I am leaving Entrecard. For a while now, I’ve been thinking about it and recent events have made the decision all the more easier. I’ve turned off advertising on my blog. When my last ad finishes, on the 16th, the widget goes. Until that time I’m still returning drops.
Entrecard is a social network for bloggers who can drop by each others’ blogs and earn credits in return. With these credits, they can advertise on each others blogs. A nice system, but in the end it’s not worth it for me.
8 Reasons to Quit Entrecard
If you’re a blogger using Entrecard, don’t take any of the following points personal. If any of them insult you, please keep reading on until the end of this article.
- Poorly invested time. Unless you’re on a very fast connection, it’s going to take you a considerable amount of time per day to get the best out of Entrecard. To get the best out of it, 300 drops per day is a must and its results are spectacular then. However, your time is better invested in discovering and commenting on relevant blogs, using Twitter and more actively engaging the blogosphere, because…
- Entrecard traffic has low value. Much of the traffic generated through Entrecard just inflates your statistics and increases your bounce rate. Many people just “drop and run”, as it’s dubbed in the Entrecard community. In the end, the traffic has more value than that of most social bookmarking services, but is for the most part still of low value.
- Bad quality blogs. I’ve had it with low quality blogs. There are too many of them. Poorly written content, grammar and spelling mistakes all over the place, lots of sponsored posts, bad designs. Stay away from me.
- Non-interesting blogs. I suppose making a blog about your cats is fun, and I’m sure it’s fun for many others to read it, but I’m simply not your target group. You don’t need me on your blog and I don’t want to be there to be honest. There are many other types of blogs I am not interested in that I had to visit because of returning ‘drops’.
- I don’t care about your ‘hubby‘. Dear Stay/Work At Home Mom (SAHM/WAHM) bloggers, please erase this word out of your vocabulary. If I see it one more time I will puke. Never thought this word would end up on my own blog. Refering to your spouse like this in every one of your blog posts is like two ugly people making out right in front of me. My stomach cannot help but revolt. Sorry. I guess Entrecard has brought me to your blog, but I doubt you really want someone like me there.
- Linkback building obsession. My God, is there an immense obsession with getting linked back on Entrecard. It’s good to get links back to your blog, because it helps to build your status in search engines. Google Bombs are proof of this. Entrecard is a BAD place to build your linkback. Firstly, you want to get linked back from blogs and sites that are relevant to your site. I don’t need topdropper links back to my page from blogs about cars.
Secondly, I don’t want to give “link juice” out to unrelated blogs. It’s unfair to the related, relevant or highly interesting blogs that I link to. More about this on SeoBlogr. I read a better article about it recently, found it via Entrecard, but forgot to bookmark it. Doh! 🙁 So stop caring about your Google PageRank (PR) people, I have zero PR and I get a LOT of search engine traffic. Start worrying about writing good content, writing some linkbait and having high keyword density (but not too high or you’ll get flagged as spam 😉 ). - The captain is drunk. I’ve put a lot of energy into the community on the Entrecard ship and we’ve sailed far and become friends, but the captain has been making poor choices and I suspect he’s incapable of taking this censorship much further. I love the community on board, but I’m getting off before we hit an iceberg. Graham, the owner of Entrecard, is childish and yesterday banned one of Entrecard’s top users. As you can see in the comments, many people are outraged. I think this was the final proof of Graham’s immaturity and incapacity to make the right decisions at the right time. Although Turnip‘s tweet wasn’t a great show of maturity either. 😉 While Graham is saying the negative publicity is only good for Entrecard, his poor leadership is not and new and current members will soon realize that.
- No more obligation. Like I said before, Entrecard’s a great system if you’re willing to visit 300 blogs per day to make your dropping rounds. This might explain why there are so many SAHM/WAHM bloggers on the network. If you don’t make the 300 a day, or skip a few days per months, the system becomes a bit more mediocre. I got addicted to dropping, every drop is a potential visitor, much more if you drop 300 a day consistently. Had I spent one third of that time on promoting my blog through other manners (new strategy outlined below), the amount as well as the value of my traffic would be much higher right now. That’s good for me personally, as I enjoy writing for people who care and it’s good for potential advertisers (they don’t like high bounce rates).
