A lot of current happenings in Entrecard have added to my conclusions that the system will:

• help and encourage the new bloggers to maintain and improve their blogs;
• challenge the bigger ones to keep their readers interested (because of the emergence of new quality blogs);
• and basically just turn off those who refuse to maximize the service to their advantage by not participating in any activity.

Nuff said, on that topic at least. Now, off to more exciting things…

Keep on droppin’!

There are crazy contests offering Entrecard credits in exchange for subscriptions, reviews, links and more. From my vantage point as a zeny earner in a MMORPG (Ragnarok Online), when something exchangeable has reached its evolution as a “good-as-cash” thing, the service is prospering. So, what are these Entrecard credits for, or what can you buy with them?

1. Ad space in members’ blogs - normally obtainable only by contacting the blogger through mail and paying the blogger with cash for a duration of advertising on his/her blog. (mentioned here in my first entrecard post)

2. Any one of the cool stuff at the Entrecard shop - some lucky Entrecard members have been chosen to sell their services under the system, and here are just some of them …

• blog makeover for 3950 credits
• A sonnet (poem) about your blog for 50 credits
• professional blog consultation via IM for 500 credits
• Wordpress Blog Hosting (yep, I know… cool huh?) for 3000 credits
• 250-, 500- and 1000-word article (any topic, any tone) written by a gifted writer for you for 500, 1000 and 2000 credits, respectively.
• A premium wordpress blog by Adii for 10,000 credits (announced in the Entrecard blog, but not yet offered in the shop, which is ok because I don’t have that kind of credit amount yet)

and…

• a football-inspired sweepstakes for 500 credits per entry

- this is a very special mention because it’s actually an opportunity to obtain 16 chances to win up to 1,500 Entrecard credits — you can win more than once! So, that’s like investing some of your credits for you to win more credits for buying all the stuff I mentioned above. There’s a pot to be won and the whole sweepstakes thingie is based on the football season’s results.

More reasons to join in and keep on dropping, besides the exposure, the tips and the friends that you pick up along the way.

Ok here’s when Evil Woobie gets fed up with the “junk traffic from Entrecard” posts I read about in other threads. First off, a disclaimer: of course, i respect your opinions. And everyone’s invited to share, just because this is what blogging is all about right?

This post by jessie (hello link love! hehe) and the ensuing comments got me riled up. It seems that people have equated Entrecard with card dropping and statistics of drops and credits, and all but missed the entire point of increasing traffic in a blog. And I quote:

• “In Entrecard, the concept of economic power rules the game. He who has more credits (wealth) can buy more ads. He who has less, has to work his butt off to get to the top of the ladder. This is done by actually clicking and visiting the websites of previously registered users. In other words, you don?t get extra credits and ads on your own site will not increase in value if you don?t work like a click robot (if you really want to get to the top the quick way).”
• “other bloggers seem to be ?forced? to click on your site, bringing you extra traffic for a simple economic reason - to earn extra credits. This goes to show that you will be visited not because of your blog?s content but because of extra credits they will earn from visiting your blog and dropping their business cards onto your ad box.”
• One comment said “but still the main reason on why some people join entrecard is for the traffic and not the friendship, i guess”
• yet another one said “it?s up to the blogger to prioritize, i.e., to increase his traffic or improve his blog contents, my take on things is simple. Improve traffic in whatever means you can but DO NOT forget to improve quality of contents. Well, that?s just me? Some may not feel the same way but I could only care less. Content will always be on top of my list.”

And here’s the comment I left there (and why you’re here to flame me)
1. You?re forgetting one single most important thing in traffic: Recommendation by eyeballs.

You get to see other blogs within your niche. Honestly, I got linked to by PR5-10 blogs, and even got tagged with a meme from a blog that I never knew existed. If I have to take 100 ?just-drop? traffic before I get linked by a PR-5 up blog, it?s ok. Traffic is traffic, and traffic here doesn?t mean cars. These are people who can read. So make them.

2.Karma.

Give some to receive some. How hard is it to drop a card, scan the blog and say ?hey, she talks about the same things I talk about? and leave a comment? Your comment is saved, she follows you to your blog and if she likes what she sees, she comments there too. If you?re polite to her and your blog is in a language she understands, she might even link you. Again, if I have to wade through thousands of ?junk traffic? to gain one real blogging friend who shares my interest, I?m ok with it.

