An overrated and an underrated blog

Posted on September 16, 2007, 10:06 pm, by ABaN, under Blogging.

An overrated and an underratedblog

If we’re honest with ourselves we can’t help but notice there are more than a few overrated out there on the internet. Worse still there are many who are truly talented and skilled who are underrated. Spend a moment or two and no doubt you’ll come up with a few names that will fit in either category. The thing is that the list of names would be entirely a matter of personal opinion. A blog you found to be overrated many others would find to be underrated. In a moment I’ll name a blog I believe is overrated and of course I’ll give reasons for that opinion. I’ll do the same with an underrated .

The Overrated Blog

John Chow dot com
John Chow makes a lot of money blogging. If we are to believe his monthly income reports, which I see no reason not too Mr. Chow is making some serious money with his blog. Which is great! I hope he reaches 50,000 a month sooner than later. My beef isn’t with the money making. It’s with the fact I’ve yet to pick up anything seriously useful from his blog UNLESS he has tied it into making more money for himself. Nearly each and every one of his articles is a sales pitch for one thing or another.

I’m seriously wondering if anyone can find any articles in John Chow’s blog where you’ve learned something new aside from another affiliate or PPC program? I can’t find anything. And really that’s why I believe John Chow is highly overrated. He doesn’t teach us anything he just rambles, and even he himself tells us that his blog is all about miscellaneous ramblings.

In order to be perfectly fair to John Chow I need to add the fact that he has some fans. Ok he has lots and lots of fans, but that’s not the point. One of those fans has declared him to be the number 48th most influential blogger as rated by NorthxEast. My question is what exactly has John Chow influenced aside from “fan boys”? He has also been rated as the number 2 out of 100 make money online blogs by 45n5.com. Obviously John Chow is doing something right, but I’m not quite sure what that is.

The Underrated Blog

Blogging Tips
I’ve been a fan of blogging tips for a while now. Pretty much ever since I began blogging a little over 2 months ago. I’ve found the articles there to be informative, timely, well written, and fun. Kevin runs the blog and is the main writer on the site, but there are also 10 other authors who contribute to the blog which provides a great deal of diversity in the writing styles. Beyond the writing the blog is clean, easy to navigate, loads quickly, and FULL of useful information.

With John Chow I often find myself searching desperately for useful information. With Blogging Tips I can’t get away from it. Not only from the articles themselves, but even the vast majority of the comments prove to be chalk full of useful information. And yet I can’t help but believe this blog is seriously underrated by a good part of the blogging community. I’m not sure why that is either. Certainly it isn’t perfect, but it’s better than most other blogs I’ve come across. Certainly in the top 10 as far as I am concerned. It sports just south of 800 RSS subscribers and that number has been steadily increasing since the blog was started in March of 07.

Answers to questions you might have.

Who are you to write something like this?
Just a guy with an opinion.

Why did you pick these blogs?
John Chow because I don’t believe they site lives up to its own hype. Blogging Tips because it is in my opinion one of the absolute best blogs out there.

Is this linkbait?
If it works I suppose it is, but it wasn’t originally conceived as such. I was actually reading an article John Chow had written and reading the comments and I thought to myself We flock to this guy like lambs to the slaughter, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why. I still don’t know why. But that’s where the idea came from.

I don’t agree with you at all
That’s your option. If you feel the need to discuss it just leave a comment or contact me via email form and I’d be happy to address your concerns.
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  • Hey i was wondering how much you would calculate to set your blog theme up on my web log for me, because i truly like the look of your weblog but i do not know how to make such a nice theme.
  • GPT - I've only ever seen JC's "followers" on his blog. Of course I don't doubt they're out there, somewhere.

    In all honesty my regard for Chow has grown to a certain extent since I wrote this piece. At the time it was a good two or three weeks of almost nothing at all except filler posts with no value at all. Talking about his meals and whatnot. Shortly after I wrote the post things started to pick up. At least compared to what they were.

    As to how useful his information is I suppose that's in how well one wields it. He's apparently been successful at what he does so I guess the old cliche "it works for me" could be his motto as well as any other.
  • Ah. I agree with you 100%. I'm really sick of John Chows "followers" on webmaster forums. I've seen blogs with an alexa ranking in the millions that has more useful information than John Chow has.
  • Simonne - I agree. I visit his blog even though I think it is overrated. I didn't express it well, but you said it almost perfectly. "John Chow is overrated in terms of usful information offered"

    That's exactly my point. However for community and just a quick read John Chow has a great blog. But when I look at a blog I'm asking myself "What do I get out of this? What am I going away with that will make me a better blogger?" With John Chow I don't see a whole lot compared to many other blogs both large and small.
  • I agree with you, John Chow is overrated in terms of usful information offered. While many people noticed this, they keep on visiting his blog because of a few reasons, such as:
    - wanting to be part of the general conversation: JC is a hot topic, so bloggers need to be informed in order to have their say
    - modelling: many people took him as a model, and in their wish to replicate his performance, they want to step in his shoes as close as possible, so they need to keep up with that
    - feeling of belonging: regardless the value of the information, JC is already a community, where commenters have dialogues with each other, where they feel good, compete and share their ramblings and their small successes in making money online

    For some people, it may be more important to discover the mecanism that he manages to move so well in his advantage, rather than to get some theories about how to make a living online.
  • Ouelletblog - From time to time he has valuable information. My point was never that he never has anything of value, just that a lot of the posts he make are in my opinion overrated.

