It’s called Jumping the Shark and it usually refers to TV shows who have passed their prime (did you know it takes its name from an episode of Happy Days??). It’s also been applied to web startups, new companies, and ideas that are worn out or before their time. In this case, I’m wondering if EntreCard has jumped the shark. EntreCard is (was?) a pretty good traffic sharing tool and a good way to find some good (and some not so good) blogs to read/visit on a regular basis. Without EntreCard, I would not have found CigarJack’s, Five Blondes or The Hawg. And for periods where I haven’t written anything worth reading, its has provided some steady traffic, ensuring that I keep my blog in front of some eyes.

The original premise was simple. Display the Entrecard Widget. Visit other blogs with the widget and drop your “card” on their widget. In theory, people would visit those that had dropped and would drop their card in kind. A “I scratch your back, you scratch mine” kind of traffic trade. You could use built up credits to advertise on other blogs and sometimes the traffic they generated was good. Really good. Some times not so much. However, having the EC widget on a site didn’t really hurt. Until Now.

On Saturday, Entrecard Announced on their blog that the “beta” of their new paid advertising system was going in to effect. People could ‘buy’ ads on your site in the EC widget and EntreCard would benefit. You however, would not. Currently, the way things are working, Paid Ads are taking precedence over the traditional EC ads. So if you purchased a traditional EC Ad with EC Credits, you could be preempted at any time during your run on a blog. I pulled up my site this morning and was greeted with every ad except the one that should have been there. I logged in to my dashboard and there were over 30 paid ads waiting to be approved. Of course, I couldn’t see them, as ABP was blocking the ads (apparently).

Once I went through and rejected ALL the paid ads, I was able to accept the regular ones and the Card on my blog appeared as it should. All normal like. As I said, currently, the blog owner is not able to benefit from the paid ads at all other than the fact that Entrecard is able to pay their bills (which, if their math is correct, they must have had some hella venture capital for startup money). Eventually, the plan is to ‘pay’ blog owners 25% of whatever the ad was purchased for and allow them to then buy Entrecard credits with that. There by, keeping all the income for EC and basically ‘gifting’ extra credits to the blog owners. How this is going to work out has yet to be seen as that portion of the program ISN’T WRITTEN YET.

That’s why I’m wondering if EntreCard has Jumped the Shark. I, like many others have rejected most (if not all) of the paid ads in lieu of the traditional EC ads. Entrecard had a good thing going. Did they screw it up with this seemingly poor implementation of the paid ad system? Should they have added another set of code for only paid ads? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

EDIT: Apparently, I have my figure wrong. EC is only keeping 25% of the income from the ad’s the other 75% is going to the members through a ec buyback program “The fact of the matter is that 75% of all the revenue we’re generating from the paid ads is going to the members. “

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Well, the Olympics are Finally over (don’t get me wrong, its fun watching the world compete for Gold Medals and all, but two and a half weeks??) and that means that the TOTAL medal count is complete. The US came out on top with the highest number of Medals (110) followed closely by China (who spanked the rest of the world with their little gold encrusted necks). The rest of the world was no where close. If you had been paying attention to the blog here at all you would have noticed the opportunity to win 1000 Entrecard Credits by simply guessing the number of medals the US would have with out going over.

Well, we (by we, I mean I) had two total submissions and both were over. Though one was only over by a little margin (15 or so). I decided in the traditional sense of the Olympic Spirit to give 500 to the person who was closest anyways (as I have more credits than I know what to do with at this point).

Riyanne from Blogging from Scratch guessed 125 and has therefore received 500 EC to her account CONGRATULATIONS!!!

But the fun does not stop there!! I’m still having a contest for another 2000 Entrecard Credits!. You still have the chance to win as the contest isn’t over until September 1st!! So make sure you get in on the action!

Recently, we’ve seen a myriad of “improvements” made at EntreCard. The addition of SezWho to the credit earning lineup, better reporting a more AJAXY interface and some other improvements. Now, they’re looking to take over your Browser.

Granted, it only seems to work for FireFox 3 (as the post has many urgings for the user to upgrade to FF3) but it does seems to be a complete bar with such things as one click advertising, dropping, a current “credit” display and some other cool features, this might be a good tool for the hardcore card dropper.

I’ve tried bars in the past for services like PPP and others and they fell far short of expectations. besides, I like to have as much realestate for my page as possible, and the tab bar and the links bar take up a good bit of space. However, if you’re a serious EC Dropper, head over to EntreCard and try out the bar. It might make things better for you.

