But I feel that Entrecard, that free advertising / networking site for “40,000” blogs and websites using a virtual currency called entrecredits (EC), could be a waste of time and money in exchange for untargeted traffic.

Everyday thousands of EC members (users) drop cards by visiting a maximum of 300 blogs and sites to generate EC to be used to advertise on some other blogs.

Entrecard users have been told that dropping cards daily helps increase their web presence and accumulate EC credits to buy more ads, thus growing their web traffic.

That’s true enough, but at what cost? I know for a fact that members who drop 150-300 cards daily spend at least 1 hour to 2 hours everyday, depending on internet connection speed.

However, in economics, time has alternative productive uses. You use your time doing one thing, like dropping Entrecards and you forego doing other things, like selling, reading, marketing, adding content to your blog, earning a living or even making love.

So, let’s assume your time costs $ 50 an hour and that you spend a total of 2 hours daily dropping cards. That’s $ 100 a day or $ 700 a week, or $ 2,800 a month. That’s the cost of dropping cards to you, which you could use in doing other productive or income generating activities.

You really must calculate the amount of time and its value to your dropping Entrecards to gain visitor to your blog. Does your blog gives you $ 2,800 a month in income?

If your dropping Entrecards daily does not earn for you sufficient income, then you’re wasting time and losing money by it. For many EC users, dropping cards is actually robbing them of their precious hours, but they are not aware of this because they are not looking at it from the economics point of view.

True, as Entrecard claims, “every members (sic) in the Entrecard network has seen huge increases in traffic according to Alexa.com”, but having high rating (lower is better) in Alexa is useless if your visitors from Entrecard do not read your content other look for that yellow widget with the “Drop” button.

It is a fact that many EC users who visit your blog are there just to drop on your EC widget, then bounce away, hence, the drop and run traffic resulting to high bounce rate.

If you are dropping Entrecards to gain traffic, but have not calculated and valued the time that you spend for it, you could be wasting your time, money and effort.

Is Entrecard’s untargeted traffic with its attendant high bounce rate worth your valuable time? My own answer is No, the reason why I am not coming back to Entrecard, now or ever.

“I really don’t understand why people who decide to leave EC feel like they need to then post about how awful it is. Are you going to do the same thing when adgitize and CMF don’t give you the traffic you want? EC should be such a small part of your overall advertising that it shouldn’t make that big of a difference whether you use it or not. I’m a little surprised that you would write such a negative post. It doesn’t really seem like your style.”

Chinaren, another nice blogger with a razor-sharp intelligence, wit and humor, also commented, saying in part:

“Wow, this comes over as fairly bitter Eli, though I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way.”

Well, as a blogger I sometimes  blog about my experiences with Entrecard to share to my readers and fellow bloggers, for the purpose of enriching the discussion. However, it was not my intention to bash about Entrecard.

Certainly it was also not my objective to make fun of my fellow bloggers who use Entrecard.

After all, Entrecard has still a lot of wonderful, no-nonsense and nice bloggers, Sheila Sultani and Chinaren among them.

In addition, there are Lainybelle of Lainy’s Musings, Big Daddy Richard of Traders’ Hub, Sandy of Travelling Suitcase, John of EZGreat Life, Martin of Cornymans Money-blog, Aldon of The Orient Lodge, and JuneZach of The Fledgling Blogger, to mention just a very few.

Though Entrecard is a cold virtual place, yet the above-mentioned bloggers, and many more, have made and continue to make Entrecard community a warm, vibrant and friendly place that makes blogging a learning experience, as far as I was concerned.

In retrospect, Entrecard, for all its flaws and imperfections, is still a good network, especially for newbie bloggers to grow their blogs, and a good place for both newbie and established bloggers to interact and network.

The three reasons I gave for leaving Entrecard were my personal observations and I respect existing bloggers who remain with Entrecard.

But as I said, there is always a time to join and a time to leave, a time  to blog and a time not to blog. To each his own. Each person has his/her own reasons for joining, for remaining, and for leaving Entrecard.

The philosopher Henry David Thoreau said: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun, says Ecclesiastes.  

There’s a time to blog, and a time not to blog, a time to join Entrecard and a time to leave Entrecard.