Some positive things about Entrecard
To say that I’m not crazy would be an exageration, but I’m not that crazy, so if I spend so much time using a particular system, I have good reasons to. So let’s mention some positive points about Entrecard…
- The strategy I’m going to be using to promote my blog now, is not easy. It will be more effective, but it’s not for everyone. Entercard offers a much easier and possibly more fun alternative. Plus, because of its addicting nature, you will not give up promoting your blog so fast. In other words, Entrecard is great for people with a not so technical background. 😉
- I’ve made some great friends through the Entrecard network and I’ve found some fascinating blogs. I will not mention them now, because I’m very scared to leave some of these awesome people out. Most of my top commenters, by the way, are Entrecard users. Entrecard can be a great way to build a community around your blog, but whether that community will stay when you leave Entrecard…. We’ll see. 😉
- Entrecard is, arguably, a ‘cheap’ way to advertise your blog. It costs a lot of time – if that time were spent on making money, one could spend their money much more efficiently on some well-viewed ProjectWonderful ads. If you’re not comfortable with spending money on this and think these ‘credits’ differ much from money, then use Entrecard.
What now?
The big question. Until the 16th, I’ll keep dropping and I’ll be visiting many Entrecard blogs.
- I will subscribe to my favourite Entrecard blogs and I will get more active on your blogs. I will start commenting more. One person who definitely deserves this is Martin, an expat in Bulgaria as well as one of my blog’s top commenters, but there are many others. Every one of your comments has meant a lot to me! You guys inspire me to write! You guys inspire me to deliver the best content possible! Thank you!
- I will set up some new sites. I’ve been thinking about them for a long time and it’s time to ACT. One will be a blog about the future. Next week is a holiday, so if Bluehost finally registers the domain I paid them for, I expect it to be up and running before next weekend. Exciting!
- I will employ the following tactics to promote my blog... The most important thing is to have great content, so this will always be my focus. Now, I’m talking about external, promotional methods.
Firstly, I will start using my feedreader again. Entrecard was so time-demanding that I didn’t have time to keep up with my RSS subscriptions until I finally just stopped opening my feedreader. Big mistake. I will find more blogs that I’m interested in and that would be interested in this blog’s content. I will follow them and I will comment on them. This makes everything A LOT more relevant for everyone. This is still one of the best ways to get your blog “out there”.
Secondly, I will place more emphasis on Twitter. In just a short time I have become a Twitter evangelist. Why? Because thanks to Twitter, in just the last few weeks, I have made my first commissioned DJ mix, got offered FTP space and torrent tracker possibilities for my DJ project, found someone a job and I got helpful business connections for my final university thesis in Bulgaria. There’s much more but it’s simply been overwhelming! If you didn’t read it or pay attention to it, now might be a good time to read my article 5 Reasons to Use Twitter and 5 Tips on How to Use It Right. Hey, even Entrecard hearts Twitter…
Concluding
I really love my regular visitors. I hope you will keep stopping by, even if there’s no widget to drop on. I hope you will reflect on the time you’re spending on Entrecard. I hope you will start investing some of that time in Twitter and we can stay up to date about each other. Maybe some of you didn’t get it when I wrote the aforementioned post about Twitter, but I am really interested in you and would really like to stay up to date about you via Twitter. Yes, YOU who is reading this. Please see what it’s all about, join the conversation and get in touch with me. 🙂
With a wink to the late Douglas Adams, I say to you all… So long, and thanks for all the drops!!
BasBasBas.com is about a Dutch student living in Istanbul. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul and travels in the region. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox.
Comments
36 responses to “So long, and thanks for all the drops! (8 Reasons to Quit Entrecard)”
I may not be far behind you.
Is there really any difference between dropping 300 cards and hitting the stumble button 300 times? Yes, there is. If the site sucks, you can thumb it down. But in entrecard you just hope they don’t reappear in your inbox. They always do. Good post, man. Enjoy your extra free time as I am starting to learn.
I looked at Entrecard but didn’t end up using it. I agree with Turnip, Stumbling is a much more valuable use of time and you can set what kind of sites you want to Stumble. I agree with you that writing content and visiting and commenting on other blogs in your niche is one of the best ways to build up readership.
One thing, as a SAHM blogger myself (who mostly blogs about being an expat, not a mom or “wifey”), you seem to have an issue with SAHMs/WAHMs. I mean really, you mention us twice. Okay, I’ve never dropped with Entrecard and maybe the mom-blogs of its users are pretty poor quality, but your comments seem a tad harsh.
