Memes are link love posts that take on a different name. This is my second Entrecard meme, and since the first one, the objectives have changed. The Entrecard community at that time was still gaining momentum in its rise to internet phenomenondom, and the ‘drop yours’ Entrecard meme helped promote it.

This present Entrecard meme, named 8-above-the-fold by it’s creator, focuses on identifying the Entrecarders who keep their Entre-widgets above the fold for their visitors’ convenience. Making it easy for Entre members to drop theirs on your blog will guarantee you a spot in most entrecarders’ bookmarks and link lists. While it’s true that most of the time chain droppers go to a site only to drop cards, being on several lists will guarantee that other bloggers (and their readers) will keep coming back, sometimes on a daily basis. That above-the-fold widget herds in more guests, and it’s up to you to convert them.

For this second entre meme, I’ve been tagged not once but TWICE; first by Turnip and then by Sam, and also by Saphrym which made it difficult for me to ignore this. My approach was to go through my recent droppers list and investigate if these bloggers keep their widgets above the fold. After that, I went to the sites currently being advertised on their sites. I really dont want to keep tagging the same people over and over…

Here comes the TAG!

libdrone - the book authority. This bookworm’s voracity for reading is unbelievable.

7-miles down - keeps his Entre on his header! He talks about sports, mmorpg and entertainment news.

Lucel - is a stay at home wife at NYC with a passion for blogging. I was very much impressed with her blog and my jaw dropped when I saw her total post number for the month of November 2007…. 198 posts in one month!

Steve Whitehead - blogs about quotations that have inspired people throughout the ages. His widget is way above the fold, for which I say “Kudos, you’re a considerate Entrecarder!”

Mommie - has my utmost admiration for her dedication as a mom. She traded a successful career and devoted herself to the most noble and selfless vocation there is… Motherhood!

Fantasy Baseball - I’m sure this guy will get tagged multiple times, too. He is active in the community and his blog is a must-read for anyone wanting to know the latest sports news.

WassupJack - is into youtube videos. His video finds are rare, funny and entertaining. He gives away software packages and ebooks to his subscribers; and offers a lot of insight on ‘niche website building’.

Midofnowhere - has a widget that’s slightly below the fold, but I deem her deserving to be on my list of must-visits because she’s a fellow UP-Manila alumna and a closet dreamer like me. And, as Sam mentioned, there must always be a Filipino in any meme because “Filipino bloggers are massively on the rise and no meme is complete without one”.

The Rules:

1) Create a post on your blog that links back to this post

2) Tag eight bloggers not listed in this post who display their Entrecard widget Above The Fold AND have great content.

3) Leave a comment on this post and share the link to the post you made

Happy Meme-ing!!!

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In Entrecard, some people are lucky enough to obtain seller status. Meaning, besides ad space in other blogs, you can use your credits to purchase services and products offered by these sellers. That’s basically like buying goods ands services (including my in depth Zodiac Analysis FOR FREE). My shop got approved and here’s how it looks:

• Ask one question on a relationship or compatibility issue and I will give advice based on Zodiac Personality profiles. Send me your birthday and gender, his/her birthday and gender, and an issue at hand (e.g. what gift to give each other on valentines; recreation preference of each; or etc.) via a message here at Entrecard. When there are several questions, I will answer the first one asked.

Other people are selling poems, raffle entries, ebooks, reviews, writing services, SEO advice, directory listings, Wordpress themes, Blog makeovers, hosting, more ad space, cookie recipes, links and even comments using the Entrecredit currency, which you can obtain by visiting blogs and dropping your card on those blogs.This evolution of the Entrecard system is one of the best yet!

So any comments on the price? Should I bring it down/up?

It all started with a simple feature of Entrecard: the blog with the biggest amount of eyeballs (drop count) will be the most popular in his category and in the whole system. John Cow didn’t like it one bit that some blog that was so small in terms of subscribers could pass him as most popular. Then he demanded from the Entrecard community… ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

What he means, as shown in his other posts, is… in the ‘real world’, he’s number one, but in Entrecard, he’s not. And it bothers him, obviously. If you must know, dear readers, problogger is also in Entrecard but I didn’t hear him complaining that he’s not as popular as the others in Entrecard. Now, with John Cow’s indignant view of how Entrecard works, is he saying he’s too big a fish to be in a pond with smaller blogs? I think so.

Why John Cow’s quitting

His quitting Entrecard message revealed what’s really bothering him. It’s Saphrym. You know, that guy who’s giving away 250 dollars to a lucky fellow blogger on his daughter’s birthday? Yeah, yeah… him. The guy who was diagnosed with diabetes and decided that he doesn’t want to die because he loves his family so much, so he started a diet diary (his blog!) where he lists all that he eats and does each day. In the process, he reviews blogs he stumbles upon via Entrecard for free or for EC credits and gives out free advertising opportunity to people who link to him and send him the most traffic. Hoards of bloggers from Entrecard are buzzing with his diet-to-live and school teacher-turned-blogger story and by now, everyone who viewed these blogs knows him.

Saphrym bothers John Cow because Saphrym is the best example of how Entrecard could be used to help other struggling bloggers, and in the process help one’s self gain popularity. Give and take… ‘mutual benefit’ thingie. Saphrym proves that amidst the bounce rate issues and the massive click-dropping… these ‘junk traffic via Entrecard’ are real, breathing people who can read, who stop on a blog when something interesting catches their eye. He has a message to tell the world through his blog, and people who rushed idly by to drop cards actually stopped and listened.

My theory is that people who joined Saphrym’s 250$ contest may be in it because they like him and won’t mind promoting him for the chance to win 250$. Considering that a lot have joined and winning the contest is a long shot, probably people are willing to still devote their blog space to promoting him because he’s a good blogger.

On his RSS subscription rate. Why the hell is it LOW when Saphrym’s so ‘popular’? Before you answer that ask yourself this: Why the hell can I type his name S-A-P-H-R-Y-M off the top of my head when it’s not even a word in the dictionary? My point is, why should an ordinary reader (who doesn’t give a damn about rankings and RSS readers and stuff) subscribe when he/she returns to a blog on a daily basis anyway?

View this next piece.

He doesn’t need it

He’s comfortable where he is ‘in the real world’, that he has a lot of subscribers and followers. He just doesn’t need a system that helps other bloggers network some contacts and promote themselves. He thinks that a blog must grow organically, like as in months to years of posting and getting search engines to notice and subscribers to come… This is great, too, and Jc is obviously someone who rode that wave. But Entrecard wasn’t here when he was starting, was it?

ZZZTTT… ZZZZTTT…. ZZZTTTT

Oh don’t mind that buzzing… it’s just snapshots of Bloggin-ad’s Do not turn into a Bloggin bitch article, which keep flashing like static inside my mind while I’m writing this.

………………….

What do you think???

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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)