Entrecarder.com

No, this isn’t a post about an Entrecard dating service. The recent Firestorm nonsense has driven home how differently I am wired than the raucous crowd that has moved its clubhouse temporarily to the batcave. Amidst tears, depression, wringing of hands, and I-just-can’t-let-this-go outbursts, the big kitty in the Firestorm sandbox was silenced and then promptly chose to go spray his essence somewhere else. This of course outraged at least a couple of dozen of his closest Entrecard buddies, some of whom swore off participating again in the forums, but decided to still keep their accounts active. What a sign of support! Help me Rhonda. Naturally, they who were the bullies are playing the victim and the fist shaking goes on and on.

Ho hum. Entrecard isn’t going to die because of this, or the last pricing system change, or any of the other reasons folks have pointed at as their excuse for leaving Entrecard over the past 8 months. There will always be flamboyant departures and predictions of Entrecard’s impending doom, and just as in true in real life, others will step up and fill the void. Adios and good luck to you, and thanks for any drops you made on my blogs.

What I realized is that I really don’t like these people, the drama kings and queens, the bullies, the Firestormers, the whole group of self-proclaimed Entrecard A-listers. I don’t like the way they process information, the way they handle their emotions, their crude language and classless humor, etc., etc. Which raises the question of “Where are the people I would like better in the Entrecard Community?”

My days of dropping 300, 600, 900 cards or more are done. I don’t believe that Graham will be able to maintain the $9.50/1000 Exchange rate for ECs and a fully functioning, non-manipulated Exchange will have a credit vendor getting around $3/1000. That’s not enough to justify any time specifically for earning credits. Accumulate 20000 ECs over a couple of months and sell them should you choose for $60 and that will help pay your hosting fees, etc. Also, the next big change in the Entrecard community is going to further encourage meaningful interaction over pure card dropping. Like it or not, Graham is dedicated to making us better Entrecard Community members.

OK, sure, why not? I’ve given up on the idea of being an Internet Marketer and I’m no longer farming credits, so I’m left with the idea of being a blogger…who really needs to find some mates (as in buddies) whose personality and style “match” my own. I’m not even going to limit my scope by blog topic, world region, gender, marital status, or educational background. Nope, I’m just on a quest to find a few people like me in the Entrecard community…if any others even exist, strange bird that I am.

As far as the forums go, I’ll still throw in my 4 ECs worth now and then, primarily to do my part to help Graham as best I can. I guess one benefit of the Firestorm fiasco was it shook the fence and caused me (and perhaps some others) to decide whether to support Graham or take potshots at him. I choose the former.

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There’s been a firestorm in the Entrecard Forums and here’s some of my comments that were recently posted there:

“The thread everyone seems to be focused on was not the first time that certain folks had crossed the line of civility in these forums, whether it be in the name of humor & wit, free speech, or lively debate. (Guilty as charged.) I agree with Woobie’s statement and further feel that over time the “witty” comments that were bouncing around here with regularity had become an unacceptable norm, no matter how entertaining to some people. It doesn’t really matter how things came to a head, the point is that Entercard stepped in and correctly a situation that had gotten out of hand.”

and

“I don’t agree that the “little guy” is hurt by the changes that have been made to Entrecard since January, mainly because the little guy still has the ability to promote their blog via card dropping, advertise on other Entrecarders’ blogs with credits instead of cash, and comment in the forums and on others’ blogs. Entrecard is easier to use now than it was in January, there are 5x the blogs in the community, and there are better features for accomplishing the primary goal of most Entrecarders, that of promoting their blogs.

As far as censorship goes, even those in the world who enjoy free speech accept that there are limits to that free speech. I don’t believe that these forums were designed to provide a venue for free speech, which can more effectively be accomplished via our own blogs anyway. It’s great to get a healthy conversation going where the different sides of an issue (eg-powerdropping versus chain-dropping) can be presented in a civil manner, if that debate benefits the Entrecard community, to which end Entrecard has engaged Moderators to watch over the forums.

I haven’t liked all the changes that have been made to Entrecard since January, but I do like the fact that Graham and Phirate are making changes and continuing to try and improve this service. This Firestorm brouhaha will have barely died down before the next one starts up, which I predict will be in about 5 or 6 days.”

and

“Hold an event at a public park and there is an expectation of free speech with limited moderation. Hold that same event at someone’s home or place of business and free speech is limited by the ground rules set by the property or business owner. I never perceived that these forums were “free for alls.” There is a specific purpose for each Entrecard forum and they are moderated to make sure that Entrecard’s desires for the forums are not subjugated to those of individual Entrecarders.