Bas, you leaving too? I made my 300 drops today. Just not sure I want to keep doing it anymore. I just got a thousand credits from a (nearly former) member who wants to leave Entrecard. With all the things that’s happening lately. I’ll definitely consider your article regarding my decision on whether to stay or leave EC.
Now I don’t even bother to login to my account. I think it’s such a waste of time.
I totally can see where you are coming from….
The sh*tty part with the cats and hubby sites is; I alway do the toolbar thingy – and it will show you the one who did a drop…. if you pass those kitty and hubby ones…. the page shows up on the next click……. Entrecard should put a little NoE button on it…; you don’t want to drop…… and at one point (hopefully) they will disappear from your inbox…
I am now making a bookmark list of sites I think who “deserve my drop”….. and in the future I want to stick to that one…and don’t care about my inbox anymore…. Bye bye Hubbies and Cats.
The (still) fun part of Entrecard is; I am still seeing new and fun blogs….
StumbleUpon give less blogs – but more fun ONEpager…. And Twitter… I almost an “oldy” on that one…. get pretty boring… Specially because there are a lot of people who want to follow 999,999 twitters….
But okay – ya in my normal bookmarks now… will see you again !!
(again – I totally understand your feelings about entrecard…. )
I can see where you’re coming from (and that doesn’t mean you’re an expat…) I am sometimes getting very bored with just dropping cards. However I find many blogs I like and got used to ‘just dropping and running’ on those I don’t…
You have been in my feedreader for quite some time, so your site will be visited by me anyways. I hardly ever achieve the 300drops/day since I want to reed the feeds and also have a rather busy e-mail flow. Apart from that I am indeed also using twitter frequently though I do not yet see the type of value you’re getting. (going to read your post on it next).
One thing I totally agree on. Content is everything. I posted on the Entrecard Blog with the title the Blogger’s Challenge just about that topic. Blogs with good content always end up in my feedreader (where I guess they belong).
Good luck!
I have to say that I agree with most of your post. I too am getting sick of the system. .
Comment 5 sums it up for me too. If some one referred to me as hubby I think I would end it all. In a similar vein unless I am mistaken it is either, Mum , Mother or Mummy in the English language. Where does Mom and Mommy come from?
Since I am on a roll can I add I also hate MeMe posts and stupid awards that seem to infect EC! If you have nothing to say please don’t post!
I will of course still follow your blog because on the positive side I have actually discovered some blogs through EC that I enjoy and read every day. Yours fits this category.
Good luck for the future.
I see exactly where you are coming from and so nicely justifiable in your arguments for and against Bas. I must agree mostly with the fact that time wasted on dropping can best be spent on other forms of promotion, not least writing more quality material; that is of course the best foundation for more hits. There are a lot of people out there who do have time to make 300 hits a day, (I won’t mention stay at home Moms) which is why it is so popular. I also don’t entirely agree with putting down bloggers who have bad grammar and spelling, 1 in 3 in this world has dyslexic symptoms; it is not always their fault that the blogs aren’t word perfect. I myself have mild dyslexia and even with lots of editing and proofreading I still can’t see many mistakes that non-dyslexics see. There are of course those bloggers who are just lazy or have lack of education. Even with this I feel that blogging should be open to all levels of literacy and topic. We do have a choice of whether take it or leave it furthermore blogging should never become elitist. By the way I absolutely HATE cat blogs, but know millions of other don’t. I also don’t like many other themes of blog, but again many do.
There is a certain art in conning bloggers out of quality time with Entrecard and the man at the top therefore must by definition be a con artist. I won’t not to mention the other fact that contribute towards this accolade such as ‘tax’ that is put on Entrecredits from trading and earning.
I have to admit that I have made many friends on Entrecard and for that reason I will stay but with my finger in other pies at the same time.
Good luck in your new site Bas, (you make your own luck of course) I will keep my eye on its progress.
Great points! I stay away from the sort of flow which comes from those places. Not to say it’s a bad place.. Though it is helpful to some, my blog isn’t about drawing-in traffic. I honestly don’t care if I get 0-clicks per day. I write/wrote on the blog only as [hopefully] a helpful tool for anyone who suddenly finds themself in my shoes. And a place to share my expat-life experiences with family/friends apart from within emails. I tried entrecard for a week and noticed many of the blogs who were trying to take advantage had nothing to do with my blog. I notice it as well on blog catalog, etc.
Wow! So many great comments.
