During a quick nosy of one of John Chow’s latest articles, “Twingly Top 100 Blogs“, the RSS subscriber count located in the top-right hand corner happened to catch my eye. As a regular reader of this inspiring blog, the bright-orange counter has never managed to catch my attention previously. That probably says more about my inability to notice my surroundings instead of a flaw in John’s web design.

John’s 40,000-odd subscribers is beyond impressive.  Consider that 42,527 is more than the number of people that live in the majority of American cities. Heck, in the Dakotas you will be pushed to find a city with a greater population than John has subscribers.

The RSS Subscriber experiment:

Undoubtedly, John has accumulated his 40,000-odd subscribers over a number of years.  Nonetheless, it got me wondering how many subscribers could I attract in a mere 24 hours. If I did everything possible to increase the subscriber count, what could I achieve?

In inspiration of John Chow’s success, I have developed an experiment to determine the number of RSS subscribers that I can attract in a mere 24-hour period.  What will I be doing special?  That’s part of the fun! I haven’t quite thought of that just yet. I’ll determine the techniques that I use as I go along.

Now, you’re probably thinking to yourself that it will not be a “24 hour” experiment if you throw a regular sleep schedule into the mix.  Guess what? I will be refraining from sleep for the next 24 hours. In fact, I’ve topped up the cupboard with 13 Red Bulls (I managed to buy some loose for a reduced price) and am prepared to navigate the web for the next 24-hours in an attempt to earn RSS subscribers.

Help me on my Quest:

I could always do with a helping-hand.  There are several ways you can aide the experiment:

• 1. Post your own post about the quest.  Trackbacks are enabled, so you will receive a free link back to your blog. Encourage others to join in and follow some of the recommendations below:
• 2. Utilize various forms of social media to publicize the experiment. This can vary from Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon or any other means you can think of.
• 3. Most importantly, subscribe to BlogaPro’s RSS feed either by email, or through one of the many RSS readers including:
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  If all else fails, Feedburner’s own Email Subscription just might tickle your fancy.

Win a copy of Darren Rowse’s “ProBlogger”:

If you subscribe to the BlogaPro RSS feed by Email, you will automatically be entered to win a free copy of Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger. The winner will be selected at random.

Please note that this competition is available to readers worldwide. I will pay for any S&H costs. Without further ado, enter the competition by subscribing via email.

Note: The winner will be announced after 48-hours (it will take me 24 hours to recover from a lack of sleep).

And time starts now…

UPDATE: An post updating the results of the experiment has been released.