This is a super long post about the past, present, and possible future of Entrecard. If you don’t feel like reading it, fine. I just felt the need to voice my opinion.
With everything that has happened with EC (or lack of happening), I am expecting it to completely hit rock bottom by the end of the year unless something major happens this November.
Yes, there will always be blogs on EC (at least, for as long as it will be here), but many of the bigger blogs–or as Turnip calls, the big 20 or is it 30 now?–will leave. And hey, even those blogs aren’t even that big.
I love the community there, but some things need to change. There was about a week not too long ago (the OIO announcement week) in which everything seemed fine. Graham was running things through cafes and holding weirdo contests which got tons of interaction and there were even a couple lurkers who would come in. It was buzzing–it was just short lived.
Now, no one really cares. There’s no real way to find Entrecard blogs selling OIO. Yeah, the OIO marketplace has a list of blogs with Entrecard, but they don’t say the cost of the ad spaces or what they are selling or how much traffic, etc. So accentual we are just taking a shot in the dark each time we visit a site, hoping they will accept EC, have an opening, or even offer the type of advertising we want. And hey, several of the sites aren’t even in Entrecard anymore.
Now I’m not saying this is exactly Entrecard’s fault, it isn’t. And it definitely isn’t OIO’s fault. They have been great. However, Entrecard does need to do something. Yes, yes, I know the shop is coming. But when exactly? We have been expecting it to get fixed since what… May (or it has at least been dead since then)?
There is nothing to spend our EC credits on. I went on a spending spree of 40,000-50,000 credits trying to advertise on other peoples widgets and get a little buzz. Know what that got me? 5 days of 100 extra visitors. So basically, 40,000 EC credits bought 500 extra visitors. That comes down to an 80,000EC/1,000 click through cost. Using the $6/1000EC metric, that is $480 I would have spent on visitors. If I used the same amount of money on AdSense at $0.10/visitor I would have gotten 4,800 people.
Keep in mind that my advertising spree was for older, more established blogs in the community. These blogs ranged from 256EC-2048EC (this is per day for those of you who aren’t EC members). Which makes it even worse, in my opinion.
You know there is a problem with your advertising service when it sucks at advertising. Yeah, should be pretty easy to understand, right? Of course it is, and Graham knows this. He absolutely knows the system sucks. This is why he has been trying to partnership with different services. The problem is the partnerships don’t hold up.
What do I mean? Take SezWho for example. They do exactly what they say. They offer a way to track user comments, rate comments, and rate posts. That is it. There is absolutely no other reason why someone should use them. So Entrecard partners with them, people install it (including me) to check it out, and everyone gets disappointed and removes them after two weeks.
Oh, but that’s not all! Entrecard wasn’t paying out. They didn’t hold up their end of the deal with the most important party, the ECers. We find out that an average score of 3.9 must be given within 48 hours and one of the votes have to be by the site owner. Of course, at this time just bout every site owner was grading anyway, so this wasn’t a problem. I knew for a fact several of my comments were rated high, was I given ECs? No. Of course, I could care less. What is 10 ECs anyway? Nothing.
So along we go and we get to the OIO partnership as stated above. Great at first, lacking in the end. OIO held up their part (well, did they even have a part? All they did was add Entrecard credits as a payment option. The money off was a general coupon.).
So here we are coming up on the one-year anniversary of Entrecard. Many changes have taken place and surely more are to come. But, where will it go?
We have seen the forums completely change. They were once rarely moderated and are now moderated to death. We couldn’t even discuss a blog being deleted by Blogspot. Yeah, lame. The only forum worth visiting is the community anyway. The rest are completely dead.
Over 1,000 EC credits cannot be transferred at a time. So this not only kills the selling of credits, but also large credit giveaways (that is, unless they deal with the new contest mod/admin/person or whatever you want to call her). I don’t exactly blame them for this either, but it all goes back to credit worth.
How much is a credit worth? Absolutely nothing. I respect the system and hey, I even recommended it to several other bloggers and still probably would. But it wouldn’t be for the credits. Right now, I would never consider buying them and definitely not for $6 for 1000. $2? Maybe. But that is against the TOS now, right?
