Quote: “good intentions can be twisted by someone ”

Could you please elaborate on that one?

Quote: ” I have benefited from that Reciprocal review but so did tons of other people, which you could have easily learned if you did some research but hey … who cares, right?”

Did you read my post? …and I do care. Do you think I could have written what I wrote without prior research? Interesting.

Quote: “especially if it makes for a nice and controversial blog post.”

Please see my comment in response to Jack’s comment. You obviously did not read the comments first before you responded. Talking about due diligence.

I don’t want to start a bs conflict here, but I could not leave your comments about my integrity, the quality of my research as well as my intentions unanswered.

Interesting review although it was never intended to scam anyone … yes, it was a linking strategy and clearly stated as such. You are wrong that Jack Humphrey helped me to launch it – Jack was invited by me personally about a week after it was already rolling and while his big readership did contribute greatly – in no way he was invited to “scam” anyone …

I actually find it quite interesting how a good intentions can be twisted by someone :) Great writing on your part.

I have no intention to deny that I have benefited from that Reciprocal review but so did tons of other people, which you could have easily learned if you did some research but hey … who cares, right? especially if it makes for a nice and controversial blog post.

I am glad to hear that the intent was noble, but I hope you understand the principles that you applied intentionally or not to your little fun experiment. That was the whole reason for me to post about it.

I referred to it primarily as “pyramid scheme”. You are right about Ponzi Schemes, which are a specific type of pyramid scheme.

Pyramid schemes come in all shapes and sizes and are not always obvious at first glance. The intention by the creator are in most cases not so noble. He is also often fully aware of the fact that it is a pyramid scheme.

This does not exclude the possibility that a pyramid scheme is created by accident without having anything bad in mind at all.

Just FYI. I did not pick this up by choice. It was brought to my door steps. I stated that at the very beginning of the post. I post whenever I feel like it and if I think that it is interesting and hopefully educating as well. I don’t have a blog about the professional subjects I deal with for this simple reason. I don’t have to blog every day or even every week and pressured to look for “new post ideas”.

I hope that clears things up. Thanks for your time to comment on this matter. I don’t know you, but the fact that you did respond makes me believe that you honestly did not intend it to be a pyramid scheme and that it was an accident.

Cheers!
Carsten

If I did these every day, every post, it would be different. But the commenter above has it right in saying relationships are formed with things like this, and it’s really a choice to be made.

Ponzi schemes TOTALLY refer to money schemes – there was no money exchanged here and it was a fun blog/community experiment.

You’re right that it didn’t go that far and that’s why you haven’t seen anything like it since on my site.

Knowing the people involved, this was done in nothing but an atmosphere of fun, experimentation, and good will towards all who participated.

But I guess it made for a great post idea for you – good job on that!

It also allows you test the performance and accuracy of your Web 2.0 monitoring tools and services :)

As with everything, too much of a good thing is also bad. Personal does not mean family or close friend so you have to be careful with how personal the meme is and if it is appropriate for the environment you are blogging in.

As I said before, important is the WHAT, WHERE and WHO. If all three things are okay, the meme is okay. I hope this makes sense.

Your analysis of the master link outside of the rotating links is insightful.

I don’t believe they attempted to pass it off as a meme, I was curious to hear your position on memes.

What I think of a meme in general depends a lot on the WHAT, WHERE and WHO. The thing is, that this is not a meme, but advertising for the guys product disguised as Meme.

If it would be a Meme, then you would write a review of at least two sites and they have to do the same.

There are only connections from one point in the Meme to the next and no “master connection” that links each point in the meme to a single point elsewhere, unless the meme has that point as subject.

You need to more than one possible point of continuation, to
a) make the meme spread as fast as memes usually do (exponentially)
b) ensure that it does not die, because of one dieing end.

Me refusing to continue kills the so called meme unless somebody like Michelle jumps in and makes the thing her own.

A meme usually only “dies” if virtually all possible touch points were touched (virtually everybody was “tagged” already) or if it reaches the borders of its relevance on even multiple points of continuation die faster than they are able to recover.

The Affiliate Summit meme for example die quickly, if people can not find untagged people who attended the event. I can tag other people, but they would not be able or interested in to continue the meme.