For me the time to leave Entrecard has come.  So it is with regret to inform you that I’m officially leaving Entrecard .

This is not a time to bash Entrecard, because it is still a great site for bloggers to generate visitors, grow their blogs, make online friends and to network.

Indeed, for the last 8 months that I’m with Entrecard starting on July 2009, I have meet many nice and wonderful bloggers like you, read good and best blogs and was able to grow my blog as well.

When I sent a private message to one of my blogpals this morning about my decision to exit from EC, she asks:  “Why are you leaving? Your blog has always been on the Top 5 of the most popular blogs in all categories of the campaign.”

But there is more to life than dropping cards every day. There is more to blogging than Entrecard traffic.

I wish to thank the Entrecard management and you,  my fellow users, for your friendship, camaraderie and goodwill.

Being with Entrecard community has been a pleasant and memorable experience because of all of you.

But life goes on. Time to move on in the blogosphere — without Entrecard.

Cheers!

Eli

I know why some members are ghost dropping and cheating the system.

I know why many of its top bloggers have left and are still leaving. I know why there is a high bounce rate.

The main cause of all these problems? Entrecard’s policy of 300 maximum drops daily.

The time has come –and it is now– for a new way of thinking, a new way of looking at things, to solve the problems mentioned above and make Entrecard a great and vibrant site.

Solve this main cause by reducing the maximum drop to 150 daily and you will solve the other problems, as follows:

1. Many bloggers leaving Entrecard because of their perennial complaint of 2-4 hours  a day sitting on a computer to drop 300 cards daily.

2.Some users cheating and gaming the system or create a ghost dropping script to drop 300 cards a day within 15-45 minutes because they found themselves unable anymore to cope up with dropping 300 cards a day.

3.  Inflation where ad prices of some top blogs reaching absurd and unrealistic prices, like 8192 ec which require 27.30 days of dropping 300 cards daily for just a 1-day ad; 3072 ec which need 10.24 days of dropping 300 cards daily for 1 day ad, or even the normal 2048 ec which entails 6.82 for 1 day ad.

4. High bounce rate of 80-90% as a result of quick drops and drop and run traffic just to complete 300 cards a day without reading the content.

Solution

Although Entrecard does not require a user to drop 300 cards a day, but at the same time, if you want to be popular and reach to the Top 100  Most Popular Blogs, you must drop the maximum. It is already the practice, the mindset, the culture, to drop 300 cards daily if you are in Entrecard.

By reducing the maximum drops to 150, we can see a vibrant and interactive Entrecard community, solve inflation, and enhance blogging experience.

Reducing the maximum drop to 150 a day will:

1. Enliven the existing users as they would no longer spend 2-4 hours daily to drop cards, thus giving them more time to read the post of the other users and comment when they drop cards.

2. Give time to users to work on their content and update their posts often.

3.  Prevent some users who are in a hurry or have limited time to game the system or cheat or ghost drops.

4. Reduce high users’ turnover or those leaving Entrecard.

5. Attract more bloggers to join Entrecard.

6  Discourage users to race to 300 cards, decrease “drop and run” and reduce the bounce rate.

7. Decrease the advertising prices of the top blogs, thus leveling the playing field, and enable many users to advertise.

These are the advantages of adopting 150 maximum drops daily. After all, the users are not made for Entrecard, but Entrecard exists to serve its users. Without the users, Entrecard has no reason for existence.

It’s now time for Entrecard to change with the times and grow, or close shop.

The latest allegation came from Martin (Cornyman) who did an investigation of some users who were still able to drop on his site even though his widget had been removed.

Cornyman’s blog post titled “Entrecard members get scammed by these members!” has elicited a stir within the Entrecard blogging community.

If the allegation is true, the ghost droppers will impact on Entrecard as an ad network and a blogging community.

This is because the system of dropping to generate traffic, which is the core and lifeblood of Entrecard – would be in doubt and will lead to the collapse of Entrecard as users won’t be dropping cards anymore.

I e-mailed Cindy of Entrecard about this serious matter, and she replied that the issue has been discussed by management over the last few days and that she should be making a blog post soon.