Advertising does nothing. Absolutely nothing. Can I get 100 more visitors to my blog doing it? Sure. I just have to be extremely lucky by advertising on new and cheap blogs (which is what I generally do) or I can spend my entire fortune on overpriced not-related blogs. Either way, the amount of effort for 100 visitors is crazy.
What does this all mean? Entrecard is a traffic and link exchange network. I have defended Entrecard in the past a countless amount of times. But the reality is, this is what they have become. It isn’t even about friends helping friends or great content receiving the most amount of credits. It is about people surfing through websites trying to find people who will reciprocal drop daily. If they comment or subscribe, all the better.
This is also the problem. The thing is, this is also what is ruining Entrecard. People are leaving because they don’t want to be associated with a traffic exchange network, with good reason. Other sites similar to EC have been banned by Google. Oh, I don’t just mean the sites. But their members were penalized as well.
Like it or not, Google knows where your traffic is coming from. They are everywhere. Do you have Feedburner? Google Analytics? Google Desktop? Google AdSense? Blogspot? If you don’t, I’m sure some of the places your visitors have been do. Just because you use a bookmark or a toolbar doesn’t mean anything either. So you aren’t excluded. Yes, the referral won’t show as from Entrecard or the other person’s blog, but it will still show the amount of time in between visits between sites and there is a correlation. Every business has a department dedicated to data analysis. So believe me, Google does too.
What this all means
Basically, Entrecard is falling into a hole so deep that it is going to be hard to climb out of. Their next move will be critical, and I don’t know if Graham has it in him. Is he a one horse cowboy? I don’t think so. $1,000,000 Wiki was an outstanding idea and Entrecard had/has potential. However, he is trying to do everything by himself. Just recently he has asked the community to join in, but, like it or not the community doesn’t always know what is best for itself. Mob rule is not the best thing in the world. Hell, anyone who attended third-grade history knows this.
The problem isn’t Graham’s intelligence nor is it money nor creativity. The problem is lack of experience. I’m not saying he is too young–definitely not. To be able to run a site like Entrecard is difficult. You must be associated with mathematics, programming, economics, blogging, marketing, and customer service.
So, he is learning on the job–this is fine. However, every once in a while sites get too big, too quick, and people make mistakes. I believe this is Entrecard.
Will Entrecard blow up? In my opinion, it already has. I said earlier Entrecard is falling into a deep hole. This is definitely the case. However, will Entrecard grab onto a branch tight enough to stay afloat or will it hit rock bottom? Only time will tell.
Written: Oct 21, 2008
Beamer
October 21, 2008 @ 11:56 pm
I have sent you a message on the e-cared system that explains some what what I have been trying to get going, but It isn’t working.
There are many reasons for lack of luster in E-Card. Hel look at the economy pf the US and the Election process. We are is some really trying times ion the Good old USA and that doesn’t even take in the war and all the other problems we had before wall street went to hell.
There is a life outside of the Internet and It’s going to hell right now. The Internet, as you may know is an ever evolving beast and will always be so, I guess. I think timing has a lot to do with it also. Then you have vacations, school, blah, blah, blah …
I’m going top stick it out with Entrecard just for the Blogs and people I have connected with. Some pretty rare folk, I think. Entrecard may go down the tubes, but I’m curious to see what happens. Besides, the price is right.
Beamer
George Serradinho
October 22, 2008 @ 12:32 am
Hi and thanks for the post.
I must say that your post was very, very long but it kept me reading until the end. I do agree with you that EC has grown BIG to quick and that it might just be like all the other network sites that come and go.
I guess we will have to wait and see what happens next.
Richard McLaughlin
October 22, 2008 @ 6:59 am
I don’t know that sezwho does anything. I make an effort to vote on good comments, hope someone gets something out it it.
I mainly advertise on sites that have paid off in the past, and I only pay more than 64 ec’s for a friend that is out of EC’s and wants some. Easier than a transfer.
Not sure I am thrilled with the way that the EC guys add new rules and delete accounts of people that don’t follow rules that no one is aware of. I suppose I risk my account being zapped my posting this comment.
The main reason they are going down is because they don’t have a real plan. Bits and pieces of a plan won’t make it.
Deimos Tel`Arin
October 22, 2008 @ 10:22 am
I wonder why Entrecard can’t do what Project Wonderful is currently doing.
Highest bidder gets the ad box, and graphs to show the visits and page views of the ad box.
