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A while back, I noticed a deal called Entrecard which uses the idea of traffic generation by way of “dropping cards” on all those who have the Entrecard widget on their blogs. Thought it was a great idea so I signed up. At first, traffic really did increase. Actually, if I did everything I could do, traffic would still be higher than it currently is on this blog.
What’s the problem here? With this particular traffic generator, you have to take the time to drop up to 300 cards a day per blog signed up. You can drop zero too. The idea is to generate the traffic and eventually find new readers. What usually happens is that I get a quite a bit less traffic than I give out, that is, I drop the required number but get less than a third coming back to me. If that was all the problem, I sure wouldn’t be talking about it. That’s just a matter of finding people who want to be on the blog. No problem there.
No, the problem is more in the nature of how Entrecard has changed to suit the few…themselves. A dropper gets what they call “EC” or Entrecard Cash. You get a point for each drop you make. The EC add up. And things weren’t too bad before this radical change was made. When you had enough EC, you were able to buy advertising on the other blogs depending on how much EC you had on hand. The more you have, the more you can spend on some of the really top ranked blogs. The downside to that was that you could never get in to their list. It was always full. Yes, there was a cap.
Today, it’s a completely different situation. I believe it has gone from bad to worse. Now there is no cap. So the price of the more popular blogs can be quite high, over 8000 EC. Yep, there is a problem there. If you drop 300 EC each day, it will take you a mountain of time to save up enough to buy advertising for ONE DAY on those really expensive blogs. At this point, it’s important to take note of this. When you buy advertising, you do not get the payback exactly. Entrecard takes most of your profit for themselves. In the real world, the lion’s share would go to the one who advertises and gets their payback on it. In Entrecard world, they get the big payback and the blog owner gets the shaft. The EC that rightfully belongs to the blogger is actually going to gather EC for the Entrecard company. Is this nuts or what?
Folks, the money is virtual. What the heck is that about? When the company gathers the VIRTUAL EC, they then put it up for grabs. Of course, the people who want the EC have to pay for it with REAL cash. You can get 1,000 EC for $9.50 and 5,000 for a whopping $47.50. And what do you get when you spend them? One whole day of advertising on another blog. One day. And as I stated before, there are blogs that cost over 8,000 EC to advertise.
Any comments here? Does this look even remotely sane? People are paying almost $50 to acquire a few EC that you can get for free. Granted, you really have to work for those little buggers but they are free. The problem is that it takes forever to gather them. Then you really do not get value for your bucks….either way.
Entrecard is definitely not all that. I will keep it for information purposes but it’s doubtful that I will spend a lot of time on site anymore. Just not worth the incredible effort it takes. Sigh.
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2 Comments
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Actually, you have some facts wrong. The truth is as follows:
1.) When you purchase an ad, only 25% of the credits go to the blogger you purchase it from. However, the other 75% simply get deleted out of the system entirely. We do not keep them. We do not sell them, they get deleted. Do you know what would happen if we did not do this? The economy would inflate out of control as every credit that is earned stayed in the economy forever. Each day credits would buy you less and less.
2.) The credits that we sell, we purchase from other members at a rate of 7.50 per thousand, and we sell them for 9.50. We only make $2.00 in the transaction, while you, the blogger, makes 7.50.
We always act in the best interest of our members. If prices are high for certain blogs, its because members are willing to pay that much. There are plenty of great blogs that join every day, priced at 2 and 4 credits. Why not advertise on them?
Hey, I stand corrected. It’s good to know that things are at least somewhat different than was believed to be the case. I still have the problems with the sales of EC when the rest of the thing is virtual. I will always see that as wasted money. Sorry guy! It feels like selling and buying air.
Thanks for clearing that up for me though. I appreciate it.