Brian Announces Plan to Scam his way to the Top of iTunes
June 13 | 5 Comments Originally posted on the Scam School Forums:
Yes, it's a sequel. But one that should be way, way better than the original.
Remember the first Rocky movie? Rocky lost to Apollo Creed, but showed that he had the stuff to step into the ring. Even though he lost the match, it was still a total victory.
Remember Rocky II? That was when he came back and totally kicked Apollo's ass. (I'm not sure yet how to tie this in with fighting Mr. T or taking on the Russians... but work with me on this.)
A year ago, we had our Rocky I moment: we pulled off "Operation: iScam," a coordinated iTunes "subscription bomb" wherein thousands of people would click "subscribe" at the exact same moment, hopefully rocketing Scam School from #58 in Technology to the top of the charts for one awesome, hilarious evening...
...and it worked. we made it to #3 and #7 out of all podcasts on iTunes. We came in ahead of Oprah, MSNBC, and several NPR shows. We declared victory, partly because we beat Oprah's spirit channel, but mainly because we couldn't believe we pulled it off!
Now it's a year later, and a lot has changed: the Scam School audience has grown considerably. The competition's stiffer, but we've got a much more animated and passionate fan base. There are now THREE different Scam School feeds instead of two...
...But most importantly, Scam School just recently got moved out of "Technology," to a totally different category in iTunes:
We're now in the "Society and Culture" section, with new neighbors and everything (Hi Dan Carlin! Nice to see you... total fan, BTW), and I've got to tell you: I think we could actually pull it off this time. I think we could pull off a second Operation iScam and become the first podcast ever to scam it's way to the #1 spot out of ALL iTunes podcasts.
So who's with me? If you played along last time, you'll be able to play along again (remember there are three feeds to subcribe to!). If you missed it last time, now's your chance to get back in. If after the fact, you remembered a better way to pull it off, now's your chance to make it work...
We'll be working out the details of the when and how on this thread, but the first step will be the same this year as last year:
make sure you're following my twitter feed at twitter.com/shwood. That will be were the official "go" will come from.
Meanwhile, let's start talking about how soon we want to do this, and find out who is definitely up for the challenge. It was a blast last time, and I can't wait to try it again... are you in?