Tooting One’s Own Horn
I’m all for being proud of an accomplishment when its a real accomplishment, but this morning’s press release about The Tournament Guide just really rubbed me the wrong way. According to the release, Maxim Billiards (no relation to Maxim Magazine other than being a shameless attempt to siphon traffic), is now the 5th most read online magazine according to something called “Issuu“. I’ve never heard of Issuu, so I figured I’d go check it out to see what was ranked ahead of them.
#1. Mint Magazine
#2. The Duke Chronicle
#3. Prim Magazine
#4. Mississippi Valley State University Magazine
So I’m sure you’re asking why these magazines are listed and one’s you’ve actually heard of are not. The reason is that Issuu only ranks online magazines that use their publishing platform. I’m not going to go into the fact that almost any tool that measures raw numbers is exceptionally easy to manipulate (on second thought, yeah I will).
Look, I don’t have any problem with Mike Janis. He works hard, he promotes the game and he cares about the industry. I’m just tired of the chest thumping. The only sites that have an accurate measure of traffic are Nielsen and comScore/Media Metrix. To show you just how easy it is to manipulate site rankings, I present you with Exhibit A. According to Alexa (another crap traffic measuring tool), this blog is the 8th most popular site for billiards, ahead of the WPBA, Billiards Digest and the BCA. Plus I’m #3 for billiards news and media behind only AZ Billiards and Inside Pool.
Do you really think that’s accurate? I sure as shit don’t. I know for a fact that the WPBA gets more traffic than I do. The reason I rank higher is simply that I have the Alexa plug-in installed in my browser, so every time I go to make a blog post, check my stats, etc., it counts me as a unique visitor. Ranking meters are easy to manipulate, especially raw view counters.
I personally think that Mike’s Tournament Guide website is a great idea and in the long run could be very successful. What he’s doing is essentially taking all the sports that mainstream media ignores and building a huge news and information site around it. The site has some great potential. If you provide good information, people will come to your site (which is probably why nobody comes to my site). All chest thumping does is make people question the validity of your claim. The reason you don’t see AZ Billiards chest thump is because they don’t have to. Its the best news website out there and everyone knows it. Sure, they could talk about how much traffic they get and how many users visit their forums, but they don’t.
When you’re the best, you don’t need to tell anyone how good you are. I, however, am not the best so I will tell you that I have the awesomest, most bitchin’ billiards blog on the planet. If you don’t believe me, just ask my mom. She always tells me how awesome I am when she comes down to the basement to bring me my Pop Tarts every morning for breakfast.
Your blog is great. Just ask anyone. Heck, I even read it, if that means anything. Yes, we are tooting our own horn. We have been working really hard promoting our sport anyway we can and sometimes or manytimes you have to promote yourself to get the extra bump need to get the job done.
As for the rankings, issuu is independant of those search engines you mentioned. We nor anyone else has anyway of manipulating them. Who is issuu. Who cares, but to help put things in perspective many other “probably all online billiard magazines except P&B” use issuu to distribute their magazines. This list includes, InsidePool, Professor-Q-Ball, Rackem, Stroke, The Break, and of course our other online magazine The Tournament Guide. Now comparing apples-to-apples and using the independant rating system from issuu we are doing pretty good, in fact, we are doing better than the rest on tyhe same level. (PS, I’m not picking on the other magazines I am just offering an example of who uses issuu. Personally, I subscribe to all of the above and read each one dilligently each month and I highly recomend all of them.)
Another thing that helps Maxim Billiards magazine besides the shameless parody of the name is that 25 sites link directly to our magazine. That’s a pretty hard task to accomplish getting 25 other websites to help you promote the competition) in the cyber or even the real world at times . Plus the magazine is delivered monthly to over 1400 social media friend sites. This is just an example of how we are trying to go above and beyond what anyone else has ever done to promote billiards. I am sure many have done great things and I appreciate all their efforts but we are trying real hard to. So please don’t knock us, either help out or step aside.
