What Is Blog Power?

Update: This product is evidently not Armand Morin’s – he is an affiliate for the product. The product was created by Brett Fogle and Marc Quarles.

I’ve been getting a ton of inquiries about Armand Morin’s latest product, Blog Power. I took a look at the demo video and as far as I can tell, here is what is going on:
The software (which runs on your computer), grabs articles and RSS feed items based on what keywords you give it. It then wraps these up into a multitude of blog posts and then sends them out every few minutes through email. Your blog tool receives the email and posts it to your blog.
The idea is that by cranking through a bunch of blog content in a short amount of time, you’ll get a high Google ranking which will send people to your website where they’ll see a bunch of text ads related to the blog’s content and you’ll make money for hosting those ads. Long story short:
You are ripping off content that isn’t yours, without permission and automating the publishing of it to pimp for clicks.
I think techniques like this are akin to dropping raw sewage into a public resovoir. Some see the internet as their oyster to scrape as they please, even if it means floating their own turds to cloud the water for the rest of us.

I admire Armand for many of his other innovations but this looks like another quick and dirty tool that will pollute the blogosphere to game Google. Remember when there was the madness about META tags and everyone abusing those to make a buck? This is the same thing.
Getting indexed by Google in 48 hours is really no big deal: I do it every week. I changed a tag in my personal blog within 2 days I was the top result for that term and have held there steady for 3 weeks. When I reviewed ‘Instant Video Generator’ I was the #3 result for that term within 2 days and stayed there for weeks (even though it was a bad review). During the tsunami, I was on the first page of hits for ‘tsunami images’.
I’m always skeptical of the ‘marketing of marketing’ and often see it like a pyramid scheme where there is always just one more thing I need to buy to live that internet lifestyle I keep hearing about.
I think it comes down to how you view the internet.

  • Do you see the internet as a public commons that is a marketplace of not just goods, but ideas and content?
  • Or do you see it as the wild west where you can pan for gold and nuts to everyone else?

Disclaimer: I have not purchased this Armand’s product – I am going off of what I saw in the demo video.


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36 responses to “What Is Blog Power?”

  1. Interested User Avatar
    Interested User

    Hey Andy… just to set the record straight… Blog Power is NOT Armand Morin’s software or invention… he is just marketing it as an affiliate.

  2. aeriol Avatar

    Thank You Andy…. I have been harrangued by Armond with his “NEW THING” for the last few days and it has been very irritating… enough to make me unsubscribe from his list… i suspected this was no holy grail but didn’t have time to figure it out myself… it’s good that we are connected to others by these lists so that someone does and tells us all about it and this time it’s you.. Thank You. Aeriol.

  3. Michael Port Avatar

    Brilliant Mr. Wibbels. I’m with you! Once again, you’ve taught me something and made me laugh at the same time – my two most favorite things – learning and laughing.

  4. Andy Avatar

    (Corrected above – thnx)

  5. James Maduk Avatar

    Couldn’t agree more! In fact I ranted for 15 minutes about this same issue in a podcast about “Fake Conent” earlier this week.

  6. Lisa DeClue Avatar

    Bravo, Andy. You’ve said a mouthful (and hopefully not with any Baby Ruths gleaned from a reservoir…!)
    I especially liked this:
    “I’m always skeptical of the ‘marketing of marketing’ and often see it like a pyramid scheme where there is always just one more thing I need to buy to live that internet lifestyle I keep hearing about.”
    Excellent and true. The internet is for info, ideas and products. Thanks for alerting us and taking the high (albeit, poopy) road. ~~Lisa (-;

  7. Dovid Grossman Avatar

    LOL, you sure don’t mince words Andy. I most appreciate how you are able to convey the message short and direct (and as Michael said, with humor).
    Keeping the BIG Picture foremost in mind. You are a voice for social consciousness around blogging and internet use. Thanks for your sharing your insights.

  8. Tom Avatar

    I LOVE the fact that you tell it like it is. Keep it up and I’ll keep reading.

  9. Tim Avatar

    Most of the guru’s are so full of it it makes me sick. You are so right on. They are just trying to make a fast buck. They don’t make as much as they say. Love your blog.

  10. Nicole Simon Avatar

    Two words: Copyright violations.
    People should watch the content of their rss files and then charge such users for unlicenced use.
    Btw: a good time to check if you RSS feeds makes it clear which copyright is used.

  11. Mike Avatar

    Andy,
    I could not have said it any better.

  12. Priya Shah Avatar

    Right on the button, Andy. I wrote a post about these “Blog and Ping” thingies a while ago on my blog here.

  13. Tinus Avatar

    I knew software like this would come someday. I hope Google, Yahoo and all the weblog software makers are watching. It shouldn’t be so hard to find an effective countermeasure..

  14. Tinus Avatar

    May I advice you to use the rel=”nofollow” attribute in you links to these bastards?

