xBrain,
You’re going to have to contact Chow about that. I know the method, but disagree with it enough that I’d rather not share it publicly.

Tom,
It is, for certain. And I think the issue is a bit more complex. I get all kinds of comments – some I trust the commenters so I just let through automatically. Others I have to look at to see what their intentions are. This takes a fair amount of time. And I want to reward all commenters with a link love.

If I want to that in my blog – how suppose I do that? Is there any plug in for that?

To me this is honourable and makes these comments slightly redundant.

Yeah, I’ve been surprised by the responses too. I think of my blog as a place for all of us to learn from each other. And there’s no better way to do that, I feel, than through conversations and relationships.

No worries on kidding with me. I actually knew that. Just adding joining in the fun.

And I was only kidding about moving the conversation. The rest was pretty much true.

I actually agree with you on not promoting people like John Chow. As you can see, I’ve given no link love to him at all.

The reason I chose to talk about this is because I know there is a huge number of people who will just follow along with whatever John says/does. Through this post, I’ve wanted to discourage people from following him on this one.

So how do you offer a dissenting opinion without actually talking about the topic in the first place?

Thank you for your comments and your suggestions. This post is now more than a week old. And while it will live on in cyberspace, I’ve moved on from it.

WebStractions,

Perhaps. I’m simply looking out for the good people who would be misguided by John to try something like this.

And you’re welcome to the conversation…

I see what you did just there…lol

Therefore, I suggest we move this conversation over to my blog. I neither have any real link love to transfer and nobody reads it anyway.

Dawud, you wonder how people listen to him: you already listened. You didn’t like what you heard, but you listened. And talked about him. You make him famous, although you gave no link back to his site… You help him, big time. What John Chow does is an extremely effective online PR technique. We could talk hours about this topic, but it will make no sense, because instead of stopping him, it will make him stronger.

I hear you. I wonder how he’s getting people to listen to him. Oh well. And thanks for keeping an eye on me.

Vivienne,

Yes, this is what I’ve been saying for years…the internet is about people connecting with people. It’s not about computers so much. Computers are just the medium, just as phones are a medium that people connect. Great point and thanks.

Robert,

Ooh, selling his blog…there’s something I hadn’t thought of. Maybe you’re right. I know that I’ve not given him very much link love since blogging. And you’ll notice there’s no direct links to his blog in this post.

Charity,

I agree. I can’t say John’s motivation. I just know that he doesn’t seem to care about his readers other than their pocket books.

Angie,

Yeah, I know. I don’t get it either. He’s either really smart of not so smart.

Court,

Let him squeeze. He’s not only squeezing people’s wallets, he’s also squeezing out supporters.

Is John preparing to sell the blog, and wants to up the ante by driving his Tech rank/authority up with a massive influx of links? Something even more subtle? Or is he just having a laugh at our expense? Who knows?

When something like this comes along that sounds so totally outrageous and off-the-wall, then I have to wonder about the underlying motivation.

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