    Blacksky - Exactly. Problogger consistently puts out excellent content post after post. He "spreads the wealth" while John Chow tells people just enough to get them to sign up for his latest affiliate program. I suppose there's a lesson to be learned in that as well.
  • John chow overrated !! damm yeah...You have problogger and john Chow . Both are talking about making money online the only difference is one is making money online only for himself only like John chow and the other talk about making money online for himself too but share valuable information to help other making money too. The best way to understand that is if you have to do books about making money online which blog will you choose..... The answer is pretty clear for me.....
  • Ha ha. I know what you mean. Recently his articles have been hit or miss, although he did bring me a valuable piece of information today.
  • Ouelletblog - Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment. I've seen a few "scathing" reviews directed towards John Chow lately. I think people have gotten tired of seeing pictures of his food and how much traffic he has.
  • Kher - Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Don't misunderstand I don't think he has a bad blog by any means. I just don't see any value in it as a learning tool for us bloggers. I certainly the monetary value in it for John Chow, just don't think it provides as much community value as some people seem to believe.
  • As I wrote in my post yesterday, most of his readers or what you called them "fan boys" are the gullible ones which keep going back to JC's site, to keep his blog booming. These "fan boys" have forgotten that they are the TRAFFIC which makes JC millions!
  • Joe - Exactly. The entire "make money blogging" concept is driven by these sites convincing their readers to sign up for their affiliate programs and to click their links. The value of these blogs is nearly non existent because there are so many of them that just keep repeating themselves over and over again.
  • It seems to me that there are too many sites out there dedicated to making money online, with no real content, only enough to get you interested and coming back. Sure, there are some sites that offer SEO techniques or best practices, which are great for newbies, but when it comes down to it, it seems that many of these concepts are based on getting others to sign up for things and tons of advertising along the way.

    One big glorified, multi-national, digital Amway pyramid mentality.
  • Kate - Thanks for dropping by. That's my point.

    Kevin - I see what you are saying, but my point is that John Chow has somehow positioned himself as an authority on making money online. He may well be, but I don't see much transfer of that knowledge to anyone else and yet his audience flocks to his blog and tells him what great advise he is giving. Meanwhile he's taking pictures of his food, or some microsoft family picnic and raking in the dough.

    As I said before I hope he keeps making money. Lots of it. Point I'm making is that his blog is seriously overrated as far as learning anything from it. Not that it's a poorly written blog. I've seen some of his archive posts which were certainly authoritative but now he's just kinda of coasting along. But perhaps he's reached a point that he doesn't need to "work" at blogging anymore? Critical mass.

    Blogging Mix - Thanks for stopping by and speaking your mind. I think we simply disagree. I'm not clear how you figure John Chow's blog to be useful for those wishing to make money online. I've yet to read an article that I have found to be a true revelation of knowledge on his blog.

    Like I mentioned to Kevin above I see a lot of posts reviewing food, pictures of his food, pictures of this and that but very little about making money. Sure sometimes he throws a little bone and tells his fans about some new affiliate program he's got going, but aside from that he doesn't give much in the way of tips.

    As far as the blogs not being comparable, they certainly are. They might not be in the same genre, but I'm not comparing one to the other based on the category they serve, but on the usefulness to their respective categories of readers.

    Website Design - Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment. I read his blog. I'm not against John Chow I just believe that it is overrated for making money online. I mean compare someone like Problogger and the amount of relevant information given to the readers, or Blogging Tips with John Chow and you'll see what I mean.

    Oh and thanks for the invite to subscribe, lol
  • I can't believe the amount of money to be made from just blogging. It's unbelievable. But I completely understand what you mean about Mr. Chow's Posts. I quit reading his blog because I never got anything from it. Long winded excerpts about how he's rich. I'm going to start a blog... Long winded excerpts about how I'm not rich. :) Feel free to subscribe.
  • Very good point Blogging Mix. It should be compared like for like.
  • Although I agree that Blogging Tips is a great source of information, I'm sorry to inform you that I disagree with what you've written about John Chow's blog being overrated. John Chow's blog, which is all about making money online is very useful to those who are looking for income from the internet. JC has made a decent income from his blog making his blog an authority. Moreover, I think you've compared two different blogs. Blogging Tips is concentrated on blogging tips and seo while John Chow is about making money online. They have some similiraties but are distinct enough not suitable to be compared with each other. A more suitable match would be dailybloggingtips and bloggingtips.
  • haha that last reply should have read disagree that his site is overrated. Change first 'agree' to 'disagree' and the comment makes sense.

    Thats why I shouldnt comment first thing in the morning!! ;)
  • Thanks for the kudos :)

    I also have to agree that JC' site is overrated. If bloggers think that it is then Im more inclined to think that they have a preumption of what his site is for. He has posted a lot of good tips in the past. At times he talks more about his money making etc but theres no doubt this has inspired a lot of bloggers.

    Again, thanks for the mention :):)
  • I've never visited either site. But I think I'd more inclined to visit the blogging tips site rather than John Chow.
  • I agree with you! I've thought for a while that a lot of the more popular blogs are quite overrated, and many of the smaller ones offer much better advice.
  • 45n5 - Thanks for dropping in. I guess agreeing on 50% is better than 0% :)
  • I'd agree with the bloggingtips point, kevin is running a great blog there and found some great writers.
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