EntreBlast

An e-mail was just sent out to all Entrecard members that read:

Hi everyone!

In a few weeks we will be launching entrecredits.com as a new site and we can’t wait! But we need help. There’s a lot to test, a userbase to build, and a UI to polish. As an Entrecarder you already have a strong understanding of how a credit-based economy works, so we’re offering EC users an opportunity to get in early on this new site and help us create something to expand and complement Entrecard.

If you’re keen to help out, curious to see what we’ve come up with and want to get some free credits to sweeten the deal, please visit entrecredits.com and add your email address to the list. We’ll send you an invite in a few weeks.

We can’t give out any more information at this time, but it’s going to be *awesome*.

Team Entrecard
http://entrecard.com

Entrecard is starting to do some spring cleaning by deleting accounts with sites that do not comply with the Entrecard Terms of Service. If you’re site is deleted because it violates the TOS, you will receive an e-mail letting you know and a chance to fix the problem.

As a reminder, the rules for Entrecard sites are:

• English Only
• No Nudity
• Minimum of 5 posts
• Content must be updated in the last three months
• No full screen ads or popups
• No illegal file downloads
• Entrecard widget must be present
• No duplicate accounts

And you can learn more about the rules by visiting Entrecard’s Terms of Service page. If you’re site is violating a rule, fix it now!

Entrecard is changing their marketplace! The new marketplace can be found at: http://entrecredits.com/market/. You can see that it uses it’s own domain name, entrecredits.com and is not integrated with Entrecard.com. Users will have to handle exchanges privately and manually as opposed to the Entrecard system.
In my opinion, this is a step in the wrong direction. Entrecard instead should have fixed up the marketplace with a better system and layout. The new site for the marketplace is hideous and extremely lazy of them.

The winner of the 10,000 Entrecard Credit prize is…

Another Blogger

Congrats! Your 10,000 Entrecard Credits will be sent shortly. Thank you everyone for participating and I hope you all have had a happy holiday! Please don’t forget to subscribe to EntreBlast for more contests and giveaways in 2010. Have a happy new year!

That’s no typo. My last post, I gave away 1,000 Entrecard Credits, but in celebration of the holidays, I am going to give away 10,000 Entrecard Credits to one lucky person. This contest will run until Christmas Eve, the winner picked and announced on Christmas Day. What an awesome present huh?
To enter: (Read these directions carefully!)

1. Subscribe to EntreBlast via e-mail. All you have to do is look to the right of this post, and you’ll see a box asking you to enter in your e-mail address. Type it in and hit subscribe. It must be a valid e-mail address as you will be contacted via e-mail if you win.

2. Post a comment on this post. Just one comment is all you need, guaranteeing a fair chance for everyone to win. Multiple comments will not be counted. The e-mail address you fill in for the comment must match the e-mail address you subscribed with! That is the only way I can verify who you are and if you subscribed.

That’s it! Good luck to all!

There were only two participants in the 1000 Entrecard Credits contest. Entering simply required one comment on the post.

Since there were only two participants, I have decided to give both 1000 Entrecard credits! Congratulations! Both of you have been sent 1000 Entrecard credits.

Stay tuned for more contests coming soon.

I’m going to be doing some random Entrecard credit giveaways as a way of rewarding my readers and subscribers. This is the first one of these I’ve done in a while but expect to see more of these soon.

Prize: 1000 Entrecard Credits

How to win: Just comment on this post! One comment is all it takes and commenting more than once will not earn you more entries, one entry per person.

Deadline: This Thursday, December 3rd. Winner will be announced on Friday.

Make sure to include a link to either your blog that has an Entrecard widget or your Entrecard profile!

Entrecard currently has a deal running for those who want to purchase some Entrecard credits. Right now, you can buy credits for half price. So the new prices are currently:

4,000 credits = $12
8,000 credits = $23.20
16,000 credits = $44.80
32,000 credits = $84.40
64,000 credits = $166.40

They didn’t specify when this offer expires, so if you want to purchase some Entrecard credits, now is the time to do so!

So, I was checking up on the Entrecard forums, and saw this message posted on the homepage:

Forum closed:

Please email support@entrecard.com. All emails are answered within 24 hours.

It looks like the Entrecard forums have been closed indefinitely. I’ll admit I wasn’t very active with the forums, so who knows how long they’ve been closed. It’s pretty disappointing they never got a lift off and weren’t very active, but maybe they will reopen them in the future. As for now, it’s closed.

On September 22nd, Entrecard announced they would be implementing a sponsor ad program.

Now, some people like the idea of being able to pay to opt out of the ads, some loathe the whole paid ads system, and others simply just don’t care. I’m in the last group because like I said, the company behind Entrecard HAS to make money in order for Entrecard to stay alive. It’s a BUSINESS people! And the service is still free! They aren’t forcing you to pay $50 to continue using the system. So what if there are a few sponsorship ads in between ads you’re receiving credits to run?

Right now, Entrecard’s only source of income is from the ‘Earn EC’ section where you can earn credits to fill out offers or from purchasing credits. They do not make enough from that to stay alive.

And to those who are criticizing the staff because they are just trying to make money- so are you! You use Entrecard to earn credits and promote your blog so you can gain readers and traffic in order to make money from your blog through CMF Ads, Adgitize, or private advertising. Even if you didn’t set out to make money from blogging, you’re still trying to anyways. So, give them a break because they are still providing a free service to bloggers that may never have been noticed without Entrecard.

I’m accepting the sponsor ad program because Entrecard is still a free service and I understand that to run a site and service like Entrecard, it requires a lot of staff and money. They have to pay for staff to deal with customer service, coding, and adding new features. Server bills for a large site such as Entrecard are expensive as well. I think this would never have been an issue with members if the sponsorship program was implemented from the get go, instead of waiting a few years to finally add something like this, because members would have been accustomed to the idea of Entrecard using some of the ad space for sponsors.

So, it’s either Entrecard shuts down or Entrecard takes a small bite from your ad views.