Blogging Idol Contest: Accepting Sponsors and Applications!

You probably saw the competition between John Chow and Shoemoney, where both bloggers dueled for one month to see who could gain more RSS subscribers on that time frame. It was a fan event for the readers and fans of both bloggers, and it also was positive for the bloggers themselves because they ended up with a huge boost in the number of subscribers.

blogging idol

When the competition was over I thought that it would be cool to launch a similar one but at a larger scale, and that is when I started conceptualizing the idea of the Blogging Idol.

The idea

Basically I want to create a competition where any blogger with 1000 subscribers or less can enter. People can also create brand new blogs just for the competition. Those bloggers will then compete for one month, and we will track the initial and the final number of subscribers (as reported from Feedburner), and the blogger who manages to gain the largest number of new subscribers in that period will be declared the Blogging Idol, and will win the money prize.

Should the contest become successful in the future editions we can also have variations. Instead of RSS subscribers we could make the competition around raw traffic or income generated, for example. The first one will be focused on RSS subscribers though.

The 1000 subscribers cap will be used to exclude larger blogs and pro bloggers. It would not be fair after all if guys with brand new blogs were to compete with someone that already has 10,000. For the latter, adding hundreds of new subscribers in the course of one month is not a difficult task.

The objective of the contest is to give new bloggers an opportunity to compete with others and to prove their ability on blogging and online marketing. At the same time, it should also allow everyone to see what techniques and strategies will work, the ones that will not, with real examples behind everything.

Sponsors Welcome

I am planning to have one big final prize that will be awarded to the winner. Ideally it should be a cash prize, but products and services with high value (over $300) might be included.

I am talking with some companies that might sponsor the event already, but if you want to get involved just drop me an email via the contact form. You will get your company, product or service mentioned on at least 4 posts, and showcased in front of tens of thousands of eager bloggers.

Rules for the Competition

  1. All participants must activate the Feedburner feed count at the beginning of the competition.
  2. Participants will need to send a short email weekly (100-200 words), describing their strategies to gain RSS subscribes, and what they are doing on their blogs.
  3. I will group all those emails and publish them on a single post every week, so that readers can follow and understand how participants are competing.
  4. Blackhat methods will not be allowed, so you can’t fake stats, try to damage the blog of competitors and so on.
  5. Paid promotion will not be allowed, else it would become a “who can spend more” contest.
  6. If you have a blog with over 1000 RSS subscribers and will create a brand new one for the competition, you can’t use your established blog to promote the new one
  7. All other strategies and techniques are allowed (guest articles, contests, give-aways, controversial articles, free eBooks), so you are free to get creative

Send your application

If you agree with the rules of the contest, just send me an email via the contact form with your name and the URL of the blog that you want to enter on the competition (it can be the URL of a non-existent blog if you are planning to create one).

Update: There is a new post about the contest. So far we have almost 80 contestants, and $1500 in prizes for the winner. You can read about it here.

Daniel Scocco on June 11, 2008 Subscribe to our RSS Feed

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96 Responses to “Blogging Idol Contest: Accepting Sponsors and Applications!”

  1. Tom - IncomeDiary.com on June 11th, 2008 12:11 pm

    So if a blog that starts with 900 subscribers ends up with 990 and a brand new blog goes from 0-89 - the one with 990 wins? That seems a bit unfair doesn’t it?

  2. Daniel Scocco on June 11th, 2008 12:25 pm

    @Tom, yeah its not perfect, but it is the best I could find.

    Suppose we made the competition around %.

    Someone that started with 10 and finished with 100 got a 1000% increase.

    That would be higher than someone that started with 200 and finished with 1900 subscribers.

    It is not fair all the same.

    I think using absolute values with bloggers with 1000 or less subscribers should create a pretty competitive landscape.

    We could try lowering the cap to 500 also. What do you suggest?

  3. SEO Genius on June 11th, 2008 12:29 pm

    Hi Daniel good idea however i aswell as Tom are confused, so does it count the number of RSS readers that you start with or just the amount you gain?

    Also Dan, sorry to point out and i may be wrong however there a few grammatical errors in your article, usually there are none, so i am guessing you are tired.

    Here they are:
    “I start conceptualizing” Line 8 Should be “I started conceptualizing”
    “and the blogger the” Line 13 “and the blogger who (or) that”
    “larger number of new” Line 14 “largest number of new”
    “on that period” Line 14 “in that period”

    I hope you do not find this rude, me pointing out mistakes, i am definitely one to make them too.

    Anyways great article, i may consider signing up with a new blog i am planning on making in summer.

  4. Daniel Scocco on June 11th, 2008 12:35 pm

    @SEO Genius, only the numbers of RSS subscribers gained.