Bas - Istanbul Expat
October 22, 2008 @ 5:30 pm
Hey, something buggy here… I’m visiting your site with Google Chrome and when I click for page 2, your website directs me to:
http://impnerd.com/2007-running-down-the-stats
Page 3 directs me to:
http://impnerd.com/3-easy-ways-to-create-templates
:-\
Anyway, I agree with you… I’m thinking of launching a new blog and might leave Entrecard off of it, because the effort is almost not worth the return… the only reason I use Entrecard now is for the community-building aspect it offers.
Gary R. Hess
October 22, 2008 @ 6:18 pm
@Bas yeah, I was messing with the permalink structure last night because I noticed a huge bug in my installation. So I ended up installing a redirect plugin to handle redirection from the previous permalink structure to this one.
Since WordPress gives pagination as /pagenumber after the page, it was thinking it was actually a post inside a category. So it took the pagenumber and found the page that it most likely was.
Yeah… annoying.
So now everything is fixed and I will never use pagination again
(at least, not until the plugin is fixed).
Texas Wanderer
October 22, 2008 @ 11:23 pm
Excellent post, Imp. You make a lot of good points. While I really enjoy EC and see a lot of potential, right now the ROI just isn’t worth it, at least from the statistics perspective. It will increase your hits by a few but the time it takes to make that happen (dropping yourself and trying to find undead blogs to advertise on) just isn’t worth it.
But I’ll give them a little longer to iron things out because I know it is a new project, and its not owned by some huge corporation that can spend a zillion dollars in programmers and focus groups. Also, as I look through the blogs in my reader, I realize the majority of them came from EC contacts. At the end of the day it might not be anything more than a new type of social network with a gimmick, but I’ve found some good friends there, so its not all bad.
Someone mentioned Project Wonderful and I agree with them. I use them as well as I love the setup. I think EC would really shoot to the stars if they would change just a few simple concepts-
1) Let us set our own ad cost and have our stats available so advertisers can have better judgement in where to advertise.
2) Stop the dropping nonsense. That is nothing more than a traffic exchange.
3) Let us put up more than one box and run ads for as long as we want.
4) Work on the community aspect.
If my old advertisers would pay hundreds of dollars a month for the sites I ran, I don’t see how EC isn’t selling enough ad space to make all of them millionaires. Between blogs advertising, and regular businesses, they should be making a killing.
Bas - Istanbul Expat
October 23, 2008 @ 3:22 am
You’re right about Graham. Very talented guy, but most usually need a few start-ups to really create something successful and worthwhile. The problem is, the things before that all crash & burn… so let’s hope Entrecard doesn’t crash & burn, any further.
Thanks for adding yourself to my droplist. I added you just now.
StanHayes
October 23, 2008 @ 6:00 pm
Go post, Imp. Unfortunately, the biggest problem is no one’s listening.
Anonymous
November 23, 2008 @ 6:48 pm
Graham comes across as a spoiled pratt who does not want to listen to any words of wisdom. He really is his own worst enemy. His reputation on the blogosphere is basically mud. He got to where he is on the backs of bloggers the very bloggers he depends on for EC yet he shows no respect for bloggers. Trust me that is not sitting well in the blogosphere. He posts in public about being homeless, puts EC up for sale and basically dicks around most of the time that really goes a long way towards building confidence. Anyone who says anything negative about him or EC is told if you don’t like it leave. Guess what, many of those people are heading that advice and have left EC. He changes rules at the drop of a hat that cost him at least one moderator, Jen when it came up that Wordless Wednesdays were not going to be considered quality posts so a blog could be deleted if they used WW. His pissy little quality standards for blogs obviously are just that and given the increase in porographic sites allowed there will be a lot of family oriented sites leaving. The nice little 5 posts or more obviously do not apply to “staff” as Graham so eloquently pointed out in a recent post. Many are quickly realizing they are getting next to nothing even when dropping 300 cards per day. I seriously doubt that EC will be around in the new year. Bloggers are leaving because they have realized what a pratt Graham is and how he really hasn’t learned the lesson of “do not bite the hand that feed you”. The sad thing is I really think Graham knows he is blowing it but he is so full of himself that he just won’t list. A million dollars for his site? Hell the way it stands right now I wouldn’t even buy it for a dollar!