These forums–by design–are different in their appearance and function than most forums many Entrecarders will have encountered in the past. (Perhaps Phirate could link to the site that explains the reasoning behind this type of forum design.) And it’s not like it’s easy to figure out the ground rules here, as with other aspects of the Entrecard experience it seems like self-discovery is part of the agenda, Entrecard E-book notwithstanding.

In my opinion, the strength of the Entrecard community is not determined by what Marcus, or Deimos, or Sam, or any individual Entrecarder adds to the forums or the overall community. The strength of Entrecard is that there is a steady stream of bloggers who are eager to publicize their blogs and increase their readership via a free service that has greater utility and quicker payback than most communities or services that they have encountered anywhere else. I miss some of the Entrecarders who were active in January and February and no longer participate, just as some of those who were Firestormers will be missed should they choose to opt out of Entrecard as a result of the hubbub over the past couple of days. But Entrecard is bigger than any of us and will continue to roll on, bumpy ride and all…or at least I hope it does.”

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I’ve been impressed many times in my nearly 6 months as an Entrecarder, but I can’t recall a time when an intervention was made by the EntrePowers that had me tipping my hat to Phirate more than the creation of the new Firestorm forum. I’ll admit to occasionally losing my cool in the forums and posting something I probably shouldn’t have and usually regret soon thereafter. I’ll further admit that I just don’t understand how people can be so routinely rude to others and the best explanation I can come up with is that they are bullies or impotent human beings seeking to feel better about their miserable lives by dumping on other people. I have a clear picture of the first time I bumped up against what I would call a bitter, negative soul and I was shocked by the experience. I suppose I should have felt sorry for them, but honestly, I just couldn’t believe that a person could take such obvious pleasure in randomly blasting anyone who crossed their path.

I’ve been equally puzzled by the group of 10-20 Entrecarders who have recently taken over the Entrecard forums and seem to have succeeded in lowering the standard level of civility to match their modus operandi and descend like a pack of wolves on anyone who might innocently misspeak or ask a question that a 5th grader could have answered. Yes, that is the norm for many forums out there and yet it hasn’t been the norm in the Entrecard forums. True, Sam was controversial and Turnip seems to enjoy slapping folks on the side of the head on a regular basis, but those were rare exceptions to a generally cordial forum.

I’ve run into similar situations in the real world where a small group of people change the rules of behavior on a team or in an office to a more coarse, ruder, or less civilized level because the “gang” is all accepting of said degradation. What I found most interesting about the recent Entrecard forum activity is that the gang members were vocal in their support of each other’s behavior as normal and acceptable and that Entrecard or the occasional random victim must be the abnormal ones. Maybe it’s akin to people who are losing their hearing being unable to fully comprehend that they are now normally speaking louder than the average person. The gang thinks they are in the right and are battling Entrecard with the idea that their little group is reflective of the community at large and Entrecard got it wrong.

Sheesh. I’ve encountered this mindset before. 80% (or more) of college professors rate themselves as better than average and I’ll bet the percentages are about the same for how we view ourselves as drivers, husbands, etc. It’s why I refer to myself now as an average driver and am trying to make it up to being an average husband. I’ll admit that I am likely more confrontational than the average Entrecarder and accept that I have to try harder in the forums to be more civil. It’s a hard thing to admit…but I’ll man up and do a better job.

What? I’m not being entirely civil here on my own blog? No, I didn’t say I was committing to be perfect, just to try harder when I post in the Entrecard forums. I’ll have to decide whether or not I will venture into the Firestorm forum. I’m not fooled by the gang’s arguments of free speech or the need for intelligent debate. Those are weak attempts to justify their bullying and rude behavior. I learned earlier this year (when I had one of my blogs make the front page of Digg) that dark humor succeeds as it appeals to the baser instincts of many people. The Firestorm forum will likely end up as the most popular Entrecard forum for similar reasons, which is the reason that I won’t be visiting there very often, if at all.

So it’s two thumbs up to Phirate for insisting the majority of the Entrecard forums take the higher road and remain a place where folks can learn from each other and ask dumb questions on occasion without running the risk of being gang-tackled.

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I first posted the following in the Entrecard Forums a few days ago:

“When I first showed up here in late December there was a core group of Entrecarders who frequented the forums and were the “regulars.” Most of those folks don’t participate anymore, and I’ve now seen another generation of regulars come and go. Sometimes it is related to burnout, sometimes they get irked at the latest round of changes, but it really doesn’t matter why they leave, the point is they leave and Entrecard survives without them. I’ll bet that some of the folks who have commented in this thread will be done with Entrecard within the next 30 days…but another 1000 will have taken their place. This place continues to change and the Entrecard you joined is not the Entrecard you will leave.