I must be crazy! I’ve amassed over 2k in Entrecard “credits” and here I am giving them away!!! Thats right!! The month of August is going to be crazy mark’s crazy give away month!! What can you do to win?? three things.

First, comment on the my blog. Thats all you have to do. The EC’er with the highest number of quality contributions will receive 1,000 credits. Thats 1,000 credits for visiting my site and commenting on my posts. What could be better??

How about 750 credits for doing nothing but dropping on my site! All you have to do is drop your card through out the month of August. On Sept First, I’ll pick a winner at random from the top 10 droppers! So thats a chance to win another 750 points by dropping your EC when you stop in to make a comment!!

Lastly, I’ll give 250 EC credits to a randomly selected person. All you have to do is link back to this post (using the trackback URL). Mention it in a post on your blog. Blog about the contest. Whatever. As long as your blog shows up in the comments list you’re entered to win!!

Thats three chances to win up to 2000 Entrecard Credits. Its like I’ve gone mad!! If you’re not a member of Entrecard (WHATS WRONG WITH YOU?!!?!?!?!) click the Big E on the gold bar that says drop and you too can sign up. Its an easy way to increase traffic to your blog!!

So, I’ve been a member of Entrecard since they opened their doors. And to be fair, its been a good, if sometimes onesided, relationship so far. The traffic has been decent, the friends and new blogs I’ve visited have sometimes proved valuable and other times not so much. I was intrigued, to say the least, when I heard about the newest endeavor by EC to help boost readers and participation on blogs. I mean, afterall, we’ve all seen how well blogrush helped right?

July 15th saw Entrecard announce a partnership with sezwho. Its simple. You join sezwho and add their dealie to your site and you have the ability to earn more EC credits via posting comments on other blogs. Now, I know you’re thinking “AWESOME!! Finally some payback for being first on problogger all the time” but thats where you’re wrong.

Your comments have to have substance and are subject to the ratings of the masses. If people like your comments, good for you, if not…..

Its an interesting idea, and one that is kind of patterned after digg, blogging zoom and other sites like that, however, this is strictly for comments. The more you leave. The better they are, the more likely you are to benefit from this conglomeration of stuff.

Yes, I’ve added it here, so comment away, you willing commentors, maybe you’ll get a good ranking! Oh and let me know if you’ve added it as well….

When I hit 300 drops yesterday (which I repeated today!) I mentioned to gruntled that I had come across a ton of bad sites and a few good ones in my quest. He wanted to know which ones I liked, so I thought I’d let everyone know. Here are five of the better blogs I came across on EntreCard. In no order….

1. Fabulously Jinxed – A really cool site that has a mix of everything. The writing is easy to read and the site is rather well laid out.
2. Mrs. Sparrow – Granted, if she was married to the famous captain, she wouldn’t really have time to be blogging, but her site is fun, witty and another good read. Not to mention that chick pirates are HOT!!
3. Gospel According To Rhys I actually came across the Gospel before I came across Entrecard, but it wasn’t too prominent on my radar until EntreCard. Rhys is a witty writer from across the pond (thats England for you wags who didn’t know) who chronicles most anything he feels like.
4. Gorilla Sushi is a fun and light hearted read who is going to Ear more whale blubber this year. I can only hope he does.
5. cigar Jacks – This has become one of my daily must hits. If for any other reason than to extend my knowledge of cigars. I smoke an occasional cigar (I even have a Humidor), but my knowledge is rather limited to the one brand I happen to have on hand. I need to learn the lingo and find some new smokes and this is a good place to do it.

I think I’ll work on a five of the worst finds on EntreCard… the problem is going to be narrowing it down to only five.

300 “drops” seems to be the magic number per day. I came across a post on the EntreCard forums mentioning that one of the users had hit the upper limit of 300. I was curious to know if there was in fact a limit (it seems a little silly to have a limit when you can only drop your card once per day on a blog) and I also wanted the extra credits to buy spots on as many of the lower wait blogs as I could.

So, between work, posting and some other stuff today, I attempted to hit the number. And I did. And it wasn’t easy. I’d hit the most recent and least wait pages often and click on most of the cards and go through to their sites. I’d drop my card and I’d look and check out the quality of the blog. While I’m happy to have hit the 300 limit for the day, I don’t know I’ll make the effort, as I hit a lot of crap sites. I’ve also come to feel like a blogging minority in the fact that a) I do not speak broken English, b) I am not Pinoy or otherwise asian and c) my layout is somewhat different from the vast majority of blogs out there.

