Archive for February, 2008
Written on February 28th, 2008 by phirate
Credit Exchange, Phase I
Ok, we’ve just updated the site with part 1 of the Entrecard credit market. For part 1, we’re just collecting information.To access your buy/sell settings, click on “Exchange settings” on your dashboard. You can enter your desired buy/sell prices and volumes there. Please enter realistic amounts so that we can get a reasonable feel for the prices involved.
Top Advertisers Category
Also, we removed the Most Recommended category and replaced it with Top Advertisers. The new category lists the users who have the top 30 most ads approved/running/recently completed.
Written on February 21st, 2008 by phirate
Hey everyone. Just a quick update.
We’ve had a week or two of persistent problems of one sort or another, and after some pretty serious levels of work behind the scenes we believe we have everything pretty much stable.
I know there are some people still having difficulty with IE7, and I expect there are a few still having trouble with staying logged in. We haven’t been able to diagnose those issues yet but we’re doing what we can there.
We have a number of new features and minor bug-fixes coming along soon, but I have decided not to release them for a couple of days. Basically any time anything new is introduced it has the potential to create more problems. Given that we have had such significant issues recently I figure the best thing we can do right now is give everyone a break from problems for a few days. We’ll probably drop the next update in on sunday or monday.
Thank you everyone for your patience with the service over the last two weeks, we understand how immensely frustrating it can be when a service you’re giving your time to is consistently misbehaving. We will continue to do our best to update and improve the service in the future, with more caution applied to performance issues!
Written on February 20th, 2008 by phirate
Ok, so we had some problems with the ad spot updater. This is the code that checks whether a given ad spot is due to roll over the 24 hr period, and if so uploads the next ad into place, credits the seller etc.
This was bad, because ads failed to rotate correctly and we ended up with a few odd situations happening, the most serious of which was people being redirected to the wrong sites when they clicked on the ad.
I’ll admit, I made a mistake with this one. I initially dismissed it as a temporary consequence of the change I made the night before and didn’t really look into it that hard. Fortunately you’re all nothing if not persistent and eventually the number of people talking about it got so high it was clear I’d made a mistake.
I then dug into the code that was supposed to do it and discovered a number of serious issues to do with scaling – the kind of thing that worked fine at 400 users, but started to go really bad at 4,000. Given the huge success the rest of the new batch process system was having (now manages drops, clicks, organics, ad pricing and wait times), I decided to take a leap and move the ad spot updater there as well. It was fairly tricky – there were a few things that required a bit of thinking to move – but I got it done, and it’s now operating fine.
If you run into any ad-related problems please contact feedback as usual, we’re watching for them specifically and we’ll try and deal with any issues asap.
Written on February 16th, 2008 by phirate
The purpose of this article is to provide an introduction to Entrecard for people considering advertising on the site of a blogger with an Entrecard. If you’ve visited a site you’re considering advertising on and have seen the gold Entrecard widget on the site, there are a number of things you should know about the difference Entrecard makes to a site.
A short introduction
Entrecard is a social network for bloggers. it’s objective is to help bloggers socialize, and assist them in their goals. Entrecard provides a platform to help bloggers find friends and contacts, raise their visibility, pool their knowledge, learn from one another, and support each other in their individual goals for their blog. The Entrecard blogger is better able to manage and improve their blog for themselves, their readers and their advertisers.
What does Entrecard membership represent?
Being a successful member of Entrecard is much more than simply signing up. For a start, Entrecard filters out certain types of blogs for you – spam blogs and porn are not welcome here.
An Entrecard blogger is in it for the long term – it takes time and effort to build popularity on Entrecard – so there is no value to them in short-changing or ripping off their advertiser, they want you to come back to them.
You can find out much more about an Entrecard blog than a regular one, Entrecard provides a variety of publicly visible information to help you make an informed judgement about the blog you’re about to advertise on. The smart advertiser can check recommendations, see how popular the site is for other advertisers, observe whether the site owner takes his responsibilities to his advertisers seriously through the advert approval statistics, and gain some insight into the level of effort the owner is putting into promoting his blog – at least on Entrecard. These work as invaluable information sources on top of more traditional metrics such as Alexa, Google Pagerank, Technorati and Feedburner, and in many ways much more difficult to fake.