  15. John Evans Avatar

    This is the problem with the Creative Commons Licence. Anyone can legitimately use your stuff for purposes like this. It’s useful in some search engines, like Yahoo, but it does have a downside.
    Great blog, by the way. I like the clean design as well as the writing.

  16. Steve Gill Avatar
    Steve Gill

    I was *mildly* interested in this product when I first heard about it (although I am a devout hater of ‘blog and ping’ spamming) but what little enthusiasm I had went out the window when I saw the sampler blog being touted…
    It completely sucked.
    You’d think they’d go to enough effort to at least TRY to produce something worthwhile with their product, but their demos were really bad.
    In regards to people using others’ RSS feeds for content. I’m not SO against that – I mean Google News does kinda the same thing – but it should be credited and perhaps just “sampled”, like Google News does, with a link to the source.
    To that end, RSS producers may want to consider only producing abbreviated or short content in their feeds. That way, interested readers of the page your feed is featured on will click to see your entire entry/article… on a page you might have some adsense or affiliate ads, newsletter sign up box, etc which would be a good thing imo.
    I believe Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) mentioned doing something along those lines recently (going ‘short’) for this very reason.
    Just my 2 cents. Thanks for the great post, Andy!
    -Steve Gill

  17. Jon Avatar

    This kinda thing is going to get banned. Atleast it will get you banned from Adsense. It is these sort of things that pull the rest of the honest hardworking webmasters down in the dirt.

  18. Andy Avatar

    use the rel=”nofollow” attribute in you links to these bastards
    Added! D’oh!

  19. Patty Gale Avatar

    It’s good to see that I am not the only one who thinks this kind of thing does nothing more than produce junk.
    There is a very heated debate going on at the Warrior forum about this subject for the last couple of days.
    This type of method does nothing more than create “blog pollution” and junk RSS feeds.
    Email marketing used to be great until spammers abused it. Blog / ping is the same. Once again, another great resource is being abused by spammers who could care less about integrity and honest business ethics.

  20. Des Walsh Avatar

    I’m still tryinging to figure out the oyster – maybe I don’t want to think about it too much! This is basically a me too comment. Maybe there are others who, like me, occasionally wonder – as we delete stuff coming in from the Armands and others whose lists seem to be extremely difficult to get off – am I maybe deleting the BIG opportunity here, the MAGIC bit of software that will enable me to retire? Fortunately we have Andy’s vigilance, energy and voice to cry warning.

  21. Susan Love Avatar

    Hi Everybody,
    It’s great to read some quiet prose on the internet – the hype is so all present and it’s nothing more than just that – hype, soon to die until the next hot product is sent out to solve all our problems.
    It will only take the search engines a couple of weeks to get around this new “innovation.”
    Two years ago, I had an idea for a website http://www.HeritageCookbook.com but I am not a techie – just an entrepreneur with an idea and so I read late into every night – trying to master what I can and learn little by little what works and what doesn’t. But hey, if life isn’t full of new adventures – what’s the point.
    Cheers,
    Susan

  22. Paulie Sabol Avatar

    🙂 It is safe to jump in the water as a luke warm advocate… Or are there turds floating about?
    Many of my associates have purchased blog power. One I am with this weekend in Banff Canada shared with me he used Bret and Marc’s Blog Power and a search engine spam tool from two of my recent friends in the SEO community.
    He earned $10 his first day in Google adsense revenue.
    The next day he regressed to $8. He’s still going strong.
    So yes, Andy, you’ve hit it on the head.
    There’s a gold rush fever going on. It will continue and it will be a case of Mad Magazine’s Spy V Spy. With the white hat (snickers) search engine programmers undoing the black hat SEO secret society members’ nefarious plans.
    Then visa versa.
    However, a tool is just that. It’s a tool. Be it a firearm (where there is much debate and no small amount of sloganism), a stick of dynamite, or even a sewer water processing solution.
    There are “right” uses for tools of automation.
    After all, Spam, in the original Internet sense, referred to unsolicited emails. I wouldn’t want to give up email. That’s for sure! Why? Because there are many, many legitimate uses for it.
    My goal this summer is to build up content sites which have true added value.
    Ironically, you’re analogies are common. You see my friend I mentioned using BlogPower and making 5-10-dollars a day, he added a few “things” as added value and called them daisies he stuck in the shit.
    🙂
    If you’d like; I”ll keep you posted.
    Warmly,
    Paulie Sabol