3. ?To choose to increase traffic OR improve blog contents? doesn?t even make sense at all.

If you get traffic, it means people are coming in. If people are coming in, you start asking yourself if they like what they see. Is your header presentable, is your theme loading easily, are your ads a turn-off? etc?. And most of all, since you know that at least one or 2 of these hundreds who come by scan your titles, will you write about something that?s stupid? Of course not, because you’ll be thinking of the demographics of your new readers (what turns them off and what doesn’t).

If you have hoards of visitors at home, won’t you at least clean your house to make it presentable? Won’t you at least take a bath so your guests won’t think you stink? This issue of content vs. traffic isn?t even worth the argument.

Lastly….

Unless you password protect your posts and spend your day reading them while telling yourself “What a cool post I just made!”, your posts will be viewed by others, regardless if they’re just passing by to drop their cards or they clicked your link at Entrecard because you belong to the same category (you DID notice that the blogs are separated by categories there, didn’t you?). And, unless people are blindfolded or with eyes shut when they “just drop” their cards, they will still see your blog title, your photos, your ads and your blog’s design!

If you understand the concept of a central market, or even a bazaar (tiangge), you will get what Entrecard is all about. Those who have more can afford the better locations in the market, those who have less are at the back. Those who want to get to the main areas where the most people are passing by must put effort into earning a lot to afford the top spots.

The main difference from a real life market is that, the “sellers” themselves go around to check out the wares of other “sellers”, and those in the front row have the option to recommend you to their customers so that those customers may also visit the other seller.

• Like “hey man, i ran out of truffles for selling, but you can visit my friend at the back, he sells good truffles too”

If you cannot make Entrecard work for you, help you improve your craft and at least gain you some loyal visitors, then you’re better off with Blog Rush. Really. It’s an opportunity to sell yourself, so do it. As for the question of how long Entrecard will last? Probably as long as there are some people who get what it’s all about.

Nuff said. (until the next comment comes, at least)

When do you know that something is getting addictive? Usually when the demand for a service or a product increases, and the number of sellers follows suit. This is happening right now in Entrecard.

I. The Signs:

1. Entrecard credits being vended at Ebay by sitecash.info (and there are bids!)

2. People have been asking in forums if it is legal to exchange a certain number of Entrecard Credits for dollars, and Entrecard’s lead developer (Phirate) says,

• “We explicitly permit the sale of Entrecard credits. It was part of the plan from day one. We are watching all of this closely to ensure that things don’t unbalance, and if they do some changes may need to be made, but overall we believe entrecard credits have real value, and thus dollar value. Exactly what that value is isn’t clear at this time although we have our own internal valuation.”

3. People are getting curious if Entre will allow third party programs to drop the cards (based on a forum post). To which, Phirate replied “No”. But would anyone ask the question if the possible use of a bot did not occur to that person?

4. Several blogs have been joining the system and these contain only a few or no stuff, except for that big Entre widget at the header or upper sidebar. These are obviously “harvester” blogs that people may go to to drop cards (therefore earning the owner credits, which may be transfered to a main account). In the moneytization point of view, why will anyone bother to set up these blogs if not to sell E-credit for real money? Ok, benefit of the doubt, they might use these credits for their own promotion and not for selling. But my point is, they obviously don’t want to market these “dummy” blogs’ content as there is no content to market. And obviously, they won’t even develop these blogs because there is nothing to develop.

5. The demand for gazillions of E-credits is increasing. Everytime a person drops a card on someone’s blog, the price of advertising in that blog increases. So the price (in E-credits) to advertise in more popular blogs like John Chow’s will increase hour by hour, as hoards of readers drop their cards on his widget. What is a newbie Entrecard user to do if he wants to catch the advert price on JC’s blog before it increases some more? Buy credits. Using real money.

II. A Lesson from Blog Rush?

While Blog Rush’s traffic promotion system is a dismal failure, they did do something right. They set out to manually screen the blogs that are coming in so that each blog in their system is a quality one, and eligible for the free traffic/promotion service.

III. My Take

I am very lucky to have joined Entrecard when it was starting. Regardless of what others say about Entrecard, I was there when John Chow’s advert price was just close to 50 e-credits, and I could see the potential of the service to increase traffic in my blog. It was friendlier back then (goodness, it was just a month ago!).