    If you start with 900 and finishes with 990, your final score is 90.

    Thanks for noting the typos, I wrote the article on a rush that is why there were a bunch of them.

    I sure appreciate you taking the time to point it out!

  5. SEO Genius on June 11th, 2008 12:37 pm

    Ahh ok that sounds better to me, well i shall keep track of whats going on through the blog, hopefully you will start it a week later, so my exams have finished :) but its up to you.

    No problems mate, i was just worried you would of found it rude.

  6. Rajaie AlKorani on June 11th, 2008 12:46 pm

    Yes! Heading over to contact form :-)

  7. --Deb on June 11th, 2008 1:43 pm

    What a fun idea!

  8. Keith Dsouza on June 11th, 2008 2:02 pm

    Well definitely gonna be in, I have been stuck at the below 1000 mark for quite some time and haven’t really put in much efforts to get more RSS subscribers of lately.

    This competition will definitely motivate me to do better and increase my subscribers.

  9. CarolBEE on June 11th, 2008 2:10 pm

    Love the Idea!! I am looking forward to participing in the contest and to some great ideas from others to help increase my RSS Feed.

  10. datter on June 11th, 2008 2:43 pm

    I’ve been away from blogging in general for a couple of years, and just got a new one going a couple of days ago. This is a very nicely timed idea since my RSS subscriptions are currently a big goose egg.

  11. Jacky Supit on June 11th, 2008 2:49 pm

    wow you are always be the first on thinking out of the box! great! :)

  12. Tony on June 11th, 2008 2:56 pm

    Very good idea! Like you said, it’s not perfect because someone with a few hundred subscribers should be able to add them more quickly than someone with only 15, but it’s pretty good nonetheless.

    Maybe if there were a rule that a blog had to be under a certain age (say, 1 year or less) that could help eliminate blogs that have already been around a long time and therefore may have an unfair advantage. Just a thought…

  13. Ozz on June 11th, 2008 4:16 pm

    Daniel,

    Will you require that the feed count be displayed on the blog? If not, how will you verify the count?

  14. team ray on June 11th, 2008 4:35 pm

    sounds good

    but it seem a bit easy to game jmho

  15. Daniel Scocco on June 11th, 2008 5:09 pm

    @Team ray, I think most people will try to compete fair. That is the point after all, to learn and apply new techniques along the way.

    Also, blackhat techniques are not allowed, and I will monitoring the participants.

  16. bananas on June 11th, 2008 5:10 pm

    LOVE this idea. Can’t wait to hear more.

  17. SATISH on June 11th, 2008 5:10 pm

    Hi….

    I am also very much eager to start enrolling myself into the competition, but as SEO Genius said, it was better if you would have started it in the next month(as this is a exams fever month for students).I thought, it was better to accept sites(competitors), when you get some more sponsors, so that the competition would be bigger.Anyway its left to Daniel.

    Best-of-luck Daniel….

  18. Miguel Cangueiro on June 11th, 2008 5:38 pm

    I’m in the competition… I’ going to send the e-mail right now

  19. David Shaw on June 11th, 2008 8:03 pm

    I am going to enter this.

    Seems fun, and is also good motivation to get more RSS Readers!

  20. Blog Marketing Journal on June 11th, 2008 11:56 pm

    What a cool contest! Love the icon!

  21. James on June 12th, 2008 3:07 am

    Good idea..but not involve this time, may be later. But l’ll be watching the contest as supporter :)

  22. shahar yair on June 12th, 2008 4:15 am

    Great Idea, everybody gains from it…
    We will get more subscribers and will learn interesting new techniques others are using..
    We are in !!! Sending a mail right now :)

  23. sonia on June 12th, 2008 5:09 am

    Oh what a lovely idea. I’m not going to participate because I am the blogger that is excited I have 4 people on my feedburner. :) I have no idea how to increase my rss subscribers. Much to learn. My two-cent suggestion… if possible, it would be great to see a diversity of blog contestants and I mean, not just a diversity in terms of the various niches. I’d personallu love to see a “personal” blog, a “political” blog, a “literary blog”.

  24. Melvin on June 12th, 2008 5:29 am

    it sounds a little complicated to me.. i will read it again and again..

  25. The BlogUpp! Team on June 12th, 2008 6:20 am

    Great idea, Daniel!
    That should really stimulate new ideas and interesting content to achieve those results.

    We’ll send you an email with a sponsorship offer.