@Mike: What’s your site? http://www.mikesblender.com/ ? You forgot to include a link 🙂
@Isabella: Yep. And your blog is one of the best personal blogs that I follow. 🙂 I have the same with BlogCatalog… I removed the widget, in the end I just used it to network with other Entrecard users, but I was getting spammed to death on there, still am. Add your link and some friends and then move on. Is all I have to say regarding BlogCatalog.
@Martin: You are totally right. I recently decided to become a member of Reporters Without Borders, so I too think blogging should be open to everyone – even if their spelling is bad. I started blogging when I was 17 or so, so at that time I must have made a lot of mistakes.
These people have the right to blog and they should blog. But regarding most of these blogs with poor spelling and grammar, I just get too annoyed to really enjoy the content. There are exceptions of course. Atniz‘ grammar isn’t exactly perfect, but I still enjoy your blog.
As for your blog, the grammar and spelling is fine. You exceed my standards. It doesn’t have to be THAT good, but if post after post is hard to understand, then I will move on to other blogs.
@Christina: Woops, sorry to give you the wrong impression there. I did mention SAHM bloggers twice, but the second time I didn’t mean anything negative by it. As for the first time… The fact is that 90% of the bloggers who clearly define and show themselves as SAHM/WAHM bloggers don’t appeal to me at all. I’m not their target group.
I like your blog because it has a different focus. I have nothing against SAHMs/WAHMs, but I’m not interested in ‘family life’ and things like that at this point in my life. I’m not in the target group of the bloggers who refer to themselves as SAHMs in nearly every post of their blog. Well, maybe I am in their target group, but I shouldn’t be.
@Sjeltur: The awards is another thing, yeah.
Thanks Willem, kyh, AgentOrange, Turnip and Tom for your comments! They are much appreciated, as mentioned in the post. Thank you.
🙂
It’s sad to know you’re leaving. I have been dropping cards on your site for quite sometime now but I have chosen to be on the sideline. I’m going to miss you in my drop inbox but I sure will visit you still. I love reading blogs with relevant contents and eventhough I have been maximizing my time dropping cards to the maximum everyday without fail, I always take time to READ. Just from reading your blog, I have learned quite a lot.
I don’t want to dispute all the points you have raised. I hear you, and you have made your points very clear. But To Each His Own. It’s your personal choice and I have high regard for you still eventhough the SAHMS/WAHMS aren’t your target group, hehe! It’s just that I have lots of friends who are Stay-At-Home-Moms. I am not married yet and I don’t know how it feels to be a WAHM/SAHM but I have high regard for them for making the most out of their time blogging aside from child-rearing and taking care of their own homes.
With EC, i have made quite a good number of friends and I say, it will be the major reason why I am staying. I totally agree with Martin. I understand you are too particular with grammars and spellings because it’s really annoying. But not everyone is endowed with the writing ability like you do. I understand you don’t love all the blogs in your inbox because they are coming from various categories and they just don’t fit in yours.
Thank you for this post. I will try to improve my skills in blogging to fit in your standards and hopefully, one day, I could get to encourage you to read my blogs as well 🙂
This is not goodbye…
More power to you and happy blogging!
I liked and agreed most part of your post. Particularly liked that it stayed objective, and gave clear opinions about the good and bad. I am not so long time member of EC, but I can see what you mean about stay home moms, cats, and such. With some other part harder to agree. As you might know, many ppl not native English speaker, so, certainly they make mistakes in the use of language ( natives do as well, btw). I am not native speaker, nor a graphic designer to make a suberb design. Maybe once will have the money to buy one, in the meantime try to make my content worthy for reading. Was wondering, what would you say about it…just a though.
Wish you the best of luck in the future! 🙂
@tingtong: Your design is fine. 🙂 I wouldn’t ‘buy’ one if I were you. It’s just that some bloggers that don’t know how to design, still attempt to create some design, putting on loads of flash applets, all their awards, and all kinds of other junk in their sidebars or even in the header of their blog.
I don’t mind reading a blog with no-so-perfect English as long as the topic is exciting. I don’t know much about Hungary, but I see you are Hungarian and you’ve traveled a lot. That’s exciting.
Tips about technology, weblogs, web 2.0, etc. written in poor English is not exciting, because there are literally thousands of other places with exactly the same information that are a lot easier to read.
