Entrecard - Worth The Hassle?

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[johnlacey]

I'm curious - does anyone here think there is much benefit to be involved with Entrecard?
Sure it may increase traffic volume, but is it good for anything else?

[Snoskred]

I'm at a point where it stays on the blog so people can drop, but that is where it ends. I don't drop regularly anymore myself and the pricing issues have frustrated me to the point that I just can't be bothered with it.

A lot of the blogs on entrecard have not been updated for a long time (some last updated in 2007) so there isn't a lot of point advertising on them. I do buy ads for the aussie bloggers blog and I make sure to hover and check to see they've been updated recently.

[johnlacey]

It just seems that it's set up for people who want to 'drop' entrecards.. and nothing else. Like that is its only purpose in life. Potentially it can increase traffic.. it might superficially inflate your Feedburner (count), but what is the benefit of that? People think you have more readers than you do, and then you don't know how many 'real' readers you have.

Personally I am so over having to log in and accept/deny new ads every day.

Yeah, all in all, I think I am over it. lol

[Sephyroth]

One thing that I've done is activate automatically accepting adverts for people who have advertised already - saves me the hassle of always checking to see if there is something in the queue to approve or not.

[miscmum]

How do you do that, Sephy?

[Ben Barden]

Dashboard - Advert Settings.

I like Entrecard, but I like it a lot more since the release of the toolbar for Firefox. It's very good indeed. The toolbar makes it a lot easier to find new sites. It's not all about dropping cards

[miscmum]

Thanks! 

[clutterbells]

John Entrecard has been making me breakfast in bed for the last six weeks. There is an option in the control panel where you can select what you want to eat. I have pancakes with Maple Syrup mostly. Other than that Entrecard is just a guilt inducing widget that brings out the worst in all of us. Should I reciprocate? Should I drop? I am still waiting for my first interaction in the form of a comment that has come from Entrecard. Go Aussies.

[Snoskred]

Interesting, I've had pancakes with maple syrup twice in the last 24 hours. No thanks to Entrecard - thanks to the Admin.

[johnlacey]

I usually have honey with my pancakes (mostly only because my family knew a beekeeper and we had lots of free honey, lol) and I make the pancakes myself. I like making the pancakes. I think tomorrow I'm going to remove all Entrecard crap from my blogs. Thanks for the feedback everyone.

[swollenpickles]

It can be good, but I'm just too lazy to do regular card dropping so I don't build up enough credits to do much advertising anymore. If you advertise on the right blogs though you can get a bit of traffic.

[benny]

I ahve found some great blogs via entrecard and some have found me.  A couple of us are hoping to do something together in a sort of strategic alliance as our readers would have similar interests.  It is still drawing board stuff, yet.  To me Entrecard is a form of networking too, not just advertising.  When you select the blogs to advertise on, think past that.  Is there any other way that blog could give you a boost? 

[janette]

Hi John. I find Entrecard useful especially when promoting a specific project, feature post, or even product/service. If you have multiple blogs signed up there, you can use the others to generate credits and transfer to the one you are promoting at this time.

I guess I partly equate it as subtle or non-intrusive promotion rather than writing to each and every blogger member there to plug about a product/service.

[Paulineh]

I find Entrecard good for getting readers from other entrecard users.  I have made a few regular readers that way.  For traffic in general, I think that it does generate traffic but they are only fleeting readers lol.

I also have had a few problems accessing it and usually only go in there in our evening time as that is when the drops reset and this gives the sites I drop on all day to drop on me.

[Dot Com Dud]

I have had a decent experience with Entrecard. I think it works better for some niches than others. That being said, I think once a blog gets to a certain size, it would outgrow Entrecard (as far as dropping is concerned). It doesn't hurt to have the widget on your blog though, unless you have better use for the space.

[cobwebhead]

Just a question, is there anyone currently actively using Entrecard for advertising? By this I mean running their cards on other blog's widgets.

[Dot Com Dud]

I used to but not anymore. I find the credits are better spent in the new marketplace. However their is a significant change coming to Entrecard, so how effective it will be in the future is yet to be seen.

[Snoskred]

There are too many blogs which never approve the ads. I've still kept the widgets on in the hope they might wake up and smell the coffee and return the credit system to the way it used to be which worked very well. But my patience is slowly running out.. I'm nearly done with it..

[Snoskred]

Well, this makes the decision a lot easier. Excuse me but if I want to put ads on my blog, I will do so - I want to be able to control who is advertising on my blog. All that flies out the window with their latest change. This was emailed to me.

Greetings Entrecarders!

