Entrecard, for those of you that don’t know (good on you!) is a traffic-sharing network. You can see it in action on my blog - that little Entrecard widget in the right sidebar. What it basically boils down to is that widget. Users visit, drop their Entrecard on that widget, earn credits, and buy ads on the blogs of others.
The general idea was to enable new bloggers to publicise their blogs on those of the so-called “A-listers” - bloggers that had already achieved a certain level of fame. It worked very well in the beginning, and the incentive of advertising on someone else’s blog drove traffic to - and through - the network.
Most of the blogs originate from the USA, and, strangely, most of them are maintained with the express purpose of generating income. I browsed the network earlier, and there isn’t a blog without some form of money-making [attempt] widget in a sidebar. Or just all over the place.
The “Make Money Online” sphere has infected and taken over Entrecard, and users are signing up and promoting their blogs for the express purpose of generating monetizable traffic. (Yes, I just invented that word, I think.)
Now, they’ve only gone and made it worse. Users can buy and sell the previously-free Entrecard credits for real American dollars. Suddenly, the main dividing factor that was once removed (amounts of money available), will now become a factor again.
It won’t be long before bloggers can directly sell Entrecard ad-slots for cash, turning the once well-intentioned Entrecard into nothing more than a Project Wonderful clone. It’s sad, the effect that money has on things.
All networks, programs and widgets aside, manual marketing is probably still the best way to promote your blog. That, and a whole bunch of backdoors that still (unbelievably) retail for up to $97 an eBook…
Hi Wogan,
I think maybe you aren’t as enlightened as you should be. I think you should go to the forum and read the posts there and find people that can explain it to you be cause I truly think you have it all wrong…best of luck to you in whatever you choose….Jude
Hey Jude
I’ve actually been on Entrecard practically since they launched. Back when there was no AJAX on the front page, the blog was about 2 posts long, and they didn’t ban sites from the service (like they did with peas.in).
I’ve also been very active on those forums. I’d say that I’m more than enlightened as to who and what Entrecard is. If you read my post again, you’ll realise that my gripe isn’t with Entrecard - it’s with the massive amount of MMO blogs.
I’ve browsed sites from all the categories available, and I have yet to find a single one without some form of advertising. And I’ve seen literally thousands of blogs about making money online - more than some other sectors combined.
The reason Entrecard was (and probably still is) so successful is because they gave cash-strapped small-timers the chance to promote their blogs among the “A-listers”. Now that they’ve started attaching a dollar value to the Entrecard credits, it’s basically on a road to becoming nothing more than a paid advertising network - not unlike Project Wonderful.
I said all of this in my post. It helps to read :)
Thanks for stopping by.