True enough, Entrecard action is fast, showing that management is now very responsive to issues and problems concerning the users. Here’s Entrecard’s response as written by Cindy on the EC blog:

“Over the last couple of days, we have received emails from users accusing other users of “ghost dropping.” Ghost dropping is a method in which a user can drop cards without actually visiting the site.

“This began a few days ago when one of our users, Martin, removed his widget from his blog and continued to receive drops from other members. Martin has stated in his blog that anyone dropping cards on his blog is cheating.

“Logically, this makes sense. However, it is possible that some users have not cleared their cache and are still able to access his blog. When this happens, the users will still see an entrecard widget (cached version) on his blog even though it was removed. This could be one of the reasons users are able to drop on his blog.

“If anyone was using a “ghost dropper” script, it should no longer work. Our developers were able to fix this problem. We anticipate that other methods will come along and we will address those as they turn up.

“With a large network like Entrecard, there will be users who try to cheat the system, but the majority of users are not. We would like to thank Martin for his investigation. It has allowed us to tighten our security measures and make our service more reliable for the entire community.”

In fact, Entrecard has not interacted with its member-users, and it management even closed the Forum and comments to its blog. Entrecard admin does not also listen to unsolicited advices and suggestions from its users.

Thus when Entrecard through Cindy Ung posted a comment on my previous post titled “Two Lessons In Customer Satisfaction I Learned From Entrecard and CMF Ads”, I celebrated the moment as something memorable.

After all, it is exceptionally rare for Entrecard to make a comment on any blog post of its users.

Ciindy’s Comment

Here’s the significant portions of the comment of Cindy Ung of Entrecard:

“I was directed to your blog post so I figured I should address it here. I don’t have any disagreement with your statement about businesses should focus on customer service. I agree with you 100%.

“Entrecard customer department usually takes place between the hours of 9-5pm (PST). Our customer service department handles trouble tickets and approving new sites before entering our network.

“So, when a new user joins Entrecard for the first time, if it’s within our working hours, they usually receive an approval/rejection email within hours. However, if they join after hours, it can take until the following morning before we can get to them.

“This is why some sites can take 8 hours or longer (but not longer than 24 hours). I’m sorry, but we are not setup to have the customer service department be open 24 hours a day.

“Despite the forums being closed, we have receive many feedbacks from our users via support. They are discussed within management and we do include their feedbacks in our future developments.

“I know many of you have animosity against Entrecard and I’m not here to start trouble. Should you have any, feel free to contact me at cindy@entrecard.com.”

Conclusion

The only sour note in Cindy’s comment was her accusation that many of the users have animosity against Entrecard. There maybe users who are hostile and resent Entrecard’s policy changes, but I’m not one of them.

However, the main reason why there are many users who have animosity against Entrecard is because the management is not close to its users – its customers. There is no consultation and feed backing at all concerning the policies that affect the users.

As Sheila, whose blog The Ad Master is the most popular blog in Entrecard, commented: “EC is beyond frustrating – even more so because you know that if it had great customer service it could be a great site.”

It boils down again to customer satisfaction, the subject of my previous post that has elicited the exceptionally rare comment from Entrecard.

That blogger also applied to be a publisher in CMF Ads and his application was approved in no time at all, as he posted on its Forums.

My Own Experience with Entrecard and CMF Ads

Reading the post of that blogger made me recall my own experiences with Entrecard and CMF Ads a few months back.

When I applied as a member (user) of Entrecard it took five (5) days for my blog to be approved.

With CMF Ads my blog was accepted in just four (4) hours.

The Customers Are Kings and Queens

As a business and management consultant I always advice my clients who are business men and women to put their customers as their first priority, and be close to the clients.

I would tell them that customers are their businesses’ reason for existence. Indeed, the heart of business is the customers. Others would even say that a customer is king or queen.

The Two Lessons In Customers Satisfaction That I Learned

My personal experience as a member of Entrecard and CMF Ads have enhanced my learning in customers satisfaction which is very important to any business.

I recognize the fact, as many others do, that in business your success and profit depend on the sales of your products or services. In turn, sales of products and services are dependent on your customers and their needs and wants, and not on what you want.

Here’s the two important lessons that I’ve learned in Entrecard and CMF Ads.

