Heard of scratchback.com? It’s yet another blogging widget, that lets you buy a link on a blog as a form of tip. As you probably gathered from the title, I don’t rate it too highly. It offers little value to the blogosphere in my opinion, and seems more like a tip jar for ScratchBack, given the commissions taken. Reminds me of James’ post about superficial blogging come to think of it; I rate scrachback in that category, when applied to the web app scenario (sorry Jim).

However! I just saw a marketing tactic for Scratchback (whilst at the same time bashing another widget, BlogRush) that I loved. And people who have worked with me, will know I rarely impress, which is a good thing since otherwise I wouldn’t be able to scruitinise my own work very highly.

Enter BlogBucks, a so called competitor to BlogRush, promising you mountains of traffic for doing absolutely nothing. At first glance, it might seem like a genuine offer (the web is full of hype!), but on closer inspection, you’ll begin to suspect otherwise.

The fact that you only have to enter an email address to signup, coupled with the audacious headline and testimonial, are the main giveaways. But of course, you still have to signup because you want to know where this is going. Email entered…ah, there is a promotion of sratchback, hmmm and its hosted on the scratchback domain, that’s odd!

I’ll check my email for the confirmation link now, ah there it is. Wait, why is it in the form of an aweber (mailing list company) link? I’ll click it. Wow, look where we ended up! A good old fashioned bashing of BlogRush!

Now I’m no marketer, but I do appreciate a good original strategy like that. Going through that process, you’ve been exposed to Scratchback.com advertisements, been signed up to his mailing list, and confirmed the opt-in, and been offered an opinion on why BlogRush sucks.

I still think ScratchBack sucks though!