Blog readability scam - an inspiration

Charles Arthur has blogged a great post on The Guardian about a cunning scam which gets bloggers to unwitting link to a commercial site offering loans to boost its Googlejuice.

But I believe that 20% 0f every idea is good and to be nurtured.

Exposed: another fiendish way to make money on the web relates how a number of prominent websites have been conned into linking to a company by publishing a "blog readability" score on their website.

It's interesting because it fits in with a number of conversations we've been having here, lately:

1. Finding ideas for compelling widgets for other people to put on their sites and blogs.

2. My "Seven Deadly Sins" theory of human behavioural motivation. Sounds grand, doesn't it? It's not. It was one throwaway slide at a recent conference.

Anyway, I'm stretching it because I don't think vanity is strictly speaking one of the seven although it could come under Pride, I suppose. Or Gluttony.

Anyway, the point is that appealing to the vanity of bloggers ("Hey! My blog has great usability!") is probably a great starting point for devising that killer widget.

Oh, in case you can't name them, the Seven Deadly Sins are:

Lust
Gluttony
Greed
Sloth
Wrath
Envy
Pride

I shall work my theory up into something publishable at some point...