EntreBlast

Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category

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.

Wednesday I posted the news about Entrecard’s new dropping policy that will be in affect at precisely “soon”. They are updating their algorithm for dropping on Entrecard widgets so you have to somehow interact with every single blog you are dropping on in order to receive credit.

The intentions behind this idea is a good thing. The high bounce rate that comes with using Entrecard is a bad thing. People want more interaction from droppers with their blog.

However, I am against this new change for a number of reasons. I can think of a dozen problems that will result because of these changes. To name a few:

1. If Graham believes the algorithm for detecting who interacts with the blog is going to stay a mystery- then he’s most likely going to be wrong. Case study: Google. It just takes a couple of people and some guessing and testing to figure out how the algorithm works. Does Graham really want to get involved in an ongoing war, having to constantly tweak the algorithm?

2. As I said in the previous post, the bounce rate is one of the biggest complaints made about Entrecard. However, another huge complaint is, well, their inability to handle complaints. Their support system is very weak. I never received a reply from my rant against the Entrecard trade limits, and that was over a month ago! Entrecard will receive an enormous increase in the number of complaints with this new change- people claiming they interacted with a blog but didn’t receive credit. Well people, just don’t bother with that.

3. How do they expect us to interact on old blog posts?  This one I saw in comments made by users in the Entrecard blog. If a blog hasn’t updated since the last time we were forced to make a comment on their post, what are we supposed to do? Leave another one? That hardly makes any sense. Which ties into my next issue…

4. Spam comments. That is what we will see from Entrecard users. Just generic, superficial comments left so they can get credit for interaction. Don’t get me wrong, I am not blaming the users here. I personally don’t have time to read the newest post on every single blog I drop on and then write a comment (I’ll get to that next). But as a couple of users who commented on Entrecard’s blog post, I’d much rather have a high bounce rate than fake comments.

5. Expect users to do less dropping. This is a major backfire to this new policy. In the blog post about the new dropping policy, the first sentence under the headline “The Point of Entrecard” says:

The point of participating in Entrecard is to find new blogs you enjoy, and to interact with each other.

But this is completely cutting off the first half of the sentence, and enforcing the second. Interacting with every single blog is going to take a lot of time and personally, I don’t even know if I’ll have time anymore with this new rule to reciprocate all of the drops I receive now, let alone try and “find new blogs”.
My average bounce rate is around 89%. Sure, it’s high, and surely because of Entrecard. However, I receive a lot of interaction with my blog. I receive comments from returning readers and new ones. People sponsor my blog by purchasing ads, and people click on those ads to check out new blogs. What more interaction could I hope for? Sure, I’d like to receive more comments. But, I do not want fake comments. I want people to truly read my posts and have it effect them so they feel the need to comment and voice their opinion. That’s what I like.

With this new rule, I feel like I’m being babied by Mommy Entrecard. I’m going to receive in increase in comments because Entrecard is making people do so. It’s like all the droppers coming to my blog are little kids who were forced to apoligize for being mean to someone. The apology is fake, and only comes because their mom made them do it. To be honest, it’s also embarassing. The users who’ve complained about having a high bounce rate because of Entrecard (though I’m sure some had one before Entrecard as well), finally get what they want even though they know that most of the interaction will be fake.

Is it really that important to have a high bounce rate? There are other ways to improve interaction to your blog, and get REAL comments and results. I’ll provide some tips in another post. Please post your thoughts on this new change, and if you have any tips for improving bounce rate that you’d like to share, leave a comment.

A couple months back, Entrecard imposed changes to the credit system by adding a 12.5% tax on Entrecard credits and limiting the amount of ECs users can transfer to others daily and weekly. Though the intentions of these changes are good – the goal is to eliminate the selling of ECs outside the system – it has been hurting Entrecard and the community.

It’s pretty noticeable how much contests have died down. In fact, I haven’t come across an Entrecard contest in weeks. I was finally truly affected when I was setting up the process for allowing people to order paid posts on EntreBlast and noticed that the cost would not go above 999 ECs. So, I sent a letter to Entrecard’s support e-mail which will hopefully make it to Graham.