1. Be close and Listen to the Customers

Since a business exists to provide goods and services to the customers to meet their needs and wants, it is important for a business to be close to the customers. What do the customers need? What are their feedback?

How can a company improve customer relations to expand its market base and thus generate more sales revenue and profit?

I’ve found out that CMF Ads admins are very close to the members who are publishers and advertisers. Problems and concerns are addressed within 10 hours, or even in an hour.

For example, when I bought a network ads three (days) ago, my ad was approved, up and running within two (2) hours!

In Entrecard the owner seems not to listen to its member-users. EC Admin closed the Forum and comments to its blog are disabled. There is no interaction at all between the management and the users.

For instance, when I purchased a Sponsor Ads last month, my application was approved in four (4) days.

2. Solicit Feedback and Consult Your Customers

In Entrecard the users, whom its Admins call as the strength of the Entrecard network, are at the receiving end of the Admins policy changes since their inputs and recommendations are not welcome.

In CMF Ads, proposed policy changes are discussed and the members inputs are solicited. And all members are encouraged to be active in the Forums where the issues and queries of the members are answered right away.

Indeed, if you are not close to the customers and don’t listen to their concerns, how do you know what your customers want? You will just drive them away, as evidenced by the many users who have left Entrecard.

Conclusion

Any business is a service business. Service is part of every contact between your business and a prospect or customer. Ultimately, it affects not only how purchasers feel about your business but also their perception of the value and quality of the product or service you deliver.

Therefore, to be successful in business – in any business for that matter, what is important is you are close to the customers, for they are the people who give you your revenue and profit which are vital to your survival and growth.

Entrecard has announced on its blog that it is expanding its user base to regular website owners. It will no longer be limited to bloggers, but its user base will soon include people with regular websites – not just blog sites.

It will offer the same benefits to regular website owners, as it does to its present users who are all  bloggers.

Entrecard management think that in opening up its network, bloggers can network not only with their fellow blogger-users but with the website owners as well.

Cindy Ung of Entrecard assures the present blogger-users that:

“We understand your concerns about this expansion, but we can assure you that there will be no disruption to our current blogger network which all of you are on. We have created a new “site type” in our sign up form. From now on, anyone who signs up will have the option to classify his or her site as a “blog” or a “website.”

“Over the next few months, we will be adding more search features so our users can distinguish between “blogs” and “website” in your drops.”

Entrecard said that by opening up to regular websites (and not just blogs), it hopes to open more doors and allow the members to network with more users.

In addition, in opening up to regular website owners, Entrecard believes that it is headed in the right direction.

My comments:

1. Entrecard management did not solicit inputs from its user-members for this new plan. That’s why comments are closed on its blog, as usual.

2. Entrecard management does not listen to unsolicited advice, no matter how brilliant, doable and feasible. Management said that it has a business format, whatever that is.

3. Entrecard needs the money, the reason why it wants to include website owners whose sites are primarily business-oriented and, therefore, driven mainly by the profit motive, as distinguished from the bloggers.

This explains why one of the present Entrecard in-house sponsor ads says: “Advertise your business.”

4. It is still premature to speculate what will happen next, since Entrecard’s plan is not yet on the implementation stage. However, it appears that website owners, to expose their businesses, can drop cards on blogs and vice-versa.

5. Therefore, whether or not Entrecard’s expansion to include website owners is a step in the right direction remains to be seen.

I have already published my reasons last month, but it seems the issue on Sponsor Ads refuses to die down. I like to conclude the issue in this post.

100% Ad Views vs. 85% Ad Exposure

My answer is simple. It’s been my personal policy to give my fellow bloggers and members of Entrecard who advertise on my blog “Business Sphere” FULL VALUE  of their hard-earned entrecredits (ec).

By “full value” I mean maximum exposure or 100% ad views for 24 hours while the ad is running on my widget. This translates to an ad views of 800-1,000, considering that my blog has 800-1,000 daily visitors.

This is only fair since the paid ec advertisers are paying for the full value of the ad price, hence, 100% exposure for their ads.

This is to distinguish from the 85% ad exposure when there’s Sponsor Ads because the remaining 15% is reserved to the sponsor ads which also run on the widget 15% of any given time.