The fact remains that Entrecard is a tool that a blogger can use to build their readership and Graham is trying valiantly to turn the community into something unique that goes beyond just a being a traffic exchange. Whatever action he takes is guaranteed to irk hundreds of Entrecarders and there is no way that a consensus is going to be reached as to what changes are best. So he might as well go ahead with what he thinks will be best and keep moving forward, no matter how unpopular the changes might seem to the current regulars, because the folks who join next month won’t know anything about what the norm used to be.”

I guess I’ve signed up for over 100 of what could be called social networking sites in the past couple of years. Occasionally I have arrived after the heyday, like with emode.com, now called Tickle.com, part of the Monster.com family. I really liked Tickle.com but could tell that 12 months earlier would have been the time to be there to experience the highest level of site social interaction. I got in early with Twitter, only to discover what many others have discovered, that I just don’t have enough friends who will care to read what I am doing at any given point during the day. I’ve joined Bebo, Friendster, Myspace, Tagged, Hi5, Orkut, Facebook, etc., etc., and don’t use any of them on a regular basis with the the exception of Facebook.

Most social networking sites are naturally reluctant to publish user stats due to their ugliness. Sure there are 235,716,786 folks in my Myspace network, but how many use the site on a regular basis? People just like me sign up and then never go back, or stay involved long enough to determine that THIS particular social networking site is not their Utopia and off they go in search of the next new big thing. All of this is normal and to be expected with such low barriers to entry as exist in most social networking sites. Thanks to Mashable.com I’ve been able to get some invites to beta versions of emerging sites and have found that it still doesn’t make a difference in my interest level. The truth is I’m not at all social and have little reason to network. Oh, I’ve tried to push some businesses via social networking sites, but in the end no one cared enough to buy anything.

My Entrecard experience has been different than that of other social networking sites, in part because the focus was on blogging more than what type of music I liked or the best sleazy pics I could publish of myself standing half-naked in front of a mirror. Don’t get me wrong…I’m not really a blogger. I don’t have that thing inside of me that begs to get out onto the page and shared with the rest of the world. I don’t read other blogs, I rarely comment on other blogs, and my main purpose in joining Entrecard was to promote some business opportunities, which I have long since left along the side of the road. However, I have to admit that it was fun and engaging to drop cards (at least at first) and figure out how to do so in an efficient manner. Within the first couple of weeks I was an Entrecarder someone (Josh Whitford?) started selling Entrecard Credits via ebay and things got very interesting, very quickly. Before long I had started another 9+ Entrecard accounts and was on my way to being an EC vendor.

However, Entrecard is not a static entity and what was a good idea in January wasn’t such a good idea in April. At one point I had 22 active Entrecard accounts and was updating them somewhat regularly. Doing so, along with trying to drop 1000+ cards a day took its toll on my passion for Entrecard and I knew I had burned out, a sentiment shared by others in the community. Some people just stopped updating their blogs or dropping cards altogether. It didn’t really matter, because there were 1000s of new Entrecarders joining the ranks each month, full of interest and excitement about this new tool for promoting one’s blogs. The newer guys, as I had been in late December, didn’t encounter the same Entrecard that earlier members had joined. They took for granted features that we cheered about when they were finally implemented. They demanded better features and complained about the status quo, just as we had done when we were Entrenoobs. And that’s when it hit me. This was a cycle that would repeat over and over again, and the only question was whether or not Graham could keep Entrecard going and growing long enough to get it off the ground and flying under its own power. Entrecarders were necessary fodder, with none being individually necessary. It doesn’t really matter that the same 200 people post in the forums on a daily basis, because next year there will still be 200 people posting in the forums, even if Turnip is the only one in both groups. It really is about the community…and the fulfillment of Graham’s vision.

No worries…Entrecard did for me what it was supposed to do. It gave me an opportunity to promote my blogs and gain readership, but more importantly it gave me the opportunity to see if I was a true, dedicated blogger or just a dabbler. It also let me try my hand at Internet Marketing, blog layout and design, and online interaction with others. What I learned is that I am not a true blogger, I suck at Internet Marketing, and I’m more comfortable with Blogger than Wordpress. Oh, and interaction with others? Entrecard Forum participation is a harsh reminder that the world is full of idiots and jerks and I likely only enjoy each day because I don’t come into contact with the bozos that lurk in forums.

I do hope that Graham succeeds in creating an Entrecard community that endures and successfully transitions into Web 3.0, the Semantic web. And while I doubt that I will still be an active Entrecarder if and when that happens, I’ll be able to say I was one of the first to be an Entrecarder, and perhaps the only one known as The Entrecarder.

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Make a note of the the date, June 3rd, 2008, as it will be THE day that makes or breaks Entrecard as a viable business. The much talked about and long awaited Entrecard Credit Exchange was partially implemented on June 3rd, 2008 and it is now possible to buy Entrecard Credits (ECs) directly from Entrecard. Coming soon will be the full implementation of the Credit Exchange where individual Entrecarders can sell their own ECs anonymously to other Entrecarders, which is even a bigger and more important development. But for the time being, let’s congratulate Entrecard for their boldness and wish them great success in their attempt to create a viable web currency with real dollar value.

