Bobby Griffen and Bestest Blog

Fall of an empire of just growing pains?

I was alerted by Barb from Skittles Place about the controversy that is brewing over at Bobby Griffin's blog, Bestest Blog Of All Time. It seems there are a whole lot of unhappy bloggers out there and we're talking torches and pitch forks mad. The claim is out there that people are angry for the slow response of Bobby when it comes to their paid placements on his blog and for his lack of attention that is being given to his blog and for the lack of traffic people have been getting after joining Bobby.

Here is my take on it. I first had my blog added to Bestest when I first started this blog and it's true...he put me on the map. Soon after I found I was inundated with requests for blog critiques. It got to the point where I actually had to take time off and walk away because I was literally getting burned out and was loosing the joy that blogging and the bloggers brought to me. So I left. I spent that time reading alot of books and speaking via email to alot of very successful bloggers, both who make a living from blogging and bloggers who don't. I learned so much and decided to get back in the game . I went back to Bobby's Blog (which I hadn't visited since I left), and found that his blog became very successful and it was making money. I myself wound up paying for a premium spot on his sidebar in hopes of bringing my traffic up to speed. I then went back to Barb from Skittles who graciously put some kind posts about Critique My Blog being back and she added me to her sidebar for free! I found that the kind words from Skittles Place boosted my blog critiques requests to almost the way they were. Here are some of my thoughts on this issue. One thing to remember is that you are not forced to pay him money or to donate to Bestest Blog, if you choose to get listed in his sidebar then you have to pay, if you want to be listed as blog of the week then you have to pay, if you want to be the blog of the month you have to pay. One thing is he doesn't have an area on his front page that is dedicated to free links. Sure you can join for free but you are put on an obscure page that no one really looks at...As for pay per post, my hats off to him for that. He is doing well and making money, but, you can't ignore your readers who want your attention or your own blog. When I paid it took almost 3 weeks for Bestest to list my blog and that was even with an email of inquiry. But all the while I was watching as pay per post adds kept appearing day after day! The people who submit their blogs to you in the hopes of getting picked for the bestest blog of the day and who want to be linked somewhere on your blog are your bread and butter! If the blog is experiencing growing pains or you are truly stressed out from the move...etc...then you should be up front with your readers and let them know and then stop all pay per post and catch up. Bestest Blog and Critique My Blog are "service industry" blogs. We provide a service to bloggers and the same customer service that people expect in real life they expect from us. Having said that I want to say that I am in no way opposed to people making money with their blogs, especially since people put alot of time and effort into their blogs and they try to make them as nice as they can for others to read. They deserve every penny they can make in my opinion! As for Bestest, I think it is going to take some real customer relations to solve this one. The blogosphere and the Internet are like virus carriers. Stories spread like wildfire...and just as fast as Bestest Blog was built up , it could fall just as fast. Bestest relies on the vast incoming link network that it has out there. If people follow Skittle's advice and start taking the Bestest link off their blog then that can be a problem. Hopefully Bestest can find a way to appease the ones who were hurt and maybe re-vamp the blog to bring it back to the grass roots blog it was when I first joined almost a year ago.