I just finished ranting about why Entrecard is dying, but I failed to give solutions to what has happened. There are reasons for this, which I will explain. But first, lets go over solutions other bloggers have suggested and why they won’t work.
Take away credits for drops.
This is pretty ridiculous, IMO. This is the main reason why Entrecard worked the first few months. People used Entrecard as a way to find new and interesting blogs while gaining credits. Taking away the drops will take away this incentive.
Lower the price of ads.
How would this solve anything? Right now, the only way to take credits out of the system is through taxation on transactions and sales. Lower the price of ads and that takes away the amount of credits being taken out.
Supply and demand. There is no reason why it should be different.
Remove the inbox.
Take away the inbox and it defeats the original purpose of an online business card. Business cards are for showing people how to contact you and advertise yourself. How do you do that when they receive an invisible card? Not every post is worthy of a comment.
A premium membership.
Although this may be a step into the right direction, I don’t see a reason for many of what has been suggested. Sure, if you let someone drop 60 cards and get 300 credits for it, it looks good from the outside. But once you think about it, it ends up hurting. If you like it or not many people rely on reciprocal dropping. So instead of 300 reciprocals they get 60. That doesn’t look as pretty, eh?
You could talk about adding blue/red/green stripes on cards in the forums all you want, but that isn’t going to help the economy. Go ahead and add in donations, but again, it won’t help the economy.
How to Solve Entrecard’s Problems
So we know the problem–The advertising system is out of whack and credits are worthless at this point–but how do we solve it?
1. The community needs to step up–me included. We look to Graham or Ben for advice on what to do next. We sit and talk amongst ourselves about what is wrong with Entrecard. But we don’t do the one thing we are best at, acting as a community.
As a community, we can do much more than just talk. We can do. What do we do? We write articles on the EC blog. We get people to join into our discussions about Entrecard. We write better content on our blogs instead of just crap no one cares about. We offer ways to incentive Entrecard members by offering monthly advertising on our website for Entrecard credits. We stop spamming each other. We start acting like adults. We start posting in the introduction forum.
2. More things to spend credits on. I know a lot of people argue against this, but I have to agree with the idea of we will be better off. The more things to spend credits on the more credits that exit the system and the more value each credit has.
Let me ask you this, what has more value: a $1 bill you can buy a hamburger with or a $1 where you can buy a hamburger or french fries or chicken sandwich with?
In all honesty, if there were more things to spend credits on I wouldn’t have raised the price of advertising through OIO on impNERD (at least, not as much).
4. Lower the amount of drops allowed. Yeah, 100 is enough. I know what you are thinking, it will lower the amount of traffic you receive, right? Good. That is the purpose. It will force people to choose which blog to drop on and which not to. It will allow people to make a better decision as to which blog is better and more worthy. Yes, people will be mad at first, but so what? They will be mad about any change. Newbies aren’t going to care because they don’t know otherwise. The oldies will simply adapt. This will help curb the ‘traffic exchange’.
Another idea: give credits for the first 100, but still show the card in the inbox the next 200.
5. Model the economy off of a current successful micro-economy. Gaia Online is probably the single most successful micro-economy on the web. They hired an actual economist to help develop their current system (Yes, they too had problems at first and had to completely redo their market. People were getting too much gold too quickly).
Don’t believe people will buy into Entrecard? Think again. Continuing the Gaia comparison, they made roughly $1 million their first year. All of it was from “donation letters” which are pay $2 and receive a random donation. The people who play this game aren’t rich either, they are teenagers. Today, Gaia makes even more with estimates into tens of millions of dollars yearly. They added t-shirts, stuffed animals, and more into their marketplace. I’m not saying Entrecard should do this (of course they shouldn’t, who would buy a stuffed E?), but there are possibilities of expanding. There is always a market, they just have to find what that market is (and I don’t mean simply bloggers).
5. A better advertising system. We all know what we have now doesn’t work. But how do we solve it? One way would be to set our own ad prices. Although I like this idea, there are some drawbacks, such as a lower amount of advertising throughout the site. Another way, would be a project wonderful type system where an ad runs only as long as it is the highest bidder. Again, this has drawbacks.
So what is the answer? There isn’t one right now. It simply cannot be evaluated until the credits have real value. Hell, once they do perhaps the system will fix itself.
If all else fails, there is still one last hope. A credit wipe. Yes, it would completely piss off members who have been hoarding credits, but if there is a system overhaul it will have to be done. Other micro-communities have had to do the same exact thing, especially once they come out of Beta (which is basically what Entrecard is in). Entrecard is not different. Could they work around it? Sure. It will just mess with the results so a larger test period will be needed. Instead of a week of testing the results of a wipe and overhaul, they would test 2-3 months, maybe longer. This leads to even more problems.