To be sure, Entrecard isn’t going to get rich from the spread they are making on the sale of Entrecard Credits. Currently they are buying the ECs they are offering for sale from trusted Entrecarders at $7.50 per 1000 and they have Paypal fees to account for when they sell them at $9.50 per 1000. The small profit they will make will help pay for servers and other necessary expenses, but isn’t going to be what makes Entrecard a financial winner. No, the reason that this is a big move for Entrecard is that it provides a reason to stay in the Entrecard community for years instead of just a few months, and that’s what will help build Entrecard into a viable web property, ripe for the picking by cash-laden Internet biggies.

The mere fact that Entrecard could sell approximately 40000 ECs at $9.50 per 1000 shows that a captive market is more important that good market information. The current price of ECs via 3rd party vendors is around $3 per 1000, although that price should rise and needs to rise if the Credit Exchange is going to work. The big advantage Entrecard has isn’t the “trust” or “convenience” they are touting, but instead is the ability to advertise on each member’s dashboard. The Entrebank and other 3rd party EC vendors have been selling ECs since January and most–if not all– of the transactions have been completed quickly and without a hitch, using Paypal just as Entrecard does. However, I believe the point will soon be moot as once the Credit Exchange is fully functional there will be little need for 3rd party vendors and Entrecard will likely ban the practice so as to control all the sales of Entrecard Credits and reduce the likelihood that someone will abuse the system by creating splogs specifically to farm and sell ECs.

So, the first shoe has dropped and hopefully we won’t have to wait another 3 months for the other one to hit the floor heralding the arrival of the Entrecard Credit Exchange. What a great day to be an Entrecarder!

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On April 24th I posted the following puzzle:

“How does one drop a card on an Entrecarder who isn’t currently displaying a widget?”

My intent was to warn fellow Entrecarders who had chosen to shortcut the system that their days were numbered and it was time to start playing by the rules. It’s ironic that while they might have been getting credit for dropping on my site(s), they weren’t actually visiting them and therefore likely didn’t read or heed my warning. I’m not taking credit for those whose accounts were canceled today for it was not my intent to rat them out, else I would have listed them by name 3 weeks ago. The Entrecard security system is a healthy beast and it will eventually find out who is breaking the rules.

And it’s not like the 6 accounts canceled today are the only ones that are breaking the rules when it comes to getting credits for card drops that don’t result from an actual visit and manual drop. In the case of most of the accounts that were canceled today, I had received drops to one or more of my Entrecard widgets that were not published ANYWHERE. I had pulled them and placed this account’s widget on their page and that’s how I knew something was up.

I haven’t spent hardly any time on Entrecard for much of the past 10days and haven’t dropped but a handful of cards in the past 26 days. Out of curiosity I checked my Google Analytics numbers to see what kind of traffic I was getting nowadays, between both active sites for this account, entrecarder.com (new) and entrecarder.blogspot.com (original). Seeing as how I changed the url on my Entrecard account last week to the new site, I decided to look a recent day from before the switch (and during a modest ad campaign) and one from after the switch (with ads on my site disabled). Here’s what I found for traffic sources and hits:

April 28 Original Site
Entrecard.com 48
Entrecard.s3… 40
Direct 29
Powerdropping.com 10
SiteHoppin.com 7
Google 3
All others 26
Total 163

May 12 Original Site
Direct 19
Powerdropping.com 10
Google 2
SiteHoppin.com 2
Entrecard.com 1
All others 9
Total 43

May 12 New Site
Entrecard.com 3
SiteHoppin.com 2
Direct 1
Total 6

It’s not hard to see that my traffic has dropped significantly since I stopped dropping cards and after my ad campaign came to an end. Go figure…don’t drop cards, don’t advertise, and disable your own ads so your Entrecard doesn’t show up on the campaign pages…and still expect to get any traffic? Well, sure. I did expect to get some SiteHoppin traffic, what with the new toolbar and as an owner of Beer Stocks. However, whether you chose the 7 hits on the original site in April or yesterday’s 4 hits on the two sites, it’s PATHETIC! Max! Help me figure this out! I own 6 Beer Stocks and I got 4 hits?

SiteHoppin aside, what was really surprising was the number of card drops I received for the two days. (Note that Entrecard’s day doesn’t jive with Google’s, but that the numbers for each day were representative of other days, too and so I just washed the difference.)