@Lainy: Yep. Again nothing against SAHM/WAHMs. I have nothing but respect for them. As for the blogs in my inbox… I really like some of the blogs that don’t fit into my blog’s category, like OrangeInks for instance. So it’s nice to discover them…
I can also do this with StumbleUpon or Twitter however… and if I don’t like a particular website, I will never have to visit it again. Entrecard’s a nice community, but a tad small. It’s small size makes it nice, but I’ve seen all of the major blogs on the network tens of times. That’s enough. 🙂
hello.
Thanks for your reply. 🙂
You got it right, I am Hungarian, however, just like you, an expat, in Thailand. And yes, I travel a lot, and did as well in the past…maybe 60+ countries, so there might be more content to come 🙂
Best wishes!
When you were new in Entrecard I easily recognized your name because you always leave a comment on my blog since then I became your regular visitor.
I will surely miss your red advert on expat blog category but not your blog because I will still visit you regularly.
About EC, I am not that active anymore because I am just dropping back and sometimes not. I think we have other responsibilities that need our precious time more important than dropping EC everyday.
Goodluck to you!
I will miss you around Entrecard, but I will still be visiting you for sure 🙂 Good luck to you in all of your new ventures.
I am glad I clicked to one of your Entrecard advertisements and arrived to your site. I agree with you on several reasons that you stated above; increase my bounce rate, too much pay paid posts and some bad blog designs. I don’t mind the cats lovers and SAHM/WAHM though. They have all the leisure time at home, what else could they do?
Anyway, I have been sticking with Entrecard for quite some times now and I saw way to many good sites beginning to pull out (or for some banned) from Entrecard. The same idea never leaves my mind. I am still a college student and only during the holiday I could be actively drops my EC. I am preparing for the big migration but till then, I have been preparing myself by slowly building my Twitter community. I am more than happy to follow you and your blog there.
This is a great and eye opening post. Wish you all the best in the future
Thanks for the post. I was just wondering if I am “missing the boat” for not having Entrecard. Now, you have saved me the trouble. Just started following you on Twitter. Are you following me? kathcouch
What? No CommentLuv?
Let me take a contrary view, sort of…
The investment of time: I have a good high speed connection and I generally drop 300 cards a day, unless I get really busy with other things. While it isn’t a great investment of time, it isn’t really that bad. I scan 300 blogs and find some pearls.
The value of the traffic: Same thing applies as the investment of time. Just as many blogs I visit aren’t all that interesting to me, many people drop and run at my site. For me it is compounded because my site loads very slowly for some users. However, I’ve had some great visitors and engaged in some great dialog.
Bad quality blogs: Yup. There are a lot of them. Not much I can say on that.
Non-interesting blogs: This is another place where I diverge. I like reading a wide variety of blogs. I like trying to connect disparate communities. I’ve done a lot of political blogging, and a thing I hate about political blogs is how they preach to, and only listen to, people of the same viewpoint. I like to go out and listen to and talk with people with different viewpoints, even if that viewpoint is simply how cute their cat is. As an aside, I have a very cute cat too, but he rarely appears on my site. However, I may have some new puppy pictures soon.
SAHM/WAHM blogs: Since I am mostly a WAHD, I find some of these sites interesting, and my comments about trying to connect to disparate communities applies here, perhaps even more. From a political viewpoint, the mommy voters are very important. I’ve even found a blog by a hockey mom that is very impressive, but it is a hockey mom from Florida and not Alaska.
Linkback building obsession: Again, as a person who tries to stay away from the niche, the concern about getting links from or giving links to a site that is ‘relevant’ just isn’t a concern for me. To me, just about all sites are relevant. Of course, since I’ve got a PR of 5 right now, I perhaps can be much less concerned about links one way or another.
The Captain is drunk: I’ve spent many years sailing. At the end of a cruise, there is something good to be said for the captain letting down his hair and having some rum. I think you do a disservice to the idea of a drunken captain to refer to the head of EntreCard as a drunken captain. EntreCard’s leadership is orders of magnitude more dysfunctional than a drunken captain. Personally, I think EntreCard is a great idea, and I believe that it is a testament to the idea that it has managed to survive so long in spite of its leadership. As I mentioned in my blog, I hope that someone comes along and sets a site that does it right.
No Obligation: I’ve generally felt pretty free from obligations on EntreCard. I search according to my own style, which rarely includes my inbox. People who don’t like my style or get insulted because they dropped on me and I didn’t return a drop on them are of no interest to me. Currently, I receive more than 300 drops a day, so I couldn’t drop on everyone who dropped on me, even if I wanted to.