Sponsor Ads Is Needed For Entrecard’s Survival

I have no quarrel with Entrecard’s Sponsor Ads. It is part of EC’s survival as a blogging network. To stay afloat, EC must generate funds and revenue to pay for its maintenance and operating expenses, including server expenses which are expensive, plus a healthy return for the owner’s investment.

This is the reality, and every blogger must accept this fact. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody has to pay for it. Either Entrecard must make money or perish. There’s no other way.

Respect For Bloggers Who Are Against Sponsor Ads

At the same time, I have also no quarrel with bloggers who are against Sponsor Ads. I respect them because they are entitled to their own opinion.

But having trained in economics and business, I know the harsh realities in the market place – that any entity that does not generate enough revenue to pay for its costs cannot survive and will simply collapse. That’s includes Entrecard as a business firm and a blogging network.

Entrecard’s Sponsor Ads is similar to a blogger accepting advertisements on his/her blog, like ads from Google Adsense, CMF Ads, Adgitize, Project Wonderful, etc. The purpose is to monetize traffic to earn income.

Sick And Tired Of Ads On My Widget Which I Can’t Reject

Paying $ 5.00 is better than to have ads appearing on my widget 15% of the time which I can’t totally reject. If there are 6 Sponsor Ads, you can reject a maximum of 3, leaving the other 3 to appear on your widget, whether you like it or not. This is not right.

Entrecard Sponsor

Entrecard calls a blogger who opted out of Sponsor Ads by subscribing to it and paying $ 5.00 monthly or $ 48.00 for 1 year as “sponsor”.

To identify those Entrecard “sponsors”, EC gives a Star to the user’s ad image in the Campaign section, plus a notation in the member’s profile page as “This blog is an Entrecard sponsor.”

As a sponsor, advertisers on my blog get 100% airtime for their ec-paid ads because all the sponsor ads have been removed from my widget.

100% Ad Views vs. 85% Ad Exposure

The reason is simple. I wanted to give my fellow bloggers and members of Entrecard who advertise on my blog “Business Sphere” FULL VALUE  of their hard-earned entrecredits (ec).

By “full value” I mean maximum exposure or 100% ad views for 24 hours while the ad is running on my widget. This translates to an ad views of 800-1,000, considering that my blog has 800-1,000 daily visitors.

This is to distinguish from the 85% ad exposure when there’s Sponsor Ads because the remaining 15% is reserved to the sponsor ads which also run on the widget 15% of any given time.

However since the ec advertiser paid for the full value of the ad price, it is only fair and just to give 100% exposure for the ad.

Sponsor Ads Is Needed For Entrecard’s Survival

I have no quarrel with Entrecard’s Sponsor Ads. It is part of EC’s survival as a blogging network. To stay afloat, EC must generate funds and revenue to pay for its maintenance and operating expenses, including server expenses which are expensive, plus a healthy return for the owner’s investment.

This is the reality, and every blogger must accept this fact. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody has to pay for it.

Respect For Bloggers Who Are Against Sponsor Ads

At the same time, I also respect other EC users who are against Sponsor Ads because they are entitled to their own opinion.

But having trained in economics and business, I know the harsh realities in the market place – that any entity that does not generate enough revenue to pay for its costs cannot survive and will simply collapse. That’s includes Entrecard as a business firm and a blogging network.

Entrecard’s Sponsor Ads is similar to a blogger accepting advertisements on his/her blog, like ads from Google Adsense, CMF Ads, Adgitize, Project Wonderful, etc. The purpose is to monetize traffic to earn income.

Signs For EC Sponsors

Entrecard calls a blogger who opted out of Sponsor Ads by subscribing to it and paying $ 5.00 monthly or $ 48.00 for 1 year as “sponsor”.

To identify those Entrecard “sponsors”, EC gives a Star to the user’s ad image in the Campaign section, plus a notation in the member’s profile page as “This blog is an Entrecard sponsor.”

On these blogs you will get 100% airtime for your ec-paid ads because all the sponsor ads have been removed from their widgets.

Blogs With Stars

Aside from Business Sphere, I saw on December 8, 2009 the following blogs with a Star in their respective ad image in the Campaign:

The Ad Master

One World Realty

SpicyBugz World

Comedy Plus

Maitri’s Heart

Maitri’s Journal