There Really Is No Such Thing As Bad Press

Watching the AGLOCO melt down has confirmed that there really is no such thing as bad press. As a matter of fact, bad press translates to more traffic than good press most of the time. My AGLOCO post got over 170 comments and pingbacks, with many of them from the “I told you so” crowd. I particularly like this one.

And you were the IDIOT who was so confident in them and now they’ve flopped. And you look like a moron hahaha.

The post and resulting backlinks spiked traffic by nearly 25% and my RSS count is now coming up on 15,000. With these kinds of results, I’ll be happy to look like a moron any day of the week.

Bad Press is Good for Business

While I would like to have people write good things about me, I rather have them write bad things about me than nothing at all. Most movie and TV stars claim they hate the tabs and paparazzi that following them around. However, I bet they’ll get real worry if they stop following them. Whether the news is good or bad, having press about you keeps you in the public eye and that is good for business.

Look at how many times TechCrunch slammed PayPerPost. It almost seems like Michael Arrington has a personal vendetta against them. However, instead of putting them under with each negative post, Arrington helps them grow. In a recent blog post, Izea (parent company of PayPerPost) thank Michael Arrington and Jason Calacanis for helping them pass the 100,000 member mark.

Our good friends Michael Arrington and Jason Calacanis have also done a stellar job of driving traffic and making sure the entire blogosphere knows our name. We simply couldn’t afford that type of advertising if we had to buy it. I really need to find some time to write these guys a thank you card or send a fruit basket.

When my friends at the Inquirer call Truemors the worst website ever, they probably knew they were going to send it a lot of traffic. What did Truemor founder, Guy Kawasaki, thought of the article? He answered in the November issue of Entrepreneur magazine.

That diatribe generated our biggest day of traffic. I hope that it happens again. Great products piss people off–although everything that pisses people off isn’t necessarily great.

Bad press, like negative comments, is something you should look forward to because it’s an indication of growth. Remember, if you’re not pissing somebody off, you’re not doing it right.