Today I have VERY important news for the entire Entrecard community. In approximately one week, we will be co-launching an Ad Network and a Credit Cashout Service. What this means, immediately to you, is the following:
A real ad network

We will be opening as much as 50% of our ad impressions network-wide to third party advertisers. We will be accepting cash payments to run 125x125 advertisements through our widget network. Ads will be sold as run of network, or targeted by category, for a low CPM rate to be announced. Please plan your daily entrecard ad purchasing accordingly. Whereas before, when you purchased an ad, you were buying a minimum of 100% of the impressions, you are now buying a minimum of 50%. However, the maximum is still 100% of the impressions, because if we have no ads booked for that category, or for the network, for any given day, you will still get all of the impressions.

Exchange your credits for CASH
With the money we make selling as much as 50% of our network impressions, we will purchase your credits from you, and delete them from the system. This means we're going to let you sell credits for cash, right from your dashboard! This has been the single most requested feature since we launched Entrecard. Members have clamored for a way to sell Entrecard credits for cash, but the same problem always arose: where does the money come from to let people sell their credits? How do we use our greatest resource (millions of daily impressions across ~60 niches) to benefit everyone? After much deliberation, the answer became clear. We must open up our ad network, and funnel the proceeds of the entire operation back to you, the members!
The state of the economy

The state of the world's economy is grim. We are in a global recession. People need simple ways to make money now more than ever before. Therefore, it became our imperative to turn Entrecard into a viable way for bloggers to make money. We think we've figured out a great way to do this. By allowing you to cash out your credits, and allowing you to earn credits by selling products and services in our market, advertising on your blog, publishing on your blog, and dropping cards, we're making big moves to help you earn a second income.

In parallel, the Entrecard economy has been in a state of inflation since day one. Every day, more credits are created than are deleted. As of writing this, there are 44 million credits in the Entrecard economy, and we're adding more each day. This is not sustainable, and so it has become clear that we need a more efficient way than advertising taxes to eliminate credits from the economy. The good news is that if this works, we'll be able to lower the advertising tax.

So, by paying you cash for your credits, and then wiping them from the system, we estimate that we can delete as many as 1 to 2 million credits per day. This will immediately shift the economy into DEFLATION, which means your credits will become MORE valuable, instead of less valuable, both in their purchasing power and in their monetary value.

Finally, Entrecard has needed a solid revenue model since day one. We are excited to have settled on a viable revenue model that allows us to make money at the same time as passing on the majority of our revenues back to you. For any given day, we will take 75% of our revenues and pass them on to you by way of cashing out your credits. We will take the remaining 25% for ourselves to grow the business as a solid revenue source.
What if I don't want these ads on my site?

We have always prided ourselves in being a service that offers you complete control over what does and does not appear on your site. Yet, at the same time, we're forced to mitigate this ideal with our decision to launch a more traditional ad network, as a way to make you money, restore the economy to balance, and make some money for ourselves.

We will continue to allow you to reject any ad you wish. However, to reject ads from paying advertisers, you will need to pay a credit fee for each ad you wish to reject. We don't know how much this will be just yet.

New Above-the-fold rule

If this is going to work for everyone, we must also mandate an above-the-fold rule. Thus moving forward, it is necessary for all Entrecard members place their widget above the fold to maintain an active account. The rule won't go into effect until we launch our ad network, which is about a week away, so please plan accordingly and make the necessary changes as soon as possible.
To recap

You can boil this down to the following 4 bullet points:

   1. In a week, we're launching an ad network where anyone can advertise through Entrecard widgets for CPM rates. This can be run of network advertising, or targeted by category. We are making available 50% of our inventory, or approximately 40 million monthly impressions.
   2. With the money we make, we are going to buy credits back from you. You will be allowed to sell credits via your dashboard, and we will devote 75% of daily sales to buying credits back.
   3. The economy will no longer be in a state of inflation, but rather in deflation which means your credits will gradually start becoming more valuable.
   4. For all this to work, we must institute an above-the-fold rule, which goes into effect in a weeks.

We realize these are pretty huge changes, and there are going to be a lot of questions. This is part of the reason we're announcing this a week early, so we can field all the questions, address everyone's concerns, and all get on the same page.
 
Feel free to follow up on the blog here:
http://entrecard.com/blog/?p=1081

I'm taking the widgets off my blog the minute the last ad I had booked has completely run - that's only fair - and we'll have to talk about the Aussie Bloggers Blog but I am pretty sure we'll do the same with that.

[Snoskred]

And widget gone - lucky me I didn't have any ads running right now.. Kthxbai Entrecard!

[ShadowKnight]

I got booted off during my apathy.  I won't be going back.

[Ian]

I only use it now to visit 20 odd blogs I favourited and would visit anyway.  Long gone are the days of dropping hundreds of cards.

[Lightening]

I only use it now to visit 20 odd blogs I favourited and would visit anyway.  Long gone are the days of dropping hundreds of cards.

Me too.  Which is I think how it was originally designed to be used.  A way of saying you've been somewhere even if you don't have time or something to add via a comment.  Mind you, I never get around to checking mine anyway....hmmm.