  23. Brett Fogle Avatar

    Thanks for the mild support Paulie..
    Perhaps Andy should have at least *used* the software before coming out publicly and at first slandering Armand Morin and dragging his name through the mud. Armand simply realized how powerful it is, and promoted it.
    But it’s exactly as Paulie put it…
    Blog Power is a tool, one that can and should be used responsibly for auto-posting theme related content to your blog.
    What’s wrong with pre-loading a list of relevant RSS feed articles (with permission) and also having the option to add your own related articles that you’ve written into an article respository, and setting the software to post to your blog at periodic intervals?
    People love blogs because of they are constantly updating with new, fresh, and relevant content to read about any particular topic…
    Google has no problem with people ‘borrowing’ interesting information they find on the internet and posting it to their blogger blog, with the proverbial ‘push of a button’ so what’s different than using Blog Power for doing this?
    It’s just a more efficient way to research your topic, find related content in one sitting, and let the software post it to your blog at pre-set times.
    It lets you actually have a life, and get around the biggest drawback of having a blog or multiple blogs… That it takes up alot of time.
    Sure, some people are playing up the angle that this software has the added benefit of getting websites indexed quickly, because blog power can add links back to your website with each article post…
    But this is not it’s only attribute.
    And it does not make it ‘evil’.
    Maybe you should try it for yourself…
    Brett Fogle
    Co-creator of Blog Power

  24. Paul Short Avatar

    Andy, this reminds me of something Phil Wiley said in his newsletter a while back:
    “Some of these Guru’s would set their grandmother on fire if they thought people would pay to watch her burn.”
    BTW, Blogharbour has changed its TOS to include a rather lengthy explaination of how their service is not to be used to game the search engines. Looks like people are taking notice 😉

  25. DeAnna Spencer Avatar

    Andy this echoes my feelings on this dreadful concoction.
    Thank you for such an honest critique of this.
    I love reading this blog.
    DeAnna Spencer

  26. Ben Graham Avatar

    Andy,
    Great. You are a strait shooter.
    I was very upset about video generator becuase in my experience it just did not work even when they sent me marketing messages to try and sell me. If it does not work for them how am I going to get to work for me?
    Also… anytime you outsmart Google they will outsmart you back Double. They (Google) hold the cards for the moment and a few bad apples could ruin it for the rest of us.
    Ben Graham

  27. Barbara Gathany Avatar
    Barbara Gathany

    Andy,
    I was so happy to read your comments. I got an invitation from Stephen Pierce to attend a conference about Blog Power. Of course there was a “price incentive” as there always is. I usually can’t get my credit card out fast enough, but when I thought about what this product does, I decided I didn’t want to have anything to do with it.
    I agree with the comments of those above about the so called “Guru’s”. They always have the greatest e-books, software, conferences, etc. that are going to make you rich. Right…I think those of us who have spent thousands on these products have finally wised up and know who really gets rich. My credit card is not coming out anymore for their products.
    Keep up the good work.
    Barbara

  28. Cheryl Miller Avatar

    Like everyone else, Andy, I’m glad you help me sort through all the crap. I haven’t heard of blogpower until now but it sounds like I’d hate it. I’ve unsubscribed from all the hypsters so I’m no longer on the cutting edge of hype. Ah what a relief it is.
    I’ve made one simple rule for people who email me: if they cause stress in my head over any of these things, they’re outta here–if they start harrassing me with multiple emails on the same topic trying to sell me something, use too many superlatives, try to trick me or anybody else, or cause my mind to get pinched to try to figure it all out, I unsubscribe so I can sleep at night.
    I’m so NOT interested in the hype and trying to make me feel that I’m missing something. In fact if I start to feel like they’re stressing me on any level – making me feel worried or indecisive or pressured, I just delete the message. If they do it again, I unsubscribe. Sure is making for a nice clean inbox. I think we have to fight back and say no to ePollution. I’ve long since unsubscribed from the “trio.” Cheryl

  29. Shawn Wiederin Avatar

    I actually listened to the initial Blog Power conference call to pre-release the product, and was initially blown away by the capabilities of the software. After further review, I also had concerns about manipulating the search engines in such a way the was borderline questionable.
    Then I asked myself…. why do I need this product?
    I already have a #1 google ranking with “save more money” (include the quote marks), #1 ranking on AOL Search with “save more money”, #1 ranking of my primary website on MSN Search with “save more money”, and a #43 ranking of “save more money” on Yahoo!.
    I’m not trying to impress you with the above stats….. I’m trying to show you that high search engine rankings can be accomplished without the *possibility* of borderline manipulation of the search engines. I coach people daily on getting blog’s to the top of search engines… I’m not sure yet if I could promote these products to my clients.
    Yes, I do plan to review the Blog Power and some of it’s competing products. I will only use the product(s) if they are ethical and do not ruin the search engine landscape.
    The easy road is not always the best road! But…. if it works as Brett Fogle described in an earlier post, then I will use the product.
    Shawn Wiederin
    “#1 Worldwide Blogging Expert”