April 28: 151
May 12: 90

What? Where did those 90 drops come from? I get 151 drops on April 28 from 163 (92.6%) visits to my site and 90 drops on May 12 from 49 (183.7%) visits to my sites? Ok, so I’m not going to complain about 70-100 drops a day on my Entrecard widget when I am doing NOTHING. From my traffic stats it’s clear that there are anywhere from 10-30 people who have my site bookmarked and drop on it directly. Another 10 a day drop using powerdropping.com’s list. Few, if any, of those folks are reading my entries and the most noticeable evidence was the dearth of comments on my EntreZoo post. Pin drop time. I’m not one to beg for comments, but normally a couple of folks–and I’m not just talking about the powerdroppers–would have said something had they actually read the post. I let that post sit there for 10 days, got over 800 card drops, 600 hits, and ZERO comments. Hmmmm.

There is a possible explanation for the disparity between card drops and hits…drops from the same IP address but from different Entrecard accounts. Well, that might explain yesterday’s stat differential…but then why didn’t the numbers show the effect of droppers with multiple Entrecard accounts back in April? Hmmmm. Another mystery.

Now, figures lie and liars figure, and as one (figurer, not liar) with a BS in Accounting, I am not too quick to read too much into the figures. Yet, the trend I see is far more disturbing than the possibility that a few folks might have figured out how to beat the system. I’m hearing the wind blow…as in ghost town. I’m sure I’m mistaken and it’s probably just the air moving between my ears, but there is no question in my mind that Entrecard has taken another turn in its development and it is no longer what it was 30 days ago. Eh, big deal. Maybe a few of us were unrealistic in our expectations and the vast majority of Entrecarders are still tickled pink with the free, easy traffic. Yes, I would like to unload the 60000+ ECs I have accumulated for more than $3/1000 and am disappointed that the Credit Exchange is not a current reality. No, I haven’t closed my accounts or written a “Entrecard is Bad” post. And yes, I have been enjoying the extra time I’ve had each day for much of the last month as a result of not dropping any cards.

Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll be posting as much now that the weather here in Utah has warmed up and there are more interesting things to do than blabber on about Entrecard, or anything else for that matter. The weeds in the yard are beckoning me, the kids want to play games, the wife is bugging me to get a real job and the time that I provided a small service to the growing Entrecard community has passed.

But don’t let that stop you from dropping a card!

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If I ran the EntreZoo, this is what I’d do:

1) My first order of business would be to let folks set the price of their own ad. (I’ve temporarily disabled ads on this site because folks kept spending too much for them.) The current ad system is responsible in part for the declining interest in Entrecard, even though it is an improvement on the old ad system. The dust has settled and too much of it ended up in our eyes, noses and mouths. People still spend too much to get on the Popular pages and lots of garbage and inactive blogs carry a higher price than they should because so many folks are bottom-feeding. However, I wouldn’t just make this change by itself, but would consider additional changes to be a necessary part of a new system. (See items 2 through 8.)

2) I’d give each Entrecarder the ability to determine how many ads they would accept in their queue, up to a maximum of 30. The current system discourages anyone from purchasing an ad too far in advance based on its doubling the price day after day. If you give folks the ability to control their ad price you should also give them the ability to determine how many ads to accept.

3) Create a voting system for each ad that one purchases that would allow the advertiser to rate its performance. Market information is poor and a high Popularity ranking doesn’t translate into high traffic, but how is an Entrecarder supposed to know which sites they should advertise on? Click through rates can be manipulated and user ratings could provide some input that would be helpful when choosing where to spend your ECs. Advertisers could rate each ad placement with “Exceeded Expectations”, “Met Expectations” or “Did Not Meet Expectations” and an Expectations score could be determined for the past 30 days. If your score wasn’t to your liking then you might consider lowering the cost of your ads. On the other hand, if you were consistently Exceeding Expectations you might consider raising the price of your ads.

4) The Ad Tax would go away or be greatly reduced. If an Entrecarder was able to earn the full ad price they set there’d be a bunch more advertising going on and I believe folks would try harder to make their sites more ad-worthy.

5) Create special clubs, services, awards, etc., that can be purchased by Entrecarders with their ECs. This would effectively take many of the untaxed ECs out of circulation and provide additional motivation for earning ECs. Examples of services could include additional database information that could help improve ad and card dropping strategies, like click through rates or the number of times dropped on someone in a given period of time, etc. Awards could be given to Top Droppers, Most Consistent Bloggers, Best Ad Value, or other types of recognition that would draw attention to Entrecarders who are very active in the community. Creating an Executive Wash Room type of VIP club where people could enjoy an unmoderated chatroom, or be included in planning sessions with Graham and Phirate, or other perks that would provide an additional reward for one’s hard work and good blogging. Membership in other Entrecard clubs or services could be purchased with ECs and would allow those who choose to buy in with their excess ECs (or cash) to get some extra features and benefits, too.

