Free Drinks at the Irish Blog Awards
Final Results for Round 2 of this challenge are now here.
In a recent challenge , Ken McGuire crushed all opposition by reaching 100 subscribers on Feedburner before anybody else could roll out a shameless self publicity campaign.
So , to give everybody a chance, we’re going for another round. You can join in at any point (leave a comment below to get included).
The rules are simple : The person who gets the biggest % increase in FeedBurner subscribers (that’s the number on the top right of the blog) between now and the Irish Blog Awards wins. Prize is a pint. And yes, all is fair in Love, War and trying to up your Blog numbers.
To subscribe to this blog (we really can’t afford to lose twice in a row, the price of drink in Dublin being so high), click on the Orange XML icon on the top right of this page. If you’re not automatically asked to subscribe , you may want to sign up to a service such as Bloglines. Subscribing means that you’ll automatically be updated on who is in the lead.
Due to popular demand (and the fact Damien will have 17 Squintillion subscribers before next Tuesday) we’ll probably have a round 3 after this one. If you want in , leave a comment. Remember, it’s all about the percent increase, so it’s an advantage to start small.
And the Contenders are …
| Blog | Start | Current |
|
 |
Ken McGuire Creative Imaginations | 103 | |
 |
Conor O’Neill- Louder Voice |
44 | |
 |
Aidan Finn AidanF.net | 84 | |
| James Corbett - Eirepreneur | 480 | ||
 |
Robin Blandford - ByteSurgery | 42 | |
 |
Tom Raftery - IT views | 751 | |
 |
Paul Browne - Technology in Plain English | 96 | |
| Richard Hearne - Red Cardinal | 85 | ||
 |
Thomas Holmes - YClickIt | 113 | |
 |
Eoghan McCage - Naive by Design | 35 | |
| Damien Mulley - Blog AwardsHonorary Lifetime Member - 1200% increase in first 24 hours |
6 | ||
| Damian O’Broin- Ask Direct | 23 |
4) In a shock last minute move:
Damien Mulley forgoes his 400+ base and opts to start again with the Irish Blog Awards feed (6 readers). Rumour has it that we may as well buy the man a pint now, while the rest of us scrap it out for second place (prize - diet coke with ice). We did say almost anything was fair game … 
5) In another shock first day wipeout: Damien Mulley has increased his total by 1200% using a little known site called the Irish Blog Awards. I’ll check the small change down the back of the sofa , buy Damien the pint, and the rest of us mere mortals can continue on to see who gets pint number 3.
February 5th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
[...] « Masters / Msc in Web 2? Free Drinks at the Irish Blog Awards » 02 Feb [...]
February 5th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Hey Paul, can you use my LouderVoice one for the competition? It’s a bigger challenge!
February 5th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Gonna have to roll up my SEO tricks so, have a serious sit down with the blog and plan out a few things. I’ve already got a pint for the right hand, just need one for the left hand now
February 5th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
I meant to say sleeves there… how does one roll up a trick? Might launch an affiliate campaign - mouthfulls of beer on offer or something…
February 5th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Conor - Blog changed to Louder Voice. Nice trick , starting from a low base to get a bigger % increase.
Ken - I wouldn’t be too sure about getting a 2nd beer out of me. I see you’re back down to 88 today
Paul
February 5th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Ah its that ole weekend slump, easing back into the week. Give it time Obi Wan!
February 5th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
I only need to know one thing - the exact day and time that the subscription count will be taken. And as long as this contest is only based on the start and end figures (nothing in between) I’m going to have some fun
February 5th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Richard,
I will probably take Tuesday’s figures for you (to avoid getting a false low after the weekend).
Do you have a photo that I can use in the table above?
Ken,
I think you’re toying with us , making us think we have a chance of catching you!
Paul
February 5th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Not sure yet how best to do the end figure - any ideas?
Paul
February 5th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
How about we all provide our ticker code to you, you put them on this page, take a screen shot tomorrow and then work against this when you take the final tally.