My conclusion? I’m taking a wait and see attitude. I’ll keep with EntreCard for the time being, but as soon as there is a better system, I’m ready.
I like your blog a lot, so I’ll continue to follow it. I’ve never in my life even attempted make 300 drops in a day – I just don’t have the time or the desire. But, I’ve managed to come across some very interesting blogs, and I count yours as one. So thanks, and good luck in the future.
What I don’t get are bloggers that are using EC, decide that they are going to leave and then announce it in a post and tell some future date of their departure. I left EC this week and it took all of about 10 minutes. I canceled ads with an explanation, sent 1000 credits to the advertiser Orange Inks that was currently up, with my regrets for inconvenience, wrote for an account deletion, took the widget down, and posted that I had left and thanked all for dropping. That might seem rude to some but I guess when I make a decision, I like to get to it and move on. By the way, Orange Inks was understanding and sent me a nice message. With all the drama this week swirling with EC, I’ve read many posts and tweets talking about future departures and that’s fine but really if you’re leaving- just go. It’s not that hard and it feels great to move on- whatever your reasons are. That was my experience, anyway.
Bas, sorry I missed the url!
Its Mike @ My Thai Friend!
Have a good day.
@cy – I have not decided whether I’ll continue with EC or not. However, in the event that I do decide to leave, I would most likely phase it out slowly. I currently have nearly 20,000 EC in the bank with close to another 5,000 EC currently running in ads.
Even if the company is horribly run, there is still some potentially valuable traffic I could get by wisely using these credits.
@Dori: Thanks. I’ll be visiting yours too. 🙂
@bluecrystaldude: Entrecard is not the only way to find good blogs. There are much more effective ways 😉
Kathleen: Check your email. 😉 As for “missing the boat”… It’s always a good idea to try something new out. These are reasons to quit Entrecard, not reasons to not try it all. I don’t regret having used Entrecard at all. 🙂
aldon: Thanks for your detailed comment. Here’s my reply.
Non-interesting blogs: oh I’m not saying that I don’t like reading a wide-variety of blogs… You’re absolutely right. I follow political blogs, right-wing, left-wing, liberal, anarchist, etc. I also read blogs from SAHM/WAHMs. Many that I enjoy… However, a majority of blogs on Entrecard don’t really appeal to me. I guess here we simply differ in personality.
The drunk captain comment… Having experience in sailing myself, I set this comment straight already in my reply on your blog post about the current Entrecard ‘fiasco’.
@emirie @The Valdese Blogger: Thanks guys 🙂
Cy: Just my way of doing things. I decided to leave Entrecard on the 16th. I’ve seen people leaving Entrecard and just removing their widgets, but not canceling ads. That seems very unfair to me. When deciding to quit Entrecard, I didn’t realize that I could just cancel all ads and pay the current ad-holder back… Besides my most important reason for not quitting Entrecard immediately is that in this way, I can still find my favourite Entrecarders and they still have the time to find me. 🙂
Thanks @Mike!
Thank you for your comments everybody. I really appreciate the response. 🙂
Thankfully, most of us live in the free world and we can therefore make decisions without it impacting onto our lives. It’s a shame that you have chosen to leave Entrecard it would have been so much better if you had decided to stay and offer suggestions on how to improve it. Those of us who have joined it may well have benefitted from your knowledge.
I often leave websites up and running on those blogs that I visit regularly. Agreed, I cannot do this every day for there are too many – perhaps I spend too long on other peoples blogs – after all I’m spending time on yours now.
I hope that you will reconsider – YOU DON’T HAVE TO DROP ON 300 BLOGS A DAY – it isn’t compulsory. You can still remain in Entrecard and help make it a better community for all of us.
Your blog and link will be more accessible for us all if you remain … it’s a big, big Internet out there and I would urge you to stay and participate as much or as little as you want to. To leave would be just depriving people access to your blog. There will be many more new bloggers that will find your blog through Entrecard and you don’t have to keep dropping to remain. In fact, you don’t have to drop at all. You could just read and comment on those blogs that are of interest to you. At least you would be assured of finding some blogs in whatever categories you most enjoy.
I hope that you will give this some thought – and leave your blog in Entrecard so that others may find it, read it and when they want to comment on it.
