rssHugger has decided to take the advice I gave in my review and changed their business model. Instead of charging $10 and a blog post to be listed on the site, all you have to do now is blog about it.
The community has spoken, and we have listened! We have removed the $10 registration fee. Write a blog post reviewing rssHugger and get a 10 year listing absolutely free! We feel that in order to allow the smallest blogs that write quality content to join, we needed to offer a free solution.
The removal of the sign up fee will surely increase the number of blogs that will use the service. Now the site truly have a chance of going viral. Every time a new blog adds itself to the service will mean a new review for rssHugger. It shouldn’t take long to generate hundreds of reviews (and backlinks) to the site. Hell, if it spreads fast enough, rssHugger may even rank on the front page of Google for RSS.
I see my page on rssHugger is now number one on the Top 100 list. 
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{ 51 comments }
Good move, Colin. Always wise to take advice from the best.
I really didn’t see the $10 as too much of a deal. Everyone’s gotta get paid and I’m sure running this type of service will have some overhead.
True that, waving the $10 will create more buzz and there is no loss at all.
That ought to read ‘waiving’ not ‘waving’.
I wrote a post over 1000 words to review rssHugger
And I’m one of the first 25 takers 
I reacted pretty quick after Collin did a revamp, but unbelievable still have over 20 people got a head of me.
BTW, I’m having a social birthday event up on my blog, Let’s be friends.
It’s not about $10. It’s about the fact that this service will get more exposure if it were free to those who blog about it. I think it was a very smart move for rsshugger.
It’s not that $10 is a lot of money. It’s more the fact that sites like that are plentiful, and with so many choices, the best thing to do is to get as many eyeballs on your site and then try to get money through advertisement. You can just see that since going free, the number of blogs on the site has greatly increased. There were like 20 blogs before John posted about it, and now there are something like 100 in only two days. I am a perfect example. I wouldn’t have done it for 10 bucks, even if I had the money, but for free, I’m willing to try most anything.
I agree. Learn from those who are doing it actually.
Yeah, that is a good move. But I think you could’ve got away with charging just a dollar and get rid of those spam requests…
nice the sign up fee is gon and now bloggers a like can share – but what makes this so different from so many other social rss sites? it seems that rss hugger is just a landing page for your rss feeds. it does not even show the description just the first 10 links in your rss.
I do not know if it will gain popularity about it – in anycase its nice rss hugger has decided to remove the sign up fee
Great news! I’m definitely gonna be blogging about it.
John Chow you’re the man
I am definitely going to blog about rsshugger and get my blog on the site.
Keep up the great work Mr. John Chow!
John Cow… Not John Chow…
I just had to say it.
Good stuff. Free is always good.
Smart idea to open it up, but not that smart, it was pretty dum before to charge a fee.
Thanks a million for the update John, as well as your previous advice.
*gasp* Free hugs!?
*Goes to blog*
Mainly what I find will help them most is getting a blog entry from your blog
Thanks for the free stuff, I will give it a try.
Yeah seems like their site could grow much larger with this method rather than $10 per registration.
ClickforNick – Reach Your Goals
When JC speaks…. people listen…
You rule! \m/
Strange how you can have so much influence. How does it feel to be so powerful John
Why post a review?
Why not offer a 80x15px chicklet that links back to their site?
Several blog directories offer this… I subscribed to a few, and put the chicklets on the footer of my Blog.
Also, with the chicklet on the footer (and not a single page), and over 200 indexed pages on my Blog, that’s 200 incoming links to their site.
Geez, I’m a Track Coach, not an Internet Marketer or SEO expert!
unfortunately i dont like following the crowd and blogging about the same things as a million other blogs so i wont be blogging about rss hugger just to get my feed up there. oh well.
I bet their site will become huge after the viewers of this blog see it’s free.
I think they should review their business model again !!!
ok it is free now but why request a review ?? just for having a bunch blogs list??? 20$ or a review mmm i don’t know about that. they should think for some else like more interactivity to push their website to the next level…. be more web 2.0 style……
Good to hear they took your advice, John. I personally wasn’t all that keen on linking to them and paying an extra $10 to be listed. Seems a whole lot fairer this way.
Steve
Still can`t add a feed …. anyone else get the same problem?
I have sent you an email to work out the problem.
Are these links going to get slapped by google?
Good News!!
Seems like rssHugger really made their sign-up process “FEE-FREE”
Since the evil John Chow have posted about them, it would be a matter of time until the site gets big. I’ll be sure to post about them
-Mike
Although its moot point since your rssHugger page is just linking back to your feedburner feed. Only one link for johnchow.com
Feedburner uses “301″ redirects to tell search engines that the URL has “permanently moved”.
The backlink still goes to your blog post, and the search engines will still spider your site instead of feedburner.
If you are not familiar with 301′s:
http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php
RssHugger Sucks just like your wife john
. I still owe her like $1.02 from last night. Ill send it to your paypal asap
???
doesn’t work on my end
What is rssHugger anyway? sorry, i new to this.
Yawwwn…seems like sites are popping up left and right daily…I wonder how many of these quickie sites really last past 6 months
so true.. i bet only half will survive the hype
Why promote their site with a blog post.It is only to their advantage not yours.
Steven
Seeing it twice in your site made me rethink about it, then I wrote a review with a title, “rssHugger – a serendipity outcome of JC vs JS RSS Contest.” Too bad, I only wrote about that contest, but Collin did more than writing about it. He did something creatively that would increase our traffics. Great job Collin and thanks Mr. Root of all Evils.
Yay! Power to the people!
Talk about taking the advice of the wise evil One…
I really believe RssHugger without the $10 registration will take off fast. I knew about the site even before the John chow review but didn’t went into it just because of the $10. Call me cheap, but I gotta spend money where I think deserved it.
With such an offer, i will see many linking back to Rsshugger, it’s surely worth more than the $10 they are going to get!
I got to admit, that was an excellent piece of advice John
I wonder if Google will ban him for trying to artificially get links?
Okay I think we are just being too harsh
Good luck to rssHugger!
After reading about RSSHugger on your site. I went and checked it out. I feel it’s not a bad deal to suscribe to RSSHugger. No harm trying.
Well done!
Great idea!!!