Actually thinking about it. Your blog post actually helps to get the word out regardless of it’s content so thank you for helping.
Regarding your statement “The reason you don’t see AZ Billiards chest thump is because they don’t have to. Its the best news website out there and everyone knows it.” All I have to say is that yes AZ is a great forum but to quote the owner of AZ “WE ARE NOT A NEWS SITE”. Which was the answer I got on why they don’t report certain activities within the billiard industry. It’s their site so of course they can do what they want. We however with Maxim Billiards or the Tournament Guide will report and cover all events possibel and yes, we even cover our competitors events with other tours and we do all of this for free for them.
Sincerely,
Mike & Terrie Janis
I forgot to mention. The part I like best about your site is “Threat-o-Meter”, that part is AWESOME! However, as an industry insider my opinion is that the “Threat-o-Meter” needs to be set back to Orange. This is my opinion based on my personal experience at this years BCA Trade Expo and what appears to be a leveling off with sales in the current billiard industry marketplace.
Mj
Hey Mike. I wasn’t knocking you for anything but the Issuu ranking. As I said in my post, I do like The Tournament Guide site and think its a great idea (as well as having a ton of potential). I’m just not a huge fan of chest thumping, whether its for my site or anyone else’s.
As for the Threat-o-Meter, I’ve been thinking about moving it out of the red for a while, but every time I consider it, the industry goes and reminds me not to. The turnout at the Expo was essentially flat and with Platinum going out of business, I figured I’d keep it red for now. I’m guessing that after the summer we’ll be able to get it down to orange.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Thanks for getting back to me. I was wondering if you would add our magazine links to your “News’n Crap” and the Viking Tour link to categories.
PS. Platinum hasn’t been a player for quite some time. So you may want to reconsider that basing the threat-o-meter on that news. Ozone, PoolDawg, Olhausen, viking, Predator and several other industry business have stepped up advertising and support of events quite a bit which I think is a better more accurate indicator of the industry. JJust a thought for’ya. please let me know via email when the threat-o-meter moves back and if you nneed a plug send us a PR about it so we can add it to Maxim Billiards / Tourament Guide Mag. i tghink our readers would like to know more about it + it;s a pretty interesting nnewsworty meter.
Also, please take advantage of our free linking system availbe at both maximbilliards.com and tournamentguidemag.com. You can simply add your link.
Thanks,
Mj
Thanks for getting back to me. I was wondering if you would add our magazine links to your “News’n Crap” and the Viking Tour link to categories.
PS. Platinum hasn’t been a player for quite some time. So you may want to reconsider that basing the threat-o-meter on that news. Ozone, PoolDawg, Olhausen, viking, Predator and several other industry business have stepped up advertising and support of events quite a bit which I think is a better more accurate indicator of the industry. Just a thought for’ya. please let me know via email when the threat-o-meter moves back and if you nneed a plug send us a PR about it so we can add it to Maxim Billiards / Tourament Guide Mag. i tghink our readers would like to know more about it + it;s a pretty interesting nnewsworty meter.
Also, please take advantage of our free linking system availbe at both maximbilliards.com and tournamentguidemag.com. You can simply add your link.
Thanks,
Mj
@Mike Janis
I am curious as to exactly when the owner of AzBilliards ever said that it was not a news site. Can you please show me that quote?
Mike (The owner of AzBilliards)
post
Mike, it was JF in a phone conversation right after a heated exchang on why AZ would not report on certain topics. To JF, I stated that AZ was not a reputable news site for not reporting and or investigating the info and JF stated “WE ARE NOT A NEWS SITE”.
JF is one of the owners isn’t he? This was around Sept/Oct of last year.
If you want I can send you the emails from around that time regarding the topic.
Mj
I am certain that you misunderstood whatever statement he made.
Just because we don’t publish every news article that someone thinks we should, does not mean we are not a news site.
Mike