No More Paid Ads
Well, Ziprunner has announced two changes that have more of an effect on users than the new homepage design. The paid ads system has been removed. This is a great move on their part because most Entrecard members hated the system and refused to allow the paid ads on their widget. However, the downside to this is that the feature of allowing members to sell their Entrecard credits is being removed as well. They will try and pay off as much of the Entrecard credits that have been waiting to cash out as possible with the funds that are left from the paid ads system.
Overall, this is probably a very good move on their part. The paid ad systems angered many members. However, it will be interesting to see how they will try to bring in revenue in other ways because if they aren’t profiting, Entrecard will surely go down the drain.
Posted in 
I wonder if the *majority* of bloggers dislike paid ads, or just the more traditional and/or more vocal ones? I still see an awful lot of blogs that accept them.
I don’t think there’s been any survey in this area, so it’s a bit speculative top say ‘most’.
Like you though, I wonder where they will get their revenue from now. Perhaps they’re pulling in enough from displaying third party ads? Mmmm.
I feel most people didn’t like it. I saw a ton of “Say No to Paid Ads” buttons. And everyone else just didn’t care about it.
I think it is still important for them to think about some kind of monetize strategy especially in this economic environment. In will be interesting to see what the new Entrecard management will do in the coming months.
There seems to be a very small very vocal group of members who didn’t like the paid ad system. I loved it, it was a cheap way to get a lot visitors to your site. It was also a great way for EC to make money. Now I wonder what they will do to make money. I bet no matter what it is the same exact people who complained about the paid ads will complain about whatever it is.
I have not try the paid ads before.
Well they’re gone now!
Now the time will come where we will the big wipe out!
The Wipe out of the blogs who just dropped the 300 cards for reaching a high amount to cashout.
Don’t buy too much advertisement in the next three days… as you might buy it for a too high price at the moment… look out for the popularity and check then back on Saturday/Sunday… the price of many blogs with Popularity points between 500 and 1.300 will drop (and that’s bad because of less visitors)
More on my blog
I wonder how much they are making off the ads they display on the Entrecard website. Entrecard is a big, high-PR site, so they should get a good amount of money that way. Plus if EC is still doing the affiliate offers for points program, they are pulling in some money that way. But I get the feeling EC was making next to nothing from paid EC ads since Graham restricted it to EC blogs only. I saw a few paid ads every once in a while, but not many after he did that. I’m glad they’re totally done, any thing else would just be confusing and overly complicated.
I forgot about the affiliate offers, I wonder how that is doing. I remember Graham had the sidebar ad prices pretty cheap for the size of the site, but I’m sure all of it isn’t enough to maintain/improve Entrecard.
I do wonder how Entrecard plan on making money now. I was kind of torn over the Paid Ads. On the one hand, I figured if people pay for other forms of advertising, why not on an EC widget. Plus, EC did need to make money. On the other, I like the fair system of Entrecard, it’s what attracted me in the first place.
Well, with it gone now, I suppose we’ll see what happens with EC. The loss of cashout for EC points is probably attributable to losing paid ads.
I like to know how to get back PR for my blog that lost PR for months.
Not sure if entrecard drop ec can help.