Granted, dropping this many cards should push a good bit of traffic my way…

It appears that several of the bigger players are abandoning ship in hopes that they aren’t dragged down with it. The promises made by BlogRush head John Reese have failed to materialize as more and more bloggers pull the widget from their sites in an effort to rid the web of such bloaty scripts.

I had posted back in November about my experiences with BlogRush and whether or not it was worth it and at the time, I decided to make some changes to the way I handled their system. Instead of giving them my main feed with every article in it, I switched to a specific blogrush feed that only showed the articles I wanted to show. It helped a little, but as the next screenshot shows, it still wasn’t the boon to traffic that programs like EntreCard, and even just making comments on other blogs has been.

My next step was to change the category my blog lived in as well on the BlogRush system. That did little more than drive my credits up as I received less and less exposure. So now, I have around 20k credits that aren’t being used (which is a far cry from the Cow’s 10,000,000 credits). I’ve noticed that as I browse the blogosphere, I’m seeing the BR widget less and less and with bigger sites pulling their widgets, I have to wonder if it was a good idea poorly implemented. One of the things that makes EntreCard worth while is that you have to get out and drop your card on other blogs and YOU get to choose who you advertise on and who advertises on you.

This form of self quality control enables you to make better choices that benefit you and your readers more than blogrush. Most of the crap on the blogrush widget is just that, crap. I really don’t need to know that you failed to make 28,000 a month last year. What I need is good incoming traffic.

Dropping cards for traffic sounds like it is too good to be true doesn’t it? In fact, it is a little too good to be true, there’s more to EntreCard than just dropping yours where ever you feel like. This past week, I’ve taken the opportunity to visit a lot of the sites that Entrecard plays host to (and I’m no where near done yet) and its been amazing at the differences between sites that I’ve seen. I’ve come across some Really bad ones, some that are common wall flowers and others like The Gospel and Cigar Jack that have some cool stuff and good writing to offer that I’ll visit more often.

It astonishes me that the number of websites lacking proper design, writing and taste on entrecard is so high, but then, with the number of blogs that has sprung up lately, should I really be that surprised? It seems that everyone and their sister has a blog dedicated to making money on line that they fill with the “latest and greatest” money making tips that any monkey with a keyboard should be able to figure out. The number of personal diaries online has seemed to skyrocket as well. These two areas can probably be attributed to the rise in the number of paid blogging systems (yes, I do belong to several of them) that have popped up over the past year as well. One of the benefits of Entrecard is enabling more people to learn about your site through various means like advertising on other blogs.

Is it really worth it though when your “card” is going to be displayed at the bottom of a mile long page of mindless blabber about the weather and the fact that the site owner had to write about ladies undies you could at least do it in a better form than “well, a sponsor wants me to write about ladies undies but I’m a man!”. No its not. However, you shouldn’t let the bad sites ruin your chances to increase traffic.

As with any advertising media, there is a right way to choose whats best on Entrecard. You have every right to be picky about which sites you advertise on and which sites advertise on you. For instance, if I ran a blog about dogs, I would most likely not advertise on a blog about cats (or Vietnamese food) and I would not have a cat site advertise on mine. Do not be afraid to reject ads if they do not fit in with your topics. You don’t see want ads for window washers under the used car salesmen section do you?

Secondly, do not, I repeat, DO NOT, advertise on sites where the entrecard box is below the fold (the fold is an old newspaper term referring to the bottom half of the page which is usually not seen when the paper is folded. Here we’re talking about the bottom of a page where someone has to scroll to see it). If its not one of the first thing a person sees once the page is loaded, its a waste. Want proof? Ask around. I’ve found that in advertising on Entrecards, the ad’s I’ve placed that are above the fold perform better than those below the fold. You can drop your cards as much as you want on those sites, but DO NOT advertise on them no matter what kind of traffic they claim to provide.

Don’t be afraid to drop your card and even write recommendations for the site owner through entrecard. I’ve found that by dropping cards on sites I get more visits back in return. It does two things. One it lets people know about your site (and if you do it in your own category, you might gain new links elsewhere) and it encourages them to visit your site and drop cards. Dropping cards on other sites benefits everyone.

Lastly, and this is probably the most important, leave a comment on a post or two on the blogs you visit through entrecard. Not only is it free advertising to you, but many blog owners have the scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours mentality. If you comment there, they’ll come and comment on yours. Its an excellent way to gain friends, readers and comments which all helps in the traffic game.

If you want to see who all is on entrecard… Check HERE