Why John Chow Sucks At Blogging!
Author: Justin14 Dec
John Chow is a pretty popular blogger, but he absolutely sucks when it comes to grammar. Now, I am not one to say I have perfect punctuation, or that I have better posts than John Chow even though a lot of his posts are about how great he feels that he is, but the fact is that his grammar absolutely sucks for being a so called dot com mogul wouldn’t you say? Here is a few recent ones I picked up on just skimming his last few posts.
December 13th - “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.”
“What did Truemor founder, Guy Kawasaki, thought of the article?”
A you can see, his grammar is absolutely horrible. That must be why he has so many guest posts on his blog. In all reality, can you be called a dot com mogul if you can’t even spell correctly? I guess you can.
Take a look and you can see how many Chow followers there are. Bottom line is, John Chow was working the system at the right time and got a break. There are plenty of other bloggers out there that provide a lot higher quality information, but the key factor is that He has built a name for himself. Thats where you need to think about what you are writing.
Most likely you will never catch up with Chow as far as the range of people you market to in a short period of time, but it is good to practice grammar skills so people know you care about writing. That you just don’t sit down and slap some content on a blog.
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17 Responses for "Why John Chow Sucks At Blogging!"
It is that one reason alone I don’t read his blog. That and the fact that most of it is paid reviews.
Kind of funny though, you have Vic as a guest on here and his grammar isn’t the best either
But I enjoy Vic immensely, so who gives a crap really?
You could look at it in one of two ways
:
1> English is not his mother tongue and he is not in an English speaking environment, besides he’s too busy make money to learn anything else.
2> He can speak/write good English, but it’s all a marketing ploy aimed at the lowest common denominator to fool them into believing that anybody - even illiterates - can make money online, because even he can.
Mike - that is true, but Vic is a different kind of baller. It can slide with him.
Colin - I look at it a third way, that he can correct that easily if he wants. No, its not a marketing scheme. He just plain sucks at taking the time to correct it. Don’t try to call yourself a Mogul if you can’t speak english correctly. By the way was that a joke with your first sentence when you say, “he’s too busy make money to learn anything else.” Either way, we all do it once in a while.
Last I heard, he’s in Vancouver, BC. Having just spent five years of my life there, I can tell you that there are two big languages in use in that city: Cantonese, and Money. English, Hindu, Punjabi, Vietnamese and Mandarin are scraping up whatever percentage remains
That said, I’ve noticed that people who spend too much time on the internet tend to lose basic literacy skills. It’s sad, considering how many millions of words we’re consuming every week, but it’s true. Just try reading newsgroups, forums, IRC or other community boards. New slang has certainly made a huge impact on people, and I’m all for it. But it shouldn’t come at the cost of basic spelling and grammar skills.
I don’t care about the grammar as long as its understandable. In fact, I think we should not discourage people who are not that good in English grammar to blog. I read quite a few posts from Japanese bloggers written in English and information wise they are quite good.
Justin,
I like your blog and think you’re a good person (from what I know). And I really can’t stand the Chow Train (argh!), but this:
One of the most painful sentences I’ve seen in a while.
I’m just teasing. The fact is there really are many interesting bloggers that don’t speak English primarily. I think it takes a great amount of intelligence to pick up a second language to the extent one is able to blog in that second language. I speak a little Spanish, French, and German, but there’s no way I’m blogging in any of those languages. I think anyone who wasn’t raised in an English speaking home but is blogging primarily in English really should be commended.
Now, if you’re talking about leading poor idiots down the wrong path purely for your own financial gain… That’s definitely a crime for which Chow’s guilty. People believe his crap and then can’t understand why they’re not living large. Then they attempt to scam the next poor soul who doesn’t know better…That’s the shitty part.
Lizzie, I agree as well with his leading people down the wrong road. I guess what I am trying to magnify as I mentioned, is the fact that John Chow makes himself to be great. What is it that makes him so great to people? Is it the fact that he is a great speaker? NO! Its the fact that his success and fame is based on literature and writing.
Tell me the last time someone picked up a book that had so many misspelled words in it, or horrible use of future, present, and past tense words and thought the writer was amazing? Heck no!! A writer that had poor grammar skills would work to correct that if he wanted people to look at him as a great writer.
John Chow likes to play the part of greatness, but his actions including his grammar do not equal up.
TELL IT LIKE IT IS, BROTHER! TELL IT LIKE IT!
TELL IT LIKE IT IS, BROTHER! TELL IT LIKE IT IS!
SUBSCRIBED!
@Justin: My comment was written with a healthy dollop of sarcasm, hence the
@Jason: EEK! I’ve got something in common with JC, I lived there for 8 years.
Regarding the spread of poor spelling & punctuation, I think there are two main causes.
1> Mobile phones - Kids “text” each other at an early age now, learning all the abbreviations. This spills over into real life, I see it all the time in my student’s essays.
2> English speakers are getting use to seeing broken English on the net from non-English speakers. So we start to forgive little mistakes, this snowballs until it is quite acceptable to “do your own thing” regarding language.
As far as I’m concerned, if you set yourself up as an example, then lead by example.
[…] but find myself writing a longer comment that I turned into a post. In this case, Justin wrote: Why John Chow Sucks At Blogging. And because I waited a few days to publish this post, I did read another post by Vic: John Chow […]
Good points here. It’s the grammar that inspired me to start my own blog about making money. You’d have to figure if someone can make money using not the best grammar, it’s possible for others to do so
I’m of the opinion that it’s the message and the lesson in the post that counts, not grammar. (and thank God for spell check)
I choose to read or not to read based on the intent of the post and the energy.
John Chows just doesn’t resonate with me.
Your 2nd sentence is one of the longest run on sentences I have ever read. It’s a great example of piss poor grammar.
Great job.
If you’re trying for linkbait you need to try harder. If you are really concerned with his grammar then I would suggest you take care of your own glass house first.
It’s surprising he’s even popular. Maybe if I were self-absorbed, I’d be popular too. All he talks about is how rich he is and how great he is. I did notice the grammar thing.
John Chow popularity simply shows how irrational human beings can be. No matter what you say about him or the flaws you pick out from his blog and method of doing online business, his fans will still keep on following him. They love John Chow, and that is it. How he got them to fall hopelessly in love with him is another issue that is worthy of a comprehensive research.
The guy has made himself a name among bloggers and that name is worth a lot of money and fame.
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