But I still need a set time to prepare my strategy…
February 5th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Richard,
If we can do the ‘auto updates’ (using the same piece of code that gives the ‘number of subs’ on your blog , that would be sweet!
Paul
February 5th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
If that works then I cant see why everyone cant just place their feed details next to their name on this page. Just take a screenshot tomorrow as the reference.
February 5th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Right I pasted in my code but it didn’t make it. Trying now by wrapping in
element:
February 5th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Richard,
If you stick the FeedBurner icon somewhere on your site, I should be able to pick it up like I did for everybody else.
Doing a ‘reset’ from the figures tomorrow is probably fairest (esp to Aidan who got a surge at the wrong time).
Paul
February 5th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
[...] If anyone else wants to take part, post your interest over at Paul Browne’s blog. Share and Enjoy: [...]
February 5th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
hey Paul,
I’m in!
We just hit 100 subscribers on Friday! Pretty chuffed about that!
I don’t have the feedburner graphic on the site at the moment but I can probably email it to you!
February 5th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Thomas,
Will add you over the next couple of minutes.
Feedburner have a little wizard that generates the icon / code to include on your web page. Probably best to put it somewhere on your blog (either a post , or the main template), I can then pick it up from there.
Paul
February 5th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Thats pretty cool, nice addition on the feedburner chicklets. Have a nice little trick up my sleeve already
February 5th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
OK, let’s go! I want in. My puny start should give me an advantage. I’ve put the counter in the footer of my blog. I’m unsubscribing from all you losers!
February 6th, 2007 at 8:11 am
Eoghan,
I’ll add you sometime during the day.
Richard,
Your numbers are down. I sense some Ninja SEO tricks are going on
Paul
February 6th, 2007 at 8:30 am
Nothing doing I’m afraid. It’s just normal after you get a spate of social network visitors. I had 1.7k visitors over Saturday and Sunday.
TBH it would be very low to artificially deflate your start numbers. Easy to do, but very low.
February 6th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Richard,
No worries - I’ve the opposite problem - numbers are high today due to a premature ’surge’ in feed readers (social networks again).
Still , 96 is as high as we’ve ever been.
Paul
February 6th, 2007 at 10:20 am
[...] I’m in on Paul’s race to get the largest percentage RSS subscribers increase before the Irish Blog Awards. [...]
February 6th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Stick me down for the blog awards. Currently at 6 subscribers.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/IrishBlogAwards?bg=99CCFF&fg=444444&anim=0
February 6th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
The competition just ‘hotted up’. I’d be surprised if the largest % increase wasn’t seen by awards.ie. Expect lots of natural traffic, most especially when voting starts.
Perhaps Damien will will an award on the night
February 6th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
I had never considered that. *shifty eyes*
February 6th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
OK then, sign me up! How do I join?
Although my 23 subscribers (my highest ever, btw) looks terribly puny next to all you giants of blogland
February 6th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Folks,
Table updated with Today’s feedburner numbers (Thomas I can’t see yours , maybe I’m just missing it).
If Damien happens to win (say, because he may be planning a massive event in early March that none of us know about yet) I’ll find a way to keep it interesting.
Paul
February 6th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Starting from 103 eh? Nuts, thats putting it up to me anyway! The gloves are off in this one I tell thee…
February 6th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
It’s on! I seem to be off to a dodgy start though: my name links to Thomas!
February 7th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Oh, just buy Damien the drink would you. He’s gone from 6 to 76 in under 24 hours.
It’s going to take something really sneaky to beat the awards feed… *goes to digg out spell book*
February 7th, 2007 at 9:20 am
@ Eoghan ; Link Fixed.
@ Damien - what are you having?
@ Richard - looks like I’ll have to stump up for pint number 3!
February 7th, 2007 at 9:34 am
wahoo - 50% increase overnight
February 7th, 2007 at 9:40 am
@Robin - how did you manage that one?
February 7th, 2007 at 9:46 am
no idea Paul. I’m presuming it’ll be back down tomorrow!!
February 7th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Paul,
Mine is at:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/yclickit?bg=66FF33&fg=444444&anim=0
As for the dual language strategy - yep i’m betting on my bilingual blog!
