Why John Chow is Bad for Blogging

Would you think I were insane if I said that a blog that makes 30k a month in revenue is bad for Make Money Blogging? Well I am saying it and I can back it up. Check out my article and let me know what you think at the end in the comments.

John Chow is Bad for Blogging.

Oh no, not another I hate John Chow post!! Not at all. I wrote an article about A-List bloggers a few weeks ago that involved putting the top 10 blogs from the 45n5 Top 100 list into my reader to study what they have to offer the blogosphere.

The knock on John has always been that he does nothing but post reviews or guest posts and I have even heard of his blog being referred to as a Splog. I wasn’t a fan of Chow before the experiment but I have come to appreciate what he has to offer. You can learn a ton from Mr. Chow if only you are smart enough to see it.

Here are some of the more common digs you read about why John Chow is a bad blogger. I am not saying at all that he is a bad blogger, but only that he is bad for blogging. Keep reading and see if you agree.

• He Doesn’t Teach You Anything – What? Where does he ever make the claim that he is trying to teach you anything? Is he supposed to teach you? Is he obligated to teach you? Aren’t you smart enough to learn something by watching him? He’s giving free lessons on being a marketing genius every day. Quit bitching about him and pay attention.

• He’s a Scammer – What? How does he scam anyone? He blogs about a product or a service. You go check it out and you make a decision to either buy it, join it, blog about it all on your own. If John Chow is a scammer then so is every company you see on television, every ad you see on the internet. Next.

• He Cheats – What? Ok…I can’t defend this one. He does cheat and he’s good at it. I think most people are just mad because they aren’t as good at cheating as he is. He has also had to pay the price for cheating from Google and Technorati and probably a few more places. You have the choice too, cheat and maybe get ahead or maybe pay the price. It’s your call. It seemed to work for John, at least for a while.

• He blogs about what he eats – So what. Did you ever stop to think that if you make enough of an impression that people talk about it all over the internet then you did a GOOD thing? Any publicity is good publicity? If your site isn’t memorable for anything then it isn’t John’s fault. Do I like those posts…absolutely NOT but so what. He posts 2 to 3 times a day so you won’t wait long for another one.

Jealousy is Ugly

Jealousy can turn people into something they aren’t normally. I would be willing to bet that EVERY single one of these haters who claim to despise John’s blog and hate what he does would trade places with him in about 2 seconds.

They might hate review posts but if someone wanted to pay them 500 dollars to review something, they’d be on it like a fat kid on a candy bar. Snickers.

It seems to be common in America to root for the underdog and despise the Favorites. If you are an NFL fan you would only need to look at 2 teams in the last 20 or so years. The Dallas Cowboys and the New England Patriots. Both at one time were the underdog. Everyone was rooting for them, that is until they became powerhouse teams who won all the time. The fan appeal changed and suddenly they are reviled. Sound like a certain evil blog you know?

Haters and Baiters

I came across one blog embroiled in a small argument lately who is in the MMO niche. I had never been on his site before so I decided to check it out. My first impression was not bad, didn’t really see anything that grabbed my eye but then I found the obligatory John Chow is awful post.

The title of his post was Dare to Be Interesting. His summary was John Chow was awful, ProBlogger was mediocre and that ShoeMoney still wrote good content. Uh yeah. Something a bit mixed up there in my opinion.

Here is a fact:

John Chow is a billion times better of a marketer than any of his detractors.

He is a perfect example that a great marketing plan can overcome ordinary content. You might hate him, but the simple fact that you hate him means has done his job right. You remember his blog, you know his name.

THAT is the lesson that you are missing from John Chow. If you read his site expecting him to teach you something, then pay attention. He’s putting on a lesson every day of the week, you just have to be intelligent enough to see it. Read his archives, see what he did BEFORE he became popular.

Success is not something the average person is a fan of unless it is their own.

Why John IS Bad for Blogging

This isn’t by any means a hater post but I want to emphasize that I do think John has been bad for blogging. Everytime he posts another 30k monthly income report, a thousand more MMO blogs are born. Most are abandoned shortly thereafter but then the next income report starts it all over again. It’s digital pollution.

The problem lies with how these new bloggers think they can make money. If it works for John then it must work for them, they simply imitate his every move. They push the same affiliate products, they write paid posts, they even blog about what they had for dinner. Imitation in itself is not a bad thing but the problem is that they push the SAME stuff that John does, the same affiliate products, the same reviews, the same posts.

This has become so predictable that you can literally almost guess the content of 80% of next week’s blog posts on these blogs by simply reading what John wrote this week. This copycat blogging and the explosion of subpar blogs pushing the same junk has led to a severe backlash against MMO blogs.

People are starting MMO blogs that have no knowledge of it at all and they often will try to fake it til they make it. This perpetuates the hatred for these types of blogs. A bad deal all the way around.

Is it John’s fault? Absolutely not but he is still the cause of it. Should he change what he is doing? Absolutely not.

Making Money Blogging is HARD

John makes it look easy, but the facts are Making Money from Your Blog is Hard! If you are inspired to start a blog because of one of Chow’s income reports then I say by all means have at it. You should have realistic expectations about how much work is involved and how HARD it will be to make money from your blog. John has already perfected his method and the 10k other copycat blogs that are using his recipe are all WAAAY out in front of you.

Something that most don’t understand is that if you build a great blog with interesting content then the money will follow. Will it be 30k a month? Who knows but for now you have other things to worry about. Find your own voice, make your own way, write interesting content and grow your traffic first.

Only once you have ALL of these bases covered, should you even begin to worry about monetizing your blog.

That’s my thoughts on the subject……how about yours? Is John Evil incarnate or a role model for all to follow?