The first time I ever encountered John Chow’s name was while browsing some articles at Steve Pavlina’s site.

An ad showed up on the site that said something like (and this would be a better story if I could remember the exact wording): “I love you Steve Pavlina. From: John Chow.”

Wow, I thought. Now that’s creativity.

If nothing else, John Chow is certainly an innovative guy with an unorthodox way of doing things.

While browsing through some recent posts on John Chow’s blog, I came across John’s idea to have people write a review of his site in order to get a link back from him.

Promoting a blog or a site is tough work, and definitely takes a great deal persistence and time.

This has to be one of John Chow’s greatest strengths is his ability to take an approach to his blog that not only helps others out, but helps himself out along the way.

According to John, his site ranked 1529^th on December 21^st 2006 (as stated in the post mentioned above), and 1320^th on January 7^th 2007. A glance at Technorati today shows John’s blog ranking 983^rd.

While jumping around 500 spots when you’re at the bottom of the pile on Technorati isn’t really that impressive, it should be noted that John managed to break into the top 1000 blogs in less than a month from December 21^st and I’m sure this innovative little stunt had something to do with it.

John’s success also seems to stem largely from the fact that he loves to take pictures and can tell a good story. For an example of what I’m talking about, check out John’s love-hate relationship with Microsoft.

John also has a forthrightness that seems to appeal to people. While John often seems to focus on the financial success he’s having with his blog, there are times when John’s sensitivity to the plight of others has surprised me.

Whether, you agree or disagree with what he has to say, it’s hard to argue that John’s voice doesn’t stand out from other blogs for a reason.