6) Get the Credit Exchange system in place so there is a easy method for buying and selling ECs and for a market rate to be established. The rate would fluctuate based on supply and demand and Entrecard could manipulate it should they so choose by buying and selling ECs from a central bank. (I’ll even let them use EntreBank if they want to.) I think the current price of $3-4 per thousand is too low to motivate people to earn ECs specifically with the idea of selling them. Conversely, $10/1000 is too high as it will attract the attention of those who will try and beat the system to earn some cash. Maybe one has to earn the right to sell their ECs by length of membership and/or community standing, which might inhibit spammers from setting up shop with garbage blogs just to farm credits.

7) Create a new Popularity ranking that was based on Entrecarder input and not on number of cards dropped or external rankings. Let each Entrecarder choose 10 blogs to put on their personal Top 10 list and weight each position accordingly. Use only the lists from active Entrecarders to calculate a Popularity ranking that others could see. The lists would remain anonymous, so there’d be no benefit to putting someone on your list unless you really like them. Prohibit the sale of list positions and discourage trading or otherwise attempting to manipulate the rankings. And yes, it IS a personality contest! Maybe have separate lists for different attributes, like Best Blog, Best Ad Value, Nicest Person, Best Commenter, Most Helpful, etc.

Allow for multiple blogs and remove any limits on drops per IP, but require approval for each new blog/account from the same Entrecarder. A simple yes or no question on the sign-up page would allow Entrecarders who are willing to play by the rules to state so upfront and be acknowledged as having multiple blogs. Use IP tracking checks to determine if someone has undeclared multiple blogs. One day we might be able to consolidate multiple accounts into a single account, but for the time being we could implement some more checks and balances that would weed out the spammers.

9) Create a TOS that has to be agreed to upfront, and not just the kind where you check one box and you’re done with it. Make it interesting to read with key points highlighted and perhaps separated on different pop-up screens that each require a click to move on. So what if it takes 10 minutes to sign up for a new account instead of 5? At least this way new Entrecarders would know which rules they are breaking. Along with it I’d include a requirement for new Entrecarders to visit a FAQs page (or watch a video), just so they’d have a better idea of what it means to be an Entrecarder, the benefits of membership, etc.

10) Improve the communication between Entrecard and its members. The “buzz” line on the Dashboard is easy to miss and only a few people read the official Entrecard blog on a daily basis. Make the notices easier to see, send system messages, add the option in the Email Settings to receive an email when Entrecard sends you a system message, and create a method for highlighting a forum post that relates to an Entrecard policy change or other important information. I’d also start running surveys on the Dashboard to get input from the community about proposed feature changes or additions, as well as “temperature” checks about how well Entrecard is doing, burnout levels, etc.

There are several weightier matters that aren’t as easy to solve as it relates to Entrecard’s long-term planning and revenue model. If I were in charge, I’d be structuring Entrecard to become the premier community for bloggers, with the idea that some really big fish would want to Gobble it up for millions of dollars. Gobble would then put millions more behind marketing Entrecard and position it to be a key player in Web 3.0, the Semantic web. Entrecarders would have the opportunity of collaborating in the development of knowledge centers along their topics of interest. Gobble would have a leg up on developing collaborative teams of bloggers who could each receive some form of compensation for their contributions.

Entrecard has to continue to evolve to survive. Blogs have been around for a long time and there is so much redundancy that unless Entrecard looks to the future they will go the way of other social networks who have enjoyed success for a season but end up as virtual ghost towns when the thrill of the fad wears off.

Tags: Suggested Changes // Add Comment »

I’ve had loads of fun manipulating the price of my own ad, largely because people were paying too much for it and so I figured out a way to discourage them for so doing, short of disabling ads entirely. The solution was simple: I bought my own ads from some of my other Entrecard accounts and drove the price up to 8192 ECs for most of the last two weeks in April, although it hit 16384 one day and was a “bargain” at 4096 a couple of times.

Imagine my surprise when someone actually purchased an ad on my site for 8192 ECs! I guess I faked them out because I was sitting in the #1 spot on the Most Expensive list, which was really fun and probably got me some extra traffic. Of course I rejected their ad request and the most anyone ended up paying for an ad was 1024 ECs, with the most common price (before I started buying them myself) was 512 ECs, which was still about 480 ECs too much. (No, I’m not sending out rebates.)(Oh, and for the record, I canceled all of the ads that I placed on my own site and got my 30000+ ECs back.)

April 18th was the last day that I dropped 300 cards and I’ve only dropped 66 cards total since that time. Also, I had not placed any ads for a long time from this account and I wanted to see how no drops and a few ads would impact the number of cards dropped on me. My stats page shows that the first ad I placed ran on April 24th and the last one completed on May 1st.

