entrecard

Today I spent some time on the Entrecard forums. For those of you that have not heard or have used Entrecard, it is a social networking site that helps you to promote your blog/website and generate traffic. It also contains a forum for members to visit (which are divided into different sections) where members can discuss a related issue within a particular forum.


In the past week, a lot of tension has been brewing within it's members and it has now erupted to the point that the administrators of Entrecard have had to open a new forum section called 'Firestorm' where "hostile, aggressive and uncivil posts only" can be posted. This is so that the most popular section, the 'Community' forum section of Entrecard can be contained and be a friendly environment for people to go to and express their opinions without too much threat from others (well, this is the impression I got after reading through the responses from members, moderators and administrators anyway).

I have also gone through the week's posts on the community forum and have also found threads removed and edited. This is the part I really have an issue with. Before I continue, I just want to make it clear that I also strongly believe that people have a right to express their opinion in a respectful way (ie: without putting another person down). The problem I have is when people's point of views are distorted, so that it will look nicer and friendlier when other people read a particular thread. I have an issue with this because:

1. It is misleading and dishonest. People have expressed their views and it is not being heard as it has been deleted/erased from the thread.
2. When the initiator of a post has edited their first initial entry (several days after) there is no history of the original entry (unless you have read it); therefore, the reason for the original arguement as to why certain members were unhappy cannot be traced back to the original thread. If this was applied to the legal system where evidence has been clearly tampered with, the evidence would certainly only benefit those that altered it.
3. By editing and altering the conversations between members, you are devaluing everyone's opinion. Therefore, why bother asking people's feedback if the answers you have received is not what you want to hear?
4. For the administrators to clearly take sides and punish those that did not instigate the original post makes me question their judgement. What punishment did the original perpetrator receive? I doubt they even got reprimanded for such behaviour, because today this person appalling tried to stir up more trouble, only to have the post mysteriously vanish again! I am really disappointed by this, plus the fact that there are no clear guidelines on why threads are edited, deleted or why they vanish into thin air! I am not sure if it is because of the new partnership that Entrecard is about to announce, that the administrators feel they have to present a happy, friendly and glowing group of members that participate in the community forums that they have acted in this way...it remains to be seen.

I am aware that there are constraints in our democratic world where we should be able to openly express our opinions as we can sometimes be bound by our society's expectations and having to be politically correct in certain situations. But visiting a social networking site in my own time, providing my feedback and opinions for free so that we can help build a strong community together, all I really expect back in return is that my opinion and other members' point of views are shown as they have expressed them within a post thread and that they should not be deleted just because it is not what certain people want to hear. If you can do this, you are showing respect for your members and valuing each of their perspective.

So what do you think?

Since using Entrecard, I've been fortunate enough to have found some great and informative sites out there and in the process have gotten to know some really great people. Recently, I've also noticed there have been a few competitions happening to try and entice new entrecard members to join in, which is a great plan.

This got me thinking, and I realized that sometimes (for myself anyway) I forget to thank my fellow entrecard members that have been here for sometime and have been involved in the community or those that have supported our site in some way or another. Therefore, I've decided that at the end of each month I will take a look and evaluate those persons/sites that have contributed to my entrecard experience in some positive way. I don't think I need to name people/sites on these pages, you know who you are as I have also sent you some ec credits to show our token of appreciation for helping us out. I have chosen you or your site for the following reasons:

1. For an act/gesture you have kindly done to benefit our site.

2. For the support you have given other entrecard members (including myself) in the forums.

3. For making me laugh in the forums with your witty responses (without putting other people down).

4. For the feedback you have provided on our site.

5. For having a really great website with useful information that so many of us can benefit from.

6. And for taking the time to come back to our site on a regular basis.

So thanks everyone for your continued support...

I decided to give Entrecard a test drive a couple of days ago and I thought now would be a good opportunity to post from a newbies perspective and try to provide some insight into the process.

If you are unfamiliar with Entrecard, its an advertising network site predominately used by bloggers. In the sites own words its "...an easy way to network with other blog owners; Get to know your dedicated readers and favourite writers."

The Signup

The signup process is pretty simple. The one thing you should have ready is a 125 x 125 ad image (jpeg or png) as the whole site is based around "swapping" banner ads, just as you would swap a business card when networking. Once you have signed up you will need to place a piece of code on your site to display an ad. You can see an example on the right hand side of my site under Sponsor.

Once Entrecard has verified that you have placed the widget code you will start to receive ad requests from other members to place their ad on your website. Initially your ad space is worth 2ec (2 entrecard credits), this is quite cheap and you will find that you are inundated with requests for ad requests almost immediately.

TIP: I would recommend not accepting too many ad requests too quickly in the beginning (unlike me) and first try to build up the cost of your ad space.

Increasing your ad space rental

Your rental space increases based on the popularity of your site. The more people who drop you a card per day the more your ad space rental will increase. A good way to get yourself known is to drop a card on someone else's site. Dropping a card is not a request for an ad (which is what I thought originally) but rather a way to say "hey I've dropped by". Each drop gives you 1ec to spend on your own advertising.

I've been using Entrecard for about 2 days now and my ad space is now worth about 26 credits per day. So it definitely seems worth waiting a short time to fill your ad spots.

Traffic Goes Up

In my first full day trialling Entrecard I received about 40 new visitors to the site, which is not bad although I also noticed a substantial increase in the bounce rate. I'm hoping over time maybe a few visitors will find the site sticky enough to hang around a bit longer.

I'm currently experimenting with dropping and am interested to see if I increase my drop rate will I see an increase in visitors and reciprocal drops.

Buying Ads

So far I have bought 2 ads which will run on the 22nd February. There's usually a little wait before your ads show, and each ad is shown for 1 day. I'll have to wait and see what effect these ads may have on my traffic - if any.

Interesting Sites

Here are some sites you may find interesting which I have found during my digging about:

Akhong's Above the fold Entrecard list:
This is a great site if you want to do some quick dropping. The first time though I also found some interesting blogs.

OBLife's Reciprocal Dropping tool:
This tool lets you enter your RSS feed from entrecard and then shows you each site that has dropped on you. A nifty tool which could save you getting RSI.

Entrecards Collection:
This site is dedicated to showcasing a full list of Entrecard members. I don't think its quite up to date, but still another great way to find blogs you may never had found before.

Let me know about any experiences you have had with Entrecard.