The Entrecarder

I can't say that the slow response times on Entrecard this week or the lag in drops registering were the reasons for my decision, but it certainly didn't help things. No, after dropping 6000+ cards in one day earlier this week I realized that I want a life and that while it was fun to see my total ECs go up by over 10000 in 24 hours, I really didn't want to repeat the exercise. So I closed down most of my Entrecard accounts and consolidated most of the Biz Beacon accounts into this one by moving the posts over. I even went so far as to shut off public access to most of the defunct blogs so folks won't spend time looking for the non-existent Entrecard.

Don't worry...I've still got 4 active accounts and I'm not going to suffer Entrecard withdrawals. My Internet Marketing Adventures, Intunique, and Where On Earth Am I? will still stay involved in the Entrecard community. I had to ask myself which blogs was I willing to spend the effort to update 2+ times a week and which ones were people choosing to advertise on. I'll still post occasionally on Double Oh Adventures, I'm Losing 60 Pounds, U C What?, The Backseat Driver, and New Product Ideas, as well as try and develop Serial Shorts, Rock with Horns, Home Loan Insider, My Family Link, Recumbent Biking, Emergency Preparedness, The Personality Translator, and a few others yet unnamed. If you couldn't tell, I made a list of subjects that I am interested in writing about.

There were definitely two Entrecard considerations, aside from the temporary issues listed above, the first being the new Credit Exchange, and the second being the ad pricing structure, which is slated for change as soon as Entrecard can get to it. It's my belief that the Credit Exchange will drive the price of ECs to around $5 per thousand (before fees), down from the $10 per thousand listed by the various 3rd party vendors. As it stands, the lack of market knowledge and an easy system for exchanging credits creates an artificial scarcity that has propped up the price of ECs.

There are likely dozens, if not hundreds, of Entrecarders who would like to sell their ECs but haven't wanted to get a widget or otherwise make the effort. I believe that it is a vastly smaller number of folks who want to fork out cash for ECs and so once the Exchange is in place, these few buyers will be in a buyer's market and be able to find great deals, if not through the exchange, via 3rd party vendors. I suppose that Entrecard could artificially prop up the price, but that puts us where we are now with the current 3rd party vendors making the sales. I've made over $500 of profit in the past 7 weeks selling ECs and yet I would have made more money at the local fast food joint, when you figure out the hourly return on time expended. I shouldn't have spent the time I did and have decided to scale back my time expenditures in the future.

I also recognized that it was relatively easy to drive up the price of one's widget to 300 ECs per day and above. However, what type of return was someone getting from advertising on one of my sites? Likely not very good. So, by reducing the number of sites I'm managing I'm hoping to improve overall traffic and provide a better value to potential advertisers.

On a somewhat related note, I totaled up my Drops and Drops Received for my accounts and determined that I'm averaging a 63.5% return drop rate. (57392 cards dropped by me, 36451 cards dropped on my sites.) That's pretty close to the 66 2/3% rate that I suggested in a prior post.

Entrecard should be lauded for creating a system where bloggers can earn some money while building traffic to their blogs. My experience has shown that it is possible to earn an income from the Entrecard community and I expect that in the coming months we'll see more and more "professional" power droppers arrive in the Entrecard community.

NOTE: It was very helpful to use Spottt stats to determine which of my blogs were getting more clicks than the others. My top site was Where On Earth Am I?

2nd NOTE: I pulled all of my Project Wonderful ad boxes. $30 a month revenue for 20 sites was just giving the space away. I'd rather give it away for FREE to people I like.