Grrr, should have submitted at the weekend - now up to 113! On the other hand, cool!
February 7th, 2007 at 11:58 am
@Thomas - feed icon updated
@Robin - I’d expect you to say that. You just don’t want to share trade secrets with the rest of us
February 7th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
woo hoo! I’ve smashed my previous record with 27! Watch out boys, I closing fast
February 7th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
[...] This has nothing to do with a little race that’s kicking-off about now. Nothing at all. Posted on 7 February, 2007 at 9:05 pm and tagged with eoghan mccabe, design, web, ireland. [...]
February 7th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Holy crap. Eoghan really wants that pint. I was actually thinking of doing something similar.
But I was thinking of putting a golden ticket into a unique feed. Cant figure a way to do this with technorati though.
This seems to be getting a bit more serious methinks
February 7th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
[...] Some of the bloggers turning up to the Irish Blog Awards have started a little competition to see who can have the greatest percentage increase in their blog feed subscribers from now until the blog awards on March 3rd. Things are really hotting up now with Eoghan McCabe offering €2000 worth of his design work to a randomly selected subscriber to his feed. Who’ll be next to up the ante? [...]
February 7th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
@Eoghan for Eur2000 of Web design I’ll gladly hack your ‘number of subscribers’ image above to whatever number you want
February 7th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
This could get dirty you know.
February 7th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
[...] Well what started out as a a friendly bit of banter over who would buy the pints at the Irish Blog Awards has suddenly escalated into serious contest that could even eclipse the Blog Awards themselves. [...]
February 7th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
@Richard - Hopefully
February 8th, 2007 at 1:34 am
[...] For the last few days a lot of Irish bloggers seem to have been competing to see who has the most subscribers to their feeds. *yawn* [...]
February 8th, 2007 at 1:48 am
One question!
What are the rules?
February 8th, 2007 at 7:05 am
Gavin,
Rules are: No biting , no eye-gouging , no photo-shopping, no double-subscribing but otherwise anything goes.
You in for the next round?
Paul
February 8th, 2007 at 7:17 am
I think the ‘rules’ went out the window a while ago. Sure, I don’t even know how we decide the winner.
But one thing I do know, if we make a couple more comments here the central div might actually extend beyond Paul’s side bar
February 8th, 2007 at 7:29 am
[...] Why you should subscribe to this blog [...]
February 8th, 2007 at 10:49 am
[...] Paul Browne is running a competition with a few of the guys that are going to the Irish Blog awards, to see who can get the highest percentage increase in subscribers. They are all using feedburner as the official subscriber count. I wish I entered the race, at the moment I only have 16 subscribers so should have an advantage over some of the bloggers like Tom Rafferty who have over 700. [...]
February 8th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Sign me up, mate! With a measly six or seven subscribers (on a good day) I expect that by simply pointing a gun at the head of my extended family, I should be able to romp home here!
February 8th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I’m sure that pint is mines although Richard will need to be dealt with accordingly.
Once I get my feed burner fully functional I’ll submit my site with zero subscribers, yes I am confident.
February 8th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Yeah, this whole percentage increase thing really isn’t the greatest measure…
For Tom to increase his subscribers at the same rate as Damien has done in the last two days he would need 9400 subscribers.
Not that it isn’t possible!
February 8th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
JC , Gavin : I’ll include you in the next round. Easiest thing is to stick the feedburner icon on your blog and I’ll pick it up from there.
Thomas: Yes %age increase is a bit dodgy. I’m open to suggestions on how to measure round (pint) 3.
February 8th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Well I missed why you aren’t using just the raw increase in subscribers.
You could use raw subscribers and factor in %increase in some way.
i.e. starting out with a larger subscriber base makes it easier to increase raw subscribers through your existing subscriber network. So factor this in, in some way that balances out the chances of winning for the blogs with lower subscriber figures.
jeez my maths hat is pretty dusty these days…
February 8th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Richard: “Holy crap. Eoghan really wants that pint.”