I know this will give some of you the willies, so flame on!
Written: Oct 22, 2008
ken armstrong
October 22, 2008 @ 5:29 pm
No flames here. You’re thinking hard about something I value and I really thank you for that.
The fact that ‘Entrecard is Dying’ just seems to pass me by but I’m not really Internet-economy-savvy. Where I sit, it just seems to be ticking along.
Texas Wanderer
October 22, 2008 @ 11:32 pm
EC right now is a traffic exchange, and until it decides that isn’t what it wants to be, then it won’t change. However, it should do pretty good at that because you can’t judge the entire company by a few dozen people who are mad in the forums. I know dozens upon dozens of people in real life that use EC, but I’m the only one who reads and responds in the forums. The rest are getting what they want- a lot of traffic, a few organic clicks, and finding some interesting blogs. So if five people drop EC, there are thousands still trucking along.
But like you said in the other post, they need some more direction, to say the least. I agree. And I think a few of your ideas would drive them in the right direction.
Beth
October 23, 2008 @ 5:14 am
I agree that changes need to be made- as bloggers it all comes down to us. When EC first started, I had high-hopes. I commented on blogs and participated in the forums, encouraging others to do the same, only to be shot down and in the end, out-right bullied and might I add with no assistance from the owners. EC credits are like money to some of the most popular blogs using the system and I don’t agree with it. The goal is to find new blogs and readers by writing quality content- not holding 50 contests a month offering credits, which is basically bribing others to “stick with” the blog-even if it’s pure crap. Some may disagree with my opinion. I don’t care. I was even asked in the beginning if I had ideas as to where the service could be improved- I gave my response and was ignored. So- we either stand up and say- this is what we want/need etc, or watch a once hopeful service disappear.
Margaret
October 23, 2008 @ 12:06 pm
Gary — I don’t have any answers for Entrecard’s problems. The ad system is so broken I hardly ever buy an ad any more. I’ve quit trying to drop 300 cards across 3 blogs on a daily basis although I am trying to do 100 per site. I drop from a list and will occasionally click on an interesting looking ad to see where it takes me, but there are so many blogs I have absolutely zero interest in that it’s not funny.
Now, that’s not to say those blogs are garbage or unworthy of being visited, but only if you’re interested in that stuff. I’m not a gamer for example. There are a lot of great gaming blogs, but since it’s not my thing, I don’t want to visit them.
I personally think the number of drops someone is allowed to do should be what they *can* do within the 24 hour period. Once people learned they could no longer sell ec credits on Ebay (or indeed sell them for any currency), the overriding interest in obtaining them should have abated somewhat. I believe those folk who were trying to earn their house payment by selling are who accumulated boat loads.
I would like to see shop items made available again. I know Graham keeps saying they are revising the shop, but I’ve not heard any hint of what the discussions around it are concerned with. I do know some people were scammed which was a shame.
I like Entrecard overall and certainly hope the issues with it are resolved or at least brought to a level where we can live with them.
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Deimos Tel`Arin
October 24, 2008 @ 1:13 am
[A credit wipe.]
Aaaah this is too intense, I hope this will not happen.
Paul
October 24, 2008 @ 7:54 pm
I like idea 4 above. Here’s another idea along the same lines: The first 100 drops are worth 3 credits each to both the dropper and the dropee. If you choose to continue beyond 100 to 300, those initial drops are prorated. It could be done with fractional credits or simply by rounding down. It doesn’t solve the other problems, but it should make both types of EC user happy. Your post gave me some other ideas as well, but I don’t want to hijack your post by writing a post in your comments.
Patricia
October 25, 2008 @ 1:53 pm
I’m with Paul on your suggestion #4. I think I only drop 300 EC’s a day because that is the stated limit. If the stated limit were 100, I would drop that many and be content (and not as exhausted). Also, if the limit were 100 I would probably be able to spend more time commenting, but I feel compelled to drop 300 now so I can keep up with everyone else. I don’t know about all this selling and buying credits business because I don’t do it. One of the main reasons I like Entrecard is because you DON’T need any money to become successful. I just accumulate sufficient credits to get an ad on a blog I like and then buy it. It wouldn’t matter who set the ad cost or how it was determined, if I wanted to advertise, I would wait until I had the credits and then I would buy the ad. I don’t hoard credit; I can’t understand why anyone would.
Turnip
October 28, 2008 @ 11:05 am
Who are you quoting in block quotes up there chief?
Gary R. Hess
October 28, 2008 @ 11:46 am
@Turnip I’ve seen every one of those mentioned by several different people, that is why there isn’t a citation. It is more of a general view amongst ECers.
Nihar
October 28, 2008 @ 8:58 pm
Well thought post.. I agree with on more of the points…
Virtual Economies & Entrecard | Tech by PC
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