John Chows Blogging Mistake
January 20, 2008 Labels: miscellaneous, writing 2 comments
As I searched the internet today for more interesting blogs to add to my Google Reader, I came across an interesting post about John Chow entitled Blogging Zoom vs John Chow. Yes, it's another blogger talking down about Mr. Chow, but as I read Matthew Henrickson's post, as well as the comments his post gained, I learned a lesson in blogging and would like to share it with you. "What did I learn?" you wonder. Well, I knew John Chow was a successful blogger in the sense that he knows how to obtain a large audience and earn money -- money many of us only wish we could get our hands on. However, I learned through Matthew's post--and the comments to his post--that John Chow seems to be losing many of his readers because he's not giving them what they really want: interesting content.
"John Chow has not been offering much valuable content, if he ever did. He’s just enjoying being on top and earning thousands of dollars per month. In the meantime he is continuing his eating out pictures and traveling being a web celebrity," Matthew said.
Matthew isn't the only one who thinks John Chow's blogging about his trips to the restaurants and constant gloating about himself is boring, because Matthew's commentators seem to agree that John's self-promotion and food rants aren't very interesting. What they really want is for John Chow to reveal his secrets to becoming a successful blogger, but John doesn't seem to be giving them that. Moreover, I agree with Matthew Henrickson and his commentators. I too ran across John Chow's blog one day and added it to my Google Reader, but a few weeks later, I unsubscribed. And the reason I unsubscribed was because I too found his content uninteresting, and I was also hoping to learn from his success, but didn't. In fact, the only thing I've learned I learned from Blogging Zoom vs John Chow, written by Matthew Henrickson. I learned that you may gain blog readers, but if you don't make your content interesting, eventually you'll lose those readers. In addition, the majority of your fellow bloggers will talk down about you instead of praising you.
Personally, I think John Chow's an inspiration because of his financial success with blogging, but if I ever get to where John is, I want my content to keep my readers reading and coming back for more. In order to do this, I'll have to blog about my mistakes and reveal a few tips and secrets along the way, which is what I hope I've done and plan to do more of in upcoming posts.
Do you give your readers interesting content? What are your thoughts about John Chow's blog posts?
Photo credit: Flickr
Hello,
Thank you for writing about this and enjoying the post. I wasn't trying to talk down, just sort of, be fair. He makes loads of money because he has the base now. However, as of late his posts seem to mostly be more of a filler.
I hope that made you subscribe to our blog.
http://blogaboutyourblog.com
Hi Misti,
As someone just starting out on a blog journey, I appreciated your pointing out the mistakes made by someone who has become successful (by some measurement) at this. I think it's similar to what happens to many successful writers as well. Many fall back on their formulas (by then it has become one) and are no longer interesting to their readers. Thanks for pointing out the elements that ARE interesting to readers (showing mistakes and showing them how to do what you did). That is exactly what I am trying to do, but it really helps to know that this will be more interesting to readers, should I ever think that I should change that.
Diane