Not really, I’m just over-competitive. It’s a little problem I have. But if I do win the pint, I’ll enjoy knowing it cost me 2 grand!
February 8th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
[...] Cue Round Two “The person who gets the biggest % increase in FeedBurner subscribers between now and the Irish Blog Awards wins” [...]
February 8th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Been out of the ring lately but this looks interesting. Lots of luck
February 9th, 2007 at 1:06 am
This sounds like fun - count me in
February 9th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Glad to see almost everybody’s numbers are up. I have a plan for this. After all, we’re not really in this for the pint (shock ! horror!).
@Thomas - I’m trying to keep the number really simple, yet fair. Maybe next time we can do ‘bigest spike in google visitors’ , although we’ll have to trust each other on that one.
@Phil - I’ll include you in the next round.
February 9th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
[...] RSS Subscriber Competition I imagine most of you have seen this already: Free Drinks at the Irish Blog Awards - Technology in plain English - Dublin Ireland __________________ Armchair.ie | work|Blog Tips|Seo tips|EU Domain ScandalTechie Toys| Gadgets Do you want your vbulletin site to be search engine friendly? Click here for info [...]
February 11th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
[...] Wow. Richard Hearne from Red Cardinal is offering a free consultation for all nominees. It’s about 15 minutes of his time but it can still be a good deal. There are lots of terms and conditions but none too sneaky. He is of course looking for you to subscribe to his blog feed too and link to his blog from your blog. This is known as linkbaiting but since both sides benefit, it might not be classed as spam. I’m reminded of something else … [...]
February 11th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Hmmm. 50% increase on Friday and now a 30% drop. This is going to be interesting…
February 12th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
6 Days gone … and most people’s feeds are *down* on last week. Ok, it’s Monday so things will pick up. We’ll wrap up this round tomorrow (as Damien pretty much has it in the bag)
There is an alternative to Beer on offer for Round 3. Any suggestions on how to award the (to be revealed) prize to be fair to everyone? Thomas has suggested %age *and* absolute increase. I’m thinking of ‘craziest offer to increase stats ‘(e.g. Richard and Eoghan). What do people think?
Will probably kick round 3 off towards the end of the week.
February 12th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
[...] It must be the season for competitions and give-aways because as many in the blogo-sphere will know the second leg of Blog feeds subscriber race is soon to come to an end. (Oh, and Free Drinks are up for grabs) [...]
February 13th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
[...] In a shock turn to the Irish Blog awards, Damien Mulley has been revealed (allegedly) to be in receipt of a pint for his efforts in the ‘increase your subscribers on feedburner‘ award. Anonymous sources detailled his use of the Irish Blog Award feed (which increased it’s readers 32 times) to win this prestigious award, which is the premier alcohol based award in the Irish Blogosphere. [...]
February 16th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Everyone can expect a fairly big jump in their numbers over the weekend. Google will now provide feeder numbers for both Google Reader and Google Homepage subscribers.
Previously this only showed up as a single aggregate reader. You will now see the total figure
February 21st, 2007 at 1:12 pm
[...] Why you should subscribe to this blog Subscribe by Email [...]
March 5th, 2007 at 10:30 am
[...] The stunt ends today and one of my subscribers will get €2,000 worth of web design work. If you’d like it, all you have to do is leave your name in the comments some time in the next 24 hours and I’ll put you in the draw. I’ll announce the winner with an update to this post. Good luck! While I didn’t win the race, I did gain an extra 60 subscribers. But I’m not under any illusions; there’s nothing more appealing than free! While I’ve got you, I’d like to invite you to stick around because there’s lots to come in the next few months: [...]
March 8th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
[...] …Paul Browne of FirstPartners.net! Using a sequence of numbers from Dublin-based Random.org, I put all the names in a spreadsheet and sorted by descending order. It’s funny that Paul ended-up on top as he’s the guy ultimately responsible for this whole thing. So well done Paul; you walk away with €2,000 of web design work and one of the ugly trophies pictured above. [...]
November 1st, 2007 at 9:47 am
[...] [...]