The letter read:

Hey Graham,
I posted this on the forum but have received no response. Can you please lift the EC trading limits? Now that users can sell their Entrecard credits through Entrecard, there isn’t any reason to have limits on transferring ECs. People can sell their credits back to Entrecard, credit farmers aren’t really problems these days.

Lifting the EC transfer limits would bring back contests without the annoying hassle of having to contact admin to arrange it for them. Have you noticed that there aren’t big contests anymore? Holding contests was a great benefit to Entrecard and would surely sprout life back into the community feel.

Additionally, I can’t charge more than 999 ECs for ads or paid posts on my blog via OIOPublisher. This is ridiculous considering people pay 2,000+ ECs for a one day ad through Entrecard, why not allow them to pay more than 999 ECs for one month ads, or a featured post on a blog. I understand you are concerned about people selling their credits outside of Entrecard, but I think the priorities need to be adjusted here. What’s more important: trying to keep people from selling and buying credits from people other than Entrecard, or pleasing the members that essentially form Entrecard.

I miss contests, and I know everyone else does too. The ‘Contests’ forum is completely dead now. It would be a logical decision to lift this EC cap. You’re already hindering the transfer of ECs by having a tax. I understand you want to take ECs out of the system, lifting this trade limit would actually HELP with that goal. See, people win a lot of ECs through a contest, and they’ll probably want to sell them for money. Of course now they are able to sell it back to you guys (credit farming is DEAD and they know they can get banned for selling them outside Entrecard).

At this point, Entrecard is in need of some change to spark enthusiasm and interest back into Entrecard. This would be a wise move and I hope you see that too. I have posted this e-mail to my blog and if you watch the post, you’ll see the response of other Entrecard members.

Sincerely yours,
Casey
www.entreblast.com

I’m interested in your input, so please comment on this post. I believe we can get this limit removed so we can bring contests back to Entrecard.

Entrecard experiences a lot of rumors, controversy, and criticism from both former members and current members. Of course, criticism is normal for any site or service, but the controversies and conspiracy theories surrounding Entrecard seem to be what everyone enjoys talking about the most. So, I can’t just ignore these issues.

And apparently, some members are getting fed up with people constantly bashing Entrecard. Gary Hess over at impNERD has spoken out about some Entrecard rumors people have been spreading (and all of them a bit ridiculous).

These rumors are:

1. Graham is an Asian woman.
2. Graham is racist.
3. Entrecard is a Nazi regime.
4. Entrecard allows porn ads.
5. Entrecard is going to die by June.

Gary goes through each one and logically explains why they aren’t true, actually making some sense.

In my opinion, numbers 1, 2, and 3 are just stupid. Number 4, well, I have seen some inappropriate photos used as Entrecard ads. I just rejected one this morning because it was the top view of a revealing picture of large boobs stuffed in a small bra. I don’t want to see that, and I certainly don’t want to have that showing on my blog all day. As for number 5, it’s May and Entrecard still looks pretty active to me.

Stay tuned for my follow up post explaining how to get your problems with Entrecard across successfully.

Entrecard has announced new forum rules. There is NO bashing allowed on the Entrecard forums, and you must be a member to join. But, perhaps the most controversial new rule is: you must have purchased 400 ads to join.

This move is a major flub by Entrecard. Already, the forums aren’t as active as they could be, and this just makes it worse. This severly cuts back the activity of the forum. The forum should be another helpful tool for bloggers wanting to promote their blog, but it was also used to just relax, get to know other bloggers, share tips and tricks, and promote contests.

Why these new rules?

Obviously, it’s because some members of the forum were just going around complaining, bashing, and starting controversy. However, apparently this has nothing to do with the Entrecard bashing on the forum:

Graham believes in negative controversy, this is nothing to do with bad rep slinging. It is expected there will be negative talk about entrecard and its decisions.