I tried to find sites to advertise on that would get me as many clicks for the EC as possible, but I also took a few risks and went with sites whose Entrecard featured pretty girls. Here’s the results of my ad purchasing:

Entrecarder…………………………………Clicks……..Cost…….CPC
Dot Com Mogul……………………………….78……………512……….6.56
ProBlogger Blog Tips………………………..62……………256……….4.13
Slave to the Internet…………………………51……………8…………0.16
Fantasy Baseball……………………………..43……………512……….11.91
Orangeinks……………………………………..40……………128……….3.20
Josh’s Unconventional Marketing Blog…23…………….256……….11.13
EvilWoobie……………………………………..22……………128……….5.82
Entrecard Favorites…………………………..15……………128……….8.53
Joan Joyce……………………………………….15……………512……….34.13
Stephan Miller………………………………….12……………128……….10.67
AskTheAdmin…………………………………..8…………….32………..4.00
Pretty Girl………………………………………..6…………….16………..2.67
Internet Marketing Seminars………………5…………….64………..12.80
Follow Bec in her quest………………………4…………….32………..8.00
The Net Fool……………………………………4…………….64………..16.00
Laura Williams’ Musings……………………4…………….32………..8.00
Making Mommy Hot………………………….3…………….32………..10.67
You Can Learn Series………………………..3…………….256……….85.33
Billion Dollar Baloney………………………..3…………….32………..10.67
The SEOTree…………………………………..3…………….8…………2.67
VikingBlog……………………………………..3…………….8…………2.67
Mom Is Just a Nickname………………….2…………….32………..16.00
Liz Harper Fitness……………………………2…………….8…………4.00
AndroidGuys…………………………………..1…………….64………..64.00
Jackies Biz Blog……………………………….1…………….8…………8.00
Online with Michelle………………………..1…………….16………..16.00
Nuda Magazine……………………………….1…………….8…………8.00
Internet Marketing Strategy……………….1…………….16………..16.00
MMO with Etienne Teo……………………..1…………….32………..32.00
OrangeBin…………………………………….0…………….8…………n/a
Pinay and Photoholic………………………..0…………….8…………n/a
Hot Asian Actress…………………………….0…………….8…………n/a
Adware and Spyware………………………..0…………….8…………n/a

Totals………………………………………….417…………..3360………8.06

My apologies for the ugly chart. I didn’t want to emphasize any particular Entrecarder so I didn’t link to them and I’m not savvy enough to get a table to work properly in Blogger. I did learn a couple of things from my ad campaign:

1) The average number of clicks per ad was 8. I can use that as a benchmark for future campaigns to see how well I am choosing my ads.

2) There are occasional bargains to be found. I didn’t pay more than 512 ECs for any ad and was lucky to get ProBlogger for only 256 ECs.

3) Not all clicks resulted in a dropped card. It’s true that the subject matter of this blog is going to be of interest to Entrecarders and not many other people. I’m guessing that I got about 30-50 non-Entrecarders to take a look at my blog as a result of the ads.

4) I wasn’t “thrilled” by hardly any of the results and likely won’t advertise very often. ProBlogger and Slave to the Internet were the best deals I found and while many of the others were acceptable, I don’t know that I got any new readers as a result of advertising. Had I spent the same amount of time dropping cards as I did purchasing ads I would have ended up with the same number of cards dropped on me and I wouldn’t be out the 3360 ECs.

5) It might be purely coincidental, but the number of comments to my posts dropped significantly during the this experiment. I suspect it was a result of not dropping cards on folks who would normally reciprocate with a visit and a drop, commenting if they had the time and inclination.

No one ad strategy will work for all Entrecarders as we each have slightly different purposes and desires for our Entrecard participation. I’m now trying to figure out whether or not I want to place ads OR drop cards anymore. I’m leaning towards spending my time writing posts, posting in the forums, and commenting on selected Entrecarders’ blogs. I won’t end up on the Popular lists or accumulate many ECs with this strategy, but I hope it will allow me to stay involved in the Entrecard community and neither wear out my welcome or burn out.

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Most Entrecarders know that if you take the Entrecard widget off of your site you will get an error message on your dashboard that lets you know that they can’t find your widget. However, did you know that you don’t get that error message when you put any Entrecard widget on your site, even if it’s not the one associated with that account? I tried a little experiment a few weeks ago where I replaced all of the Entrecard widgets on my 19 other Entrecard accounts with the widget for this account. And guess what happened?

Everyone who dropped on one of those widgets on my various blogs gave a credit to this blog’s Entrecard account! How sinister of me! I’m sure there were a few folks who got the “1 per day” message and were a bit confused as to what was up, but that happened to me all the time when I was still dropping cards and I just figured it was another Entrecard glitch. As I wasn’t dropping cards from most of those other accounts or doing any advertising, I doubt that it improved my numbers too much, but if someone was hell-bent on making the top row of the Popularity rankings, it would help to have one widget on several different blogs.