We are all different in this world which is a good thing. We have different interests, different motivations. I am just an ordinary person who loves writing. I am not an author but enjoy expressing myself and blogging has given me the opportunity to do that. As each of us are individual different things matter to us … with the Internet it has become a very small world which we all have the opportunity of improving and changing but only if we feel that we can embrace it.
😳
I have given suggestions to Entrecard in the past. Many have. Not much is changing.
It’s true that you, indeed don’t have to drop 300 cards per day… However, to get the best out of Entrecard you do. It’s a pyramid scheme in the end… those at the top profit far more than those lower on the pyramid. It’s important to get to the top.
Also, I’m partly leaving in protest. I don’t want to support Entrecard with my presence anymore. There are many other ways new readers can get me. The internet is indeed huge and it’s important not to have a scarcity mentality when it comes to that. My traffic might be a bit less for a while, but it will be of higher quality, and the bounce rate will improve.
Besides that I don’t want to leave unnecessary scripts running on my blog. Most of my posts already contain images and my header can be a bit heavy to load, so I don’t want to slow down my page even further with scripts that are not necessary. This includes the Entrecard widget.
I started following many Entrecarders on Twitter now (@spartz), so as soon as I hear reports that show Entrecard is being lead properly again and shows some interesting innovations, I will come back. I’m not foolish.
At the moment however, it’s not worth it. To me, that is.
Thanks for commenting 🙂
Bas,
1st of all thanks for your comment on my hashtag post. I just recently signed up with Entrecard due to the sheer fact of trying to get as much exposure as I can with my 1 month old site. I do see the traffic and the main question is do I find the time consumption valuable? Well see and you pointed out some good points to keep in mind for the future. Thanks for sharing.
Well that’t good – it would be a shame to lose your blog in a sea of others. I do see where you’re coming from and dropping takes time from posting so I can appreciate your feelings. I suppose like all things time will tell – in the end.
Very interesting article; most of which I agree with. Your points about Graham and the seemingly arbitrary decisions he makes (childish decisions) was one of the main reasons I began SlogBite and it’s granularity of categories. I don’t want this to be an advert for SB so I’m not leaving my url.
I just couldn’t abide by all of the RULES that are out there. We needed more of a COMMUNITY not a bunch of rules to follow, where participants have an actual SAY on what goes on, where the community is actually listened to.
BTW, I’m linking this article on my “Best Posts” feature.
I recently started up a focused expat-themed blog, talking about the three countries I can speak for pretty well: malaysia, switzerland and the USA. Since I see you’re going to be dropping off of the EC system soon, I’ll be adding you to my blogroll so I can at least still visit you form time to time. Do drop by, and if you like what you see, by all means link back too, k?
Cheers,
*lynne*
Interesting. I personally have entrecard and put the badge on my blog but I never take it too seriously. As you as there are many bad blogs out there, I find many interesting blogs through entrecard, like yours. I never know we have to meet 300 drops quota, never care and never have time and discipline, I rarely drop back, but always approve the “ad” people put (unless the image is inappropriate).
The most effective thing to promote our blogs, I find out, is to visit one’s blog and leave an interesting comment, or two, or too many, before get noticed. The owner and his/her readers might like us, or not. But normally one or two will think we are worthy enough to be added on their blogroll. And that would boost up the PR, if you care something like that.
Whoops, typo. It should be:
As you as said, there are many bad blogs out there, I find many interesting blogs through entrecard, like yours.
Yes, the bounce rate is stupid. I like to cruise and comment, only it wasn’t always reciprocated…which is fine…but like you there are just too many sites out there that are crap (I’ll say it!) And the linking thing is rediculous. People would ask me to link that has nothing to do with my blog, not even close. They can’t leave a comment but they want a link. Yeah, right.
Personally, I don’t try to do 300 drops. It’s a waste of time. I pick my favorites, the folks who are loyal to me (and I to them) and leave it at that.
I’m bookmarking you so I’ll be able to find you in the future.
It’s funny that you mentioned the ‘hubby’ thing. While stay at home moms are one of my biggest fans (for my food blog), I also gag when they say hubby or the man (but especially hubby) when they refer to their husbands. And there’s one … when they comment on a recipe as ‘yummy.’ What the hell happened to words like delicious or good or tasty or lipsmacking. Yummy? Hubby? Yummy hubby?
You are so right here. Makes me think BIG time! I have to spend more time with my feed reader and posting comments on people’s sites instead of dropping cards!! So Right!!