Change This is passing the 100k mark for manifesto downloads from their site, and reckons that if you add in pass alongs enabled by the "smoothness" features built in to those manifestos, the total number is more like 250k. Since August.
Wow.
This is proof that, at least in the case of fostering word of mouth on the internet, if you're smart about building in smoothness and pass along functionality, people will spread your stuff. In addition to designing the tools correctly, Change This set up the human incentives right, too -- they enlisted blogging mavens and connectors (including yrs trly) to host manifestos, and rewarded those uber bloggers with increased traffic and prestige.
Hmmm, well I dissected ChangeThis idea before. What I didn't like is it is too hard for bloggers to cut and paste and link to ChangeThis manifestos.
I think the total number of downloads could have been even an order of magnitude higher had they made the content more bloggable-friendly.
I like how they've implemented what I've heard named an "open call model" for soliciting new manifestos and having the best ideas bubble to the top.
I still don't buy into their own manifesto that blogs aren't effective and they preach to the choir. Nothing inherently different about the CT manifestos in terms of crossover outside your own choir.
BTW, Diego is was very nice to meet you in person at BloggerCon (however brief it was).
Posted by: Evelyn Rodriguez | 13 November 2004 at 11:43 AM