Then why all of a sudden do we have these new rules? It’s understandable they won’t permit bashing on the forum. But the restriction that you have to have purchased 400 ads in order to join? This prevents all new members from joining the forums, and many of us members who don’t buy a lot of ads- but use our Entrecard credits for other purposes such as contests.

I’m normally for the moves Entrecard makes, but not this one. Many people have complained about this new rule but apparently it’s not being changed. Maybe when it’s noticed that the forums are now completely dead, they’ll think about this 400 ad rule.

Comment on this post, and share what you think about Entrecard’s new forum structure.

You cannot transfer more than 1000 Entrecard credits a week – a new change in the Entrecard economy as of yesterday. If you are a member of Entrecard with a lot of Entrecard credits, you probably sponsor contests around the community. Now, it’s harder to do that. Not only that, but how about giving away Entrecard credits? Most Entrecard contests (about 90% of them) contain over 1,000 ECs in prizes.

In response to this problem, Graham says:

we can give them elevated status easily enough and have already contacted almost everyone running a big contest. no worries. contests will be paid out without a hitch.

We want to see contests continue and will do so in a slightly more sanctioned way.

I then left a comment asking for more information on the elevated status.

Here is Graham’s reply:

We’re working towards a method of sanctioning contests and will update everyone on the blog once its ready.

It will involve some sort of inspection, to see where your credits came from, some sort of planning so we know the exact day you’re giving them away, some sort of accountability -that you’ve been active in the community and we know who you are vs. someone who just shows up today with a million credits suspiciously and wants to hold a “contest”

So once we have some firm ground rules in place, the huge contests can continue because we do not want to see the contest culture of Entrecard die!

Alright, so that gives contest holders breathing room, but what about those who sponsor Entrecard contests? The ones that truly make huge EC contests possible? This not only limits them on how many contests they can sponsor, but also how much can they sponsor. For the Summer Credit Splash, I rewarded those who sponsored 4000+ Entrecard credits. This influenced people to donate more, and also helped make the contest a lot larger.

The purpose of the cap is to eliminate the selling of Entrecard credits, which is now against the rules, and I understand that. I think it’s legitimate and useful. However, I propose the transfer limit to be set at least to 5,000 ECs/week. This is fair to us and yet still helpful in getting rid of credit farmers.

Please share your thoughts on the EC transfer limit and on my proposal.

How many times have you come across a blog that has not updated in a week? How about in over a month? Do you own one of those blogs?

Hopefully, you know what I’m talking about. If you’ve come across a blog that is dead through Entrecard, then the owner of that blog is probably experiencing an Entrecard addiction. In fact, I bet 99.9% of those blog owners are suffering from an extreme Entrecard addiction.

How do I know?

It’s easy to figure out. Mostly because we’ve all been there. The blogger is spending all this time dropping, commenting, and posting in the forums in order to drive traffic to their blog. It is hard to write without an audience, unless of course it’s just a personal diary. But, if you’re with Entrecard, it’s because you want your blog to be seen! So, you stumble across this awesome thing called Entrecard, and immediately you are attached. You want to drop 300 a day and build up a ton of credits so you can use them to get your blog known. Hey, Entrecard can be pretty addicting.

Why are you still dropping?

The more you drop, the more credits you earn, the more your blog gets known! This should be the reason you drop. But, if you are are spending too much time dropping and not enough time maintaining your blog, your drops will go up and you’re blog will go down. Eventually (hopefully), you will realize this when you’re wondering why your traffic isn’t steadily increasing. If you post new content as well as drop regularly, you’ll traffic will rise! This is because you will have people (the Entrecarders you’ve been dropping on) returning to read new content, whether they drop on your card or not. They will remember your blog as opposed to just spending 3 seconds finding your Entrecard and dropping. Isn’t that what you really want?

So here’s a little tip to those who haven’t written a new post in 27 years: Stop focusing on traffic and start worrying about content. This is  more a lesson on blogging than it is on Entrecard(ing). Work on writing new posts regularly and readers will start to come to you. Then go to Entrecard to get a boost.