There was a time a couple of months ago when I would drop cards on each of my 20 accounts from the other 19 accounts, guaranteeing 760 credits and a 100% return drop rate. Of course, that strategy was a lot easier before Phirate changed the widget, and it was a real pain for those couple of weeks when Entrecard was mired in molasses and signing in took forever.

On another occasion there was an Entrecarder who was paying a bunch of ECs for new RSS subscribers and I signed up with my 20 different gmail accounts. (Took about an hour.) He clearly was looking to pad his feed numbers and I gave him what he wanted, but he didn’t understand what had happened and complained to Phirate, who slapped my wrist and made me promise not to use multiple accounts to enter contests or earn ECs from fellow Entrecarders.

A couple of posts ago I raised the issue of generating a drop without actually going to the Entrecarder’s page. As most of my accounts have been dormant, and the widgets on the sites were directed to this Entrecard account, I was surprised that I was still receiving cards in my Drops Inbox. Once or twice I could understand as another Entrecard glitch…but 15 times by the same person? I compiled a list of Entrecarders who were exploiting this minor hole in the security system and it’s right here:

Just kidding…I have the list, but won’t publish it. Certainly the reader can tell that I like to push the parameters and I’m not one to throw rocks at another Entrecarder for being “creative.”

Maybe I’ve enjoyed Entrecard for the wrong reasons, but it sure has been fun to try different strategies using multiple Entrecard accounts. I’d be lying if I said I’d never gotten the dreaded “Busted” message, but you sure learn a lot more about a system by trying “stuff.” And as this blog was supposed to be about tips and strategies, just how useful would it have been if I didn’t tinker with Entrecard every now and then?

Next Post: Entrecard Ad Shenanigans

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Before you read this post, go to Ben Barden’s blog and read his interview with Graham Langdon, Herr Doktor & Creator of Entrecard. I’ve been a fan of Entrecard from late last year when I signed up for the first of what ended up being 20 Entrecard accounts. I’m still a fan of Entrecard, even though I’m now a bit wiser and not so much a fan of Graham Langdon.

Don’t get me wrong…Graham hasn’t done anything unkind to me or anything that can be considered unprofessional or unethical. As far as I can tell he is a sincere, hardworking entrepreneur. However, sometime in the last 4 months Entrecard ceased to be about Graham and took on a life of its own as a community of bloggers, a fact that I suspected before reading the above-mentioned interview and that I am convinced of now more than ever. Graham doesn’t drop many cards, he doesn’t blog very often, and he only occasionally posts in the forum (RickRoll?). There’s nothing wrong with that…except I believe he doesn’t fully understand what he has created…and that could be a problem.

Graham and Phirate didn’t expect that folks would drop hundreds of cards every day in order to earn credits, nor do they think it is necessary. Of course it’s not necessary, but when you see dozens or hundreds of folks spending so much time dropping cards–when they could buy them–that should be a clue as to what is appealing about the community. Most people aren’t going to buy ECs, especially with a new ad system (folks, Who - Won’t Get Fooled Again) that still stinks, only with a slightly different odor than did the old system. Clearly Graham and Phirate envision a different Entrecard experience than some of the folks who have been most active as Entrecarders over the past months. I wrote about some of the issues that I felt needed to be addressed and received a response from Graham that indicated he had “rebuttals” for most of them, which made me feel like he had his mind made up and wasn’t interested in my input. Cool. It’s his baby and he’s earned the right to make the decisions.

Mike Huang from Bloggin-Ads.com is just one of several Entrecarders who have announced recently that they are “done” with Entrecard. Mike and the others don’t seem to be angry, just making a decision that it’s no longer worth it to be Drop Master…to which a few of us have suggested that he and the others just keep the Entrecard widget on their blogs and don’t worry about dropping cards. Ironically, this seems to be what Graham had in mind in the first place. To me the answer is simple: Monetizing Entrecard Credits created a monster that can’t be ignored by many Entrecarders. Provide us a way to make money from our blogs and we’ll focus on how to maximize that income while we build traffic. That’s part of the Entrecard pitch, even if the fact that Entrecarders fully embraced it seems to have taken Graham and Phirate by surprise.

Entrecard is going to continue to grow and will provide a great opportunity for thousands of bloggers to get cheap exposure to their blogs. However, I think it would help to view the Entrecard experience as a training ground, a phase for newer bloggers to hone their craft and learn from their peers. Some will decide that blogging isn’t their thing and some will decide to move on to greener pastures, but it’s my opinion that most will agree that they had some really good experiences as a result of being an Entrecarder, and that’s almost as good as money in the EntreBank.

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