  26. Gideon George on June 12th, 2008 6:43 am

    I love this Idea but for me I think It is coming too early and I really want to partispate But Iam extremely new to blogging and Iam just coming to this blog to learn the tips on blogging atleast to set my blog like any other blog http://www.mysnoringrelief.com I just created it and I only have one post in there I really need a helping hand in blogging

  27. David Shaw on June 12th, 2008 8:07 am

    Would like to say that it would be better to delay it for 1-3 weeks, let the competition become known, also, all of us with exams can get them out of the way….

    Just a thought!

  28. Daniel Scocco on June 12th, 2008 9:04 am

    @David, I don’t see the competition becoming more known within 1-3 weeks. What would make that happen :) ?

  29. Vaibhav on June 12th, 2008 11:39 am

    That is something which everybody requires. Subscribers, subscribers, Subscribers. More and more …
    I have been doing some good within last month, but I hope this will help me increase our base maximum.
    I am in :)

  30. Julie N. on June 12th, 2008 1:02 pm

    Awesome idea! I’m in! Great way to get motivated, meet some new bloggers and gain viewers! Thanks!

  31. Mcneris: For Bloggers on June 13th, 2008 12:16 am

    I came across a template the other day and when I did a testy run of it, it showed 11K and some fraction subscribers. That was on a new blog. The RSS subscriber base can be doctored by those that know how. Also free email accounts could be used to fictitiously swell that number even on feedburner. Great idea, but really we have to find a more objective way of judging, besides, if it is an Idol-like thing, then “readers” should judge especially after initial shortlisting.

  32. SATISH on June 13th, 2008 6:40 am

    Just a suggestion:

    As David said–let the competition become known….I add to it –> it will become known to all your visitors, if you place a small banner in your blog and link it to this post.So it will be popular and thus more people will enter into the contest and the contest would be more interesting to more people and there would be high competition and we can all know more tips and tricks by watching eachothers tactics to increase their subscription numbers.
    Its just my personal opinion.

  33. Daniel Scocco on June 13th, 2008 7:07 am

    @Satish, not sure.

    I will post about this on Monday again, and possibly could the banner on sidebar today (good idea thanks), after all that I am pretty sure that by next Wednesday all my readers will be aware of it.

    I think if we postpone it by 2-3 weeks we might lose the momentum. We already have almost 30 competitors :) .

  34. Daniel Scocco on June 13th, 2008 7:11 am

    @Mcneris, yes you can use a fake feedburner widget, but that is easily detectable by taking a look at the source code of the website.

    For using fake email accounts, sure one could go through the trouble of creating hundreds of them, but I don’t think it will affect the overall result.

    The winner here will be someone using really clever techniques to gain hundreds of subscribers over the 4 weeks period. Someone trying to game it by creating fake stuff will just lose time, and make a fool of himself if we find out.

  35. Karthik Kastury on June 13th, 2008 11:25 am

    Sad that I can’t take part. I already have 2000+ plus RSS readers. Daniel one quick suggestion though.. You could even extend this competition to a few of the bigger blogs to gain more exposure..

    That would in turn funnel down the attention to the smaller blogs. In the end everyone’s happy.. What say?

  36. Рассылка сигналов форекс on June 13th, 2008 11:50 am

    i wonna play too :)

  37. Daniel Scocco on June 13th, 2008 1:06 pm

    @Karthik, what do you mean, do an edition open for all sorts of blogs, even large ones?

  38. blogstar Sid on June 13th, 2008 2:09 pm

    I have a new blog..can u check whether it is eligible ?

  39. Jared Stenzel on June 13th, 2008 5:23 pm

    Nice, I’m signed up with my blog :)

  40. Daniel Scocco on June 13th, 2008 5:48 pm

    @blogstar sid, does it have the requirements I mentioned?

  41. Jay on June 15th, 2008 5:54 am

    Pretty good contest! But I’m definitely interested on the prizes! But are we allowed to enter two blogs for the competition?

    Jay

  42. Daniel Scocco on June 15th, 2008 7:38 am

    @Jay, 1 blog per person.

  43. SATISH.B on June 15th, 2008 2:29 pm

    Only feedburner or, are we allowed to use http://www.feedblitz.com ?

  44. Daniel Scocco on June 15th, 2008 6:58 pm

    @Satish, feedblitz is a RSS to email delivery service. The competition will be based on the Feedburner feed count, as stated on the post.

  45. Tibi Puiu on June 15th, 2008 7:17 pm

    Hehe, great idea Daniel. This should be fun to watch.

  46. Chetan on June 16th, 2008 12:46 am

    Seems to be a good one Daniel!
    Shoe and Darren’s bash rocked, and now this one for small bloggers would be great :D
    I might join in too..

