Do Shiny Graphs Make Everything Better?

Blogrush released its new “Phase 2″ completion today, and in my opinion is the same as it was – crap. According to the shiny video over on Blogrush they’ve completed the manual sweep of blogs and banned the unworthy ones, which “should” result in a more quality traffic from the widget.

Lesson #1 for the day: Shiny Graphs Do Not Fix Broken Systems.

While it is nice to be able to login in and actually see statistics for your widget – finally! – it does you know good to see 1500 impressions to Zero clicks. But fear not! According to Blogrush’s esteemed wisdom and logic if you have a ratio of 266 impressions to 1 click, you’re post is now considered HOT. Whoopy do!?

Now don’t get me wrong, I know the percentage rates of click through’s are always going to be low in comparison to impressions, but seriously calling that a “HOT” post? Blogrush has dug itself a big hole and is now trying to work its way out with smoke and mirrors. Nothing has changed on it except for some nice looking albeit useless graphics.

In my opinion, it would be much more cost effective and better time management to put your efforts towards establishing direct personal communities with other bloggers instead of relying on a hokey widget that considers bad ratios to be “HOT”.

Your thoughts?