EntreBlast

Archive for August, 2008

Entrecard’s been quite, and our Summer Credit Splash is almost over, so this week we’ve got a really interesting question:

If you won the 17,000 first place prize, what would you do with it? Sell it? Hold your own contest? Advertise everywhere? Or slowly spend the ECs on ads and sponsoring contests?

Slowness

I apologize for it being a little quite around here lately despite the huge Entrecard contest going on right now. School has just started for me and it has been hectic around here. There will always be times like this for any blogger, no matter how dedicated they are to a blog. Life happens!

Another reason why it’s been quite around here, is because Entrecard has been quite as well in terms of news and blog posts. My guess is they are working on something new!

Advertise on EntreBlast

There is currently only one open ad spot in the sidebar. You can grab the last spot for just $10 or 1,500 ECs for a full 31 days. I have not updated the pricing of the advertisement spots to reflect EntreBlast’s increase in traffic, alexa ranking, and ad popularity, so the current price is actually way underpriced (Seriously, I’ve seen smaller blogs charge TWICE that). The next ad spot that’ll open up after that won’t open until September 10th, and by then I’ll have upped the price. So, if you’re looking for a really cheap ad on EntreBlast during a time where it is getting a LOT of attention (due to the contest), oh hey, well, there is actually one opportunity for that.

Additionally, I’m going to be opening two new ways to advertise on EntreBlast soon. One will be a new ad position, the other, well, you’ll see!

New Content

A few ideas have popped in my head that would make good blog posts, and I plan on writing some soon and getting those out. They are related to Entrecard, but it’s not the normal news-reliant posts that appear on EntreBlast so very often.

If you would like to guest blog on EntreBlast, or submit an idea that would make a good topic to talk about (Entrecard-related) then feel free to get in touch with me via the contact form. Entrecard questions, strategies you use and tips you would like to share are good ideas. I’m only one Entrecard user. I’m sure there is a lot of useful information gathered by you guys too.

In my interview with Graham, when I asked about what is in the future for the forums, he responded with a simple . Here are this week’s questions:

What do you think is in store for the forums? What do you think about the forums right now? Do you use them?

My prediction is that the forums are going to be moved onto a vBulletin forum. A lot of users have voted in the polls on the Entrecard blog, asking for a vBuilletin forum. It would make forum usage a lot better!

A new post category is being introduced today with this post: Interviews. I plan on conducting interviews with Graham, Phirate, other Entrecard staff members, and even Entrecard users. These will be conducted every once and a while. Expect one at least after a newly launched feature.

Last week on Entrecard Thoughts Friday, I asked what you guys thought would be next for Entrecard. Well now I’ll dish out what IS next for Entrecard. I was able to take 10 minutes away from Graham’s super busy schedule to find out more what his plans are for Entrecard.
Learn about the good investment news, the improvements for various areas of Entrecard, and the future of Entrecard’s Development Day.

1. What’s coming up next for Entrecard? A new feature, a new partnership announcement, an improved feature?
Well, the VERY next thing for Entrecard is to close an investment of seven figures. This will allow us to hire a proper staff, developers, etc. We’re pretty close.

2. What do you see for the future of Entrecard?
Credits embedded deeply into the economy, with a 100% liquidity rate (meaning you can sell them immediately to others, whenever you feel like), and a completely balanced economy.

3. What are your thoughts on the following features? How are you planning to improve them?

- The Entrebar
There are a lot of things we’re planning with the Entrebar. One of them may or may not be to include a filter for social media, so you can drop only on members who use digg, or only on members who use stumble, etc.

- The forums

- The economy
The economy is going to take a little work. We are going to release a suite of virtual goods you can purchase, to pull more and more credits out of the economy. Once we achieve a balance (that is, the same amount of credits that are created are pulled out of the economy in tandem), we will really be able to open up and do some amazing things.

- The Entrecard shop
This is at the very top of my list. The current shop system is broken, and we do intend to fix it, allow everyone to be sellers, and release a widget to make the point of sale right at your very own blog.

4. A few months back, you a Phirate held a Development Day, which was where users could log onto a chat room, joining you and Phirate to talk about new features, current features, and suggestions for improvements. What do you think about holding another one to get some ideas and opinions from members in a live chat session again?
It’s possible. We’re really stretched for human resources right now, but once we close an investment there is a very good chance you will see this become a regular (monthly, bi-monthly) part of Entrecard culture.

Cheers,
Graham

Yesterday Graham unleashed a new project, called the Startup Blog Project. The goal is to prove how beneficial Entrecard can be for any blogger.

How it’ll be done: Graham is going to use Entrecard like any other blogger- dropping on cards and using those credits to advertise to related blogs. He won’t be buying credits, or giving himself free credits because he could easily do so. Howeer, us normal Entrecard users can’t just give ourselves free credits, so he’s going to play the game fair.

In the end, Graham’s out to prove that Entrecard IS a great way to build a blog. Once he starts dropping, others will visit his site. He’ll eventually gain regular readers and subscribers. Then, after his blog has been live for some time, he’ll start receiving backlinks, search engine traffic, and social bookmarking traffic. Eventually, his traffic won’t come from Entrecard as much anymore.

I’ve already proven this idea. EntreBlast is based on Entrecard. For a while, all my traffic was from dropping and being dropped on- 100% Entrecard traffic. Now, almost 30% of my traffic is from direct and search engines combined. Overall, Entrecard is less than 25% of EntreBlast’s source of traffic.

To avoid skewing the project, I won’t be linking to Graham’s case study blog. You’ll have to check out the Blog Startup Project post yourself.

Alright so, last week held the release of the Entrebar. Now, some of us are wondering what’s next for Entrecard. I’m going to see if I can get a hold of Graham for a few minutes to maybe give some hints about what’s next, and then I’ll share it this week.

What do you think is next for Entrecard? What do you think should be next?

The Prizes

The Sponsors

Sorry about the slow week guys, I’m visiting family in NY for few days and will be back Monday. Anyways, so, on Sunday Entrecard launched it’s Entrebar – an Entrecard toolbar. The nifty tools allows you to buy ads, load Entrecard blogs, and more with just one click.

What do you think of the Entrebar? Like it, love it?

You’re probably wondering why I haven’t posted the Entrecredit Blast for this week, and that’s because I plan on launching the Summer Credit Splash contest soon! I don’t want to get tangled up with overlapping giveaways, so I’ll be holding off the Weekly Entrecredit Blast until after the contest is over.

The current EC prize total stands at 24,000 ECs. I have been searching for a few more people to sponsor, hopeing to hit 30,000 ECs before it starts.

If you want to sponsor, send me a message on Entrecard. One way to enter the contest is to link to the sponsors, so you’ll receive a ton of linkbacks in exchange for anything between 1000 and 5000 ECs. For those who donate 5000 ECs, they’ll be receiving a special bonus as a thanks.

So, in the ‘Latest Buzz’ section on the Dashboard, a message from two days ago says: “announcing something BIG very soon…”. We are all curious to find out what the heck this “something BIG” is, so why don’t we play a little guessing game.

What do you think the big announcement is going to be about?