Having heard about the just launched BlogRush I thought I’d give it a try!
Created by John Reese, the idea is to increase your site traffic by sending free, targeted traffic to your blog.
How Does it Work?
You place the BlogRush widget on your blog and 5 relevant posts from participating blogs are shown. Any time a reader clicks on one of these posts you get a credit to display your latest post in a widget on another site. It doesn’t stop there however, you also earn credits based on activity through 10 generation levels. You also earn credits any time your page loads.You get more traffic when you refer more people to sign up and use Blogrush.
It’s early yet to see how this will work out but it’s worth a try if you have space for the widget!
I’m not too keen on the widget style, which isn’t customisable and doesn’t fit into by theme too well!
If you decide to give it a try sign up using my referral link and I’ll get some extra credit. 
I keep seeing a lot of posts that want folks to sign up for them but … sign up for what? Really, the service is so new that nobody knows if it is worthwhile.
So with that, and In answer to the question in your title, in my personal opinion, not so far is it worth the hype. Blogrush has made a lot of lofty promises so far but what have they actually delivered?
Wait and see, they say. On the web that’s a difficult thing to ask for in exchange for website real estate for a third party javascript widget.
Maybe this will be worthwhile in the future, but it’s not off to a very positive start.
Rather, that would be sign up “through” them [BR] or underneath their referral code.
I think TDavid is right in some respects but as I had space going begging in my sidebar I chucked the widget in there.
The hype has been amazing for what is really just another social type linking widget, but I think the contextual twist sets it apart a little.
Only time will tell how beneficial it will be for individual blogs but it’s brought a few visitors my way already so I’m not ready to write it off before it’s really out of the wrapper. Hopefully they will sort out the bugs quickly though.
Well I had some space so I thought it was worth a try! Being a newish blog I can do with all the help I can get to attract readers! I’ll see how it goes and decide if it’s worth it after giving it a go. Glad it’s already brought some visitors Maurice.
i think it is worth it since traffic is so important for having a successful site/blog.
Maurice how do you know it’s already brought some visitors? Am I missing something as I don’t see how you can tell?
Ahh I see - referrals in the BlogRush stats! Mine’s at zero so I guess I haven’t had any!
Janet
I wasn’t relying on the statistics from BR which were not even working when made my initial comment.
Tracking of visitors to my site is done in various ways - Feedburner stats, Google Analytics, my server stats and other things like Feedjit as just a few examples. Of course, none of those stats are ever in agreement with one another, but they do show me where people are coming from and going to
I’m seeing a small number of click throughs from the BR widget - I’m talking single figures here, but a visitor is a visitor. I don’t think BR will sustain any real visitor numbers in the long term , however it’s been an interesting experiment.
As it picks up and displays the title of your latest post, click throughs are always going to fluctuate wildly I imagine and I’m beginning to see a degradation of quality on the displayed links as the hordes descend. I think BR will have to look at some sort of site registration/approval process if they are going to find acceptance from a lot of bloggers long term.
Wow, no sooner are the words out of my mouth and Blog Rush respond, announcing the introduction of quality control for both new sites and those already in the network.
That is an encouraging sign I think.
I’d looked at Google Analytics, feedburner stats etc and didn’t see anything from BR. Guess I’ve just not had any visitors. On another point, anyone have any idea why I’ve earned 85 credits but my credit balance is -2?
I saw a blog rush referral in my stats, and figured out the originating post and came here to find out where the traffic came from. (Few people are going to do this.)
Last time I checked I’m getting 0.15% of my traffic from Blogrush. Unless they improve, the widget will come off.
Hi Lucia
I’ve had exactly 0 referrals in the last 7 days - not exactly a rush is it?
Hi Janet! I’ve recently taken the widget off because I was fed up with the ongoing ‘update’ (two weeks now?) and didn’t seem to get any more than three visitors from blog rush. I must admit that I’m still hesitating to put it back up again, just so I don’t miss out when they are finally back on track, but I’m not so sure. The content showing in my widget seems to get weaker and weaker, there’s hardly any traffic and the widget takes up a considerable amount of space, so why should I keep it?
Just a couple of days ago I put up a digg button prominently below every post and it already got me hundred times the traffic blog rush got me in weeks. I’ve noticed you also got a link to digg your posts. Does it help you out or do you never use it? The digg community is great in my opinion; I’ve found dozens of interesting links and it also helps in getting targeted traffic to your blog. Hopefully I will say the same about Blog Rush in a few weeks time.
Hi Bart
I also get a lot more traffic from Digg. I think Digg is great! I’m still considering removing the BlogRush widget - it really isn’t doing much for me.