still calm, (somewhat), and then question him about the 60 day thing. He tells me that the limit is 2 weeks. I laugh and keep on talking, inquiring. He asks why we didn’t come the day that it was repossessed. I then explain to him that Jackson, SC is a hell of a long walk from Augusta. Then his story changes and he says that, ‘Well, after the first day they put the car up for sale, if somebody buys it, then it’s too bad’

I ask him why our stuff wasn’t removed, I’m sure that whoever bought it didn’t want it with someone’s baby’s ashes in it. He then states that the doors were locked, and that they didn’t have a key. Which isn’t the case either way you look at it, because NEVER locked the car, and we brought them a key. I then ask him to explain to me how they made the key disappear and how somebody drove the car off with out said key. He stops, he’s caught up in his words, then shows me on his computer that the inventory was returned saying that they couldn’t get into the car because they didn’t have a key and the doors were locked. I refused to look, I was content as far away from him as I could be.

He proceeds to tell me that they have to take everything out of the car and keep it somewhere for people to come and get, but that our doors were locked and they didn’t have a key. I ask about the 60 day thing again. He asked who it was that I spoke with over the phone. I don’t remember his name. He looks on his computer, and magically, there was never any call.

I dangle the keys in his face and say, well, here’s those keys, why didn’t you call and say, ‘Hey! We don’t have a key to the vehicle. We can’t get your stuff out.’ You didn’t call and tell us that you sold the car. You didn’t call back like you said you would about the inventorying. What’s up with that?

Well this guy is shaky by now because he knows that I have caught him in a lie. He then sits back and continuously apologizes and tells me how he’s only been working there for 4 days. I leave.

Now, here I am 3 days later, missing a whole bunch of clothes, notebooks with very important stuff, my GED diploma along with my Tech School information that I have to take back in on the 5th of Sept, all of my girlfriend’s clothes are gone too. Oh yeah, and nobody knows where our daughters ashes are.

How’s that for a good company? I am not stating that I did the right thing by not paying, but that I couldn’t afford it. I admit that it was a stupid move to do the pawn transaction in the first place. And I also acknowledge that I was lied to about 100 times over the course of this whole thing. If ANYBODY that reads this can help out in any way, shape, or form, PLEASE let me know. Anybody that has any helpful information, respond to this report. I don’t care if I never see my clothes, GED, notebooks, or car again. I just want the cremated remains of my daughter that lived for roughly 30 minutes.

I highly suggest that if you must participate in a title pawn, DO NOT USE ANY COMPANY THAT IS AFFILIATED WITH TITLEMAX IN ANY WAY! They are a horribly vile company, that should be shut down, and if I had the funds to do something about it, trust me, I would.

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2.5

Last night, I was reading an e-book about social bookmarking, and increasing traffic and I found OnlyWire. This social bookmarking website is unlike any I’ve ever found before. Instead of it just being a social bookmarking website, it also lets you submit content to, I think it’s 19 different social bookmarking websites. And this is great for me because I submit every post I make to StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. and Only Wire allows me to get a lot more done, a lot quicker.

I signed up for all of the Only Wire stuff, submitted all of my posts, and as of 1:10PM today I’ve gotten almost 200 hits. This is an amazing website. If you are looking for a social bookmarking website to increase your traffic, I would definitely suggest Only Wire.

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2.5

Yes, Yes, if you spend any amount of time reading other blogs, I know you’ve heard all of the hype over this new thing called Blog Rush. Well, it’s creator is a guy who goes by the name of John Reese, and, again, if you know anything about Internet Marketing, you’ve heard that name a time or two. In my opinion, I think that it will catch on quick. I learned about it from a post on the blog of the infamous John Chow, who is also very well known in the blogging realm. I watched the little video, and decided, well, it’s FREE…. Why not?! So here I am, with the blogosphere widget on my blog. If you’re a blogger, and have been looking for a free way to increase your traffic, I think that this newest little program could work wonders for you. Here’s a link. Check it out!

This is a relatively new product, and it is going to take a while for enough people to start using it, before you will see any real results out of it. With that being said, I guess you all know what you must do. Sign up, make a post on your blog about Blog Rush, and give it some time to catch on.
Trust me, if I know anything about anything, with people like John Chow using it, thousands upon thousands will be signing up fairly quickly. It shouldn’t take it very long to get up on it’s feet, and start sending people loads of traffic. Let’s just hope they keep it FREE!

Rate this:

2.5