  30. Maud-Ib Avatar
    Maud-Ib

    I’m in the process of creating some webware that helps automate posting to blogs, but I am not attempting to obsolve myself like the above post from Brett. My software actively “boxes” people in to using it ethically.
    He attempts to take the stance that his software is “not ‘evil’”; while at the same time programming the ability to USE it in an ‘evil’ way. This to me is the drug dealer mentality; “I’m only providing a service.”
    Software programmers need to start taking more responsibility for their actions. IF you DO NOT intend for someone to use your software in a certain manner; you simply DO NOT enable the function. Simple!
    If you PUT the functionality IN the software, then you are well aware that the software can be used for that purpose. If you release the software with this questionable functionality AND ‘promote’ the ability to use it as such, you are JUST AS guilty as the individual that uses the software in the questionable manner. Point blank. Its called “aiding and abedding”.
    Case in point with BlogPower, you can set posting intervals to be as close as “10min” apart. That’s like telling a 10yr old, “Don’t open that cookie jar with all those delicious chocolate chip cookies in it; you’ll spoil your dinner which is liver, tonight.”
    Nuff Said
    Maud-Ib

  31. Jonathan van Clute Avatar

    I have no feelings one way or another about Blog Power since I know little about it and don’t blog myself, BUT… the notion that “IF you DO NOT intend for someone to use your software in a certain manner; you simply DO NOT enable the function.” is absurd. By that thinking, no automobile should be physically capable of exceeding the posted speed limit. Oh but wait, there are different speed limits everywhere. Oops. Guess that won’t work.
    Computers also, can be used for all kinds of “evil” purposes. But to eliminate the ability to use them for those purposes would render them USELESS to anyone for ANY purpose.
    Everything in life comes down to the personal responsibility of those who choose to do something. You choose to drive, and you either choose to obey the rules of the road, or you choose not to, and you must accept responsibility for whatever the outcome of your choice may be. Same goes for your computer usage, whether you’re a software developer or not.
    Hey, you can transfer copyrighted materials illegally over a network, so I guess we’d better eliminate all networking capabilities from our computers and software! Right?
    Jonathan

  32. Kari Sullivan Avatar

    I’ve already had someone rip off the content from my RSS feeds using the software (the guy fessed up to it), and I’m sure there’s more to come. While creating this software may not be illegal, it’s certainly immoral. I won’t do business with either of the clowns who created this stuff, or anyone who endorses them.
    And I plan to sue the pants off anyone in the US who doesn’t take down my illegally copied content. While the freeloaders who use this stuff probably won’t get rich doing it ($20 a day? Please. That’s like my morning Starbucks budget), I’m going to let them know they can’t get away from with it.

  33. Sean Avatar

    Some scuzzy spammer using Blog Power software has been republishing my entire blog site’s feed because of a ‘glitch’ with the software… shady!

  34. Marc Avatar

    What I don’t understand is how RSS (last part being syndication) gets people all fired up?
    If you don’t want your blog syndicated turn off the feed. By putting the feed up you are telling people “hey take my stuff and put it on your sites and link to it but don’t change my wording and give me a link back”
    Content right off a webpage is one thing. I understand how you could sue for that infringement.
    But RSS?
    You are giving permission to syndiate it by having a feed?!
    Turn it off then.
    I personally have found my articles and my blogs syndicated to sites using Blog Power.
    Fine by me. My article is there with a link to my site… who cares.
    That’s better then asking for links all damn day or outsourcing that for 100 links for a $1 each.
    I can get 1000 links to my site just by hoping that somebody using Blog Power comes by.
    Don’t get me wrong. I know this is the net and comment post. But it’s RSS. By having that turned on you are allowing people to syndicate your content. It’s not illegal to take something you told people to take.
    It would only be illegal if they took your content and modified it in such a way as to claim it as their own.
    You can’t give out keys to your house and then sue people for breaking and entering.

  35. Marc Avatar

    LOL…
    Well some smaller blog hosts will just see this stuff and kick you.
    Here’s what I received after using the aforementioned product. And keep in mind that I didn’t post more then about 1-2x a day.
    Smaller blog sites basically have human reviewers and this stuff just stands out regardless of how nice it looks or how slow you post and don’t just use it like an AK-47.
    I think the best solution I’ve been talked about is:
    Use the software wisely like anything else and diversify your traffic.
    In this case, I really couldn’t care less if one blog goes bye bye.
    All my eggs are not in one basket.
    But it’s just the tip of the iceberg before Google/Yahoo/MSN all figure out some footprint of this software and then blogs will disappear overnight.
    “Dear MyBlogSite member,
    Our content administrators have seen fit to remove your account.
    They had the following comments to make regarding this removal:
    link scammer
    You can read our Terms and Conditions here:
    http://www.myblogsite.com/terms.shtml

  36. 7CM Marketing Blog Avatar

    The power of content theft

    The power of content theft: $297 and you too can become a professional thief. (Now with added bonus: you can become a pimp also!)

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