  47. Jay on June 16th, 2008 12:33 pm

    Daniel,

    Thanks! Just got your e-mail… iBlogtoBlog.com it is! I checked yesterday, there’s actually only like 5 subscribers lol… if I can get that up to triple digits, I’ll be happy!

    Jay

  48. siong1987 on June 16th, 2008 3:58 pm

    Any further update about this competition?

  49. dumis on June 16th, 2008 7:48 pm

    I think it’s a great idea. Any sponsors yet ?

  50. Chris | You Are Living on June 16th, 2008 8:41 pm

    I hope i’m accepted!
    I think you should have the finalists have an american idol style finish! I would totally win a sing off! Now a blog-off is a different story.. haha

  51. Dan Cole on June 17th, 2008 12:34 am

    Why not do it over a longer period of time. This would help remove the “unfair” starting gap. Normally subscribers are few in the starting months, so each one counts a lot.

  52. SEO Genius on June 17th, 2008 7:30 am

    Ok i have decided i am going to go for it! Haha :D this will be fun, i shall send an email now :)

  53. Daniel Scocco on June 17th, 2008 9:27 am

    @Dumis, yeah.

    @Dan Cole, longer than 1 month? People would get bored :) .

  54. blog4net on June 18th, 2008 9:55 am

    Cool contest. Just submitted it to Dig under People coz i did not find blogging or internet categories.

    I am not submitting my blog for it. I have very few readers now and my blog has a long way to catch up.

    wish you all luck daniel in your efforts.

  55. DjFlush on June 19th, 2008 12:06 pm

    Hey Daniel I plan to take part in this competition by starting a new blog

    My only question is:

    Can’t I offer any free giveaways or free stuff to my readers :) ? I hope it does not fall in paid promotions?

  56. Daniel Scocco on June 19th, 2008 1:46 pm

    @DJ Flush, as long as you don’t spend money, that is fine.

    If you manage to get people to donate ebooks or prizes for you, that is fine.

  57. Jessica (It's my life...) on June 20th, 2008 1:40 am

    I’m most definitely entering, but first I need to figure out how to track my feeds…

  58. Missy from G34 Media on June 20th, 2008 8:02 pm

    I would like to have my flagship blog, Groovy Vegetarian, in the running for this contest.

    Off to send you my details via your contact form. Thanxs!

  59. Jacob from Group Writing Projects on June 23rd, 2008 6:00 am

    Daniel,
    I’m going to be promoting this contest on Group Writing Projects. Some questions:

    1) Activating FB feed count: do you mean that participating blogs must show the FB chicklet, or that the blogs must have an activated Awareness API?

    2) Where do bloggers send the weekly email?

    3) Will there be a way to track the competition to see who’s winning throughout July?

    4) What happens in case there’s a tie?

  60. varinya on June 23rd, 2008 11:46 am

    Thecompetitition will begin with its foremost edition about RSS subscribers followed by other editions dedicated to traffic or income generation.

    So, for each edition, you would be having a separate winner? And for how long a particular edition will run?

    Also, i wonder if it is so easy to generate more subscribers within a month’s time :)

  61. gilda on June 23rd, 2008 3:16 pm

    so ryan seacrest isn’t hosting this?!?!

    heh heh.

  62. Jenny on June 24th, 2008 11:53 am

    Interesting contest. :) I would do it but I’m not that dedicated to my blog. LOL

  63. John on June 24th, 2008 2:25 pm

    Do we have a start date yet?

  64. Jacob from Group Writing Projects on June 24th, 2008 5:11 pm

    John,
    The start date is July 1st according to Daniel’s update:

    http://www.dailyblogtips.com/b.....he-winner/

  65. John on June 24th, 2008 5:24 pm

    Whoops. Somehow I missed that. Thanks!

  66. Peter on June 24th, 2008 6:00 pm

    Hi, if a competition stsrts on July 1, 2008, I’d like to take part in it. I think it will be very interesting to make my new unknown blog famous and interesting for hordes of readers.

  67. Jan Alvin on June 29th, 2008 5:41 pm

    Can My blog join the competition??

  68. David Bradley on June 30th, 2008 12:39 pm

    Is my smaller blog (sciencetext.com) which has about 200 excluded because I have a bigger blog (sciencebase.com) with 3000+

    db

  69. ghing on June 30th, 2008 7:06 pm

    hi Daniel..
    this is really a nice contest.. I am not joining ‘coz i think I don’t have the possibility to win.. hehe..

    I will just write a post about this on my new blog.. for I am looking for different blogging contests..

    good luck to all who join and more power to you Daniel!… :)

  70. Bloggeries Blog Reviews on July 6th, 2008 8:45 pm

    I’ll donate a blog Review. $50 value.

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