What is this ‘drop’ thing and why is it so important?
An Entrecarder is represented on the site by his or her Entrecard. This is a 125×125 pixel image that is used both as an icon and as an advertisement within the site. A drop is when an existing Entrecard member visits another members site. When they do so, they have the opportunity to ‘drop’ their Entrecard onto the site, which places it in the ‘inbox’ of the site owner. The site owner can then see who has been visiting, and both parties also receive a small reward in the form of an Entrecard Credit (ec).
The drop is important because it has led to a fundamentally new form of browser traffic which has enormous opportunities for those familiar with how it works. Each member is restricted to dropping on 300 sites per day, most do not hit this limit although a significant number of the more active members do. In doing so, they visit each of these sites and observe at a minimum one screen-full while they drop their card. Many members drop many of the same sites each day, although very few drop exactly the same set each day.
We have come up with a metaphor to explain the particular implications of this, based on traditional street-front businesses as websites. For a business, as with a website, the ideal visit by a user is the one where the person comes right in to the shop. Once they’re in there, they’ll look around, they may well buy something, and even if they don’t at least you know you had your best shot at it. When people buy advertisement on other websites, they’re mostly looking for this kind of person, the kind who clicks through the ad, walks in the door and spends some quality time in their site.
Imagine then, traffic to websites defined as the following three classes:
1. The person turns up, glances at the front of the shop, and wanders off, rarely if ever to be seen again – The “Bounce”
2. The person turns up, looks at the front of the shop, opens the door and walks in, they look around for a while then leave again, perhaps to return and purchase something – The “Visitor”
3. The person turns up, walks in, and buys something – The “Customer”
Entrecard introduces a new class of traffic, the “Commuter”.
A commuter looks like a Bounce in traditional statistics packages – they glance at the front of the shop but don’t spend the necessary time to convert into a Visitor. The difference is simply in the regularity – businesses don’t buy street-front real estate on high traffic streets for nothing. These streets are often along a path that is regularly walked by the same person. This is a critical aspect of the Commuter – in their regular, if fleeting visits, they effectively look through the shop window regularly. As they do so, their chances of turning into a Visitor, and more importantly a Customer, are significantly increased.
Unlike the Bounce, the Commuter will notice when the website changes, they are almost certain to notice specials and other attractive features, they receive the brand message repeatedly and are much more likely to think of the website in the instance of need, and most importantly for advertisers on the website (that’s you), their familiarity with the regular look of the website means that adverts stand out rather than being lost in a totally new environment.
Now lets compare this to billboard advertising on a busy highway in LA. In terms of targeting, nearly everyone who sees the billboard lives in LA, just like we all live in the blogosphere. While the commuters’ professions may vary from lawyers to doctors to surfers, our bloggers fall into just as many unique niches. No one ever stops for long periods of time to look at the billboard, but that doesn’t stop companies from spending tens of thousands of dollars per month on them in high traffic areas.
Why would I want to get these “commuters” anyway?
Depending on your particular product or service, Entrecarders can be some of the most valuable visitors on the ‘net.
If your goal is to have the Customer spend money on a product, Entrecard members are particularly worthwhile in the instance that the product is innovative. As a group they are early adopters with a willingness to take risks, and often have a revenue stream that is already readily available in a form that works well on the ‘net, such as paypal, lowering the barrier to spend.
If your goal is to have the Customer sign up to a new web service, you really couldn’t find a better group. Entrecarders have already demonstrated their willingness to sign up for a useful online service, they are regular internet users who are well set up for subscribing to your service, including operating a mainstream browser with javascript and cookies enabled.
If your goal to have the Customer subscribe to an RSS feed, again the Entrecarder is the ideal visitor. Entrecard users are avid readers with an above-average use of RSS tools and an ability to recognise something new and interesting when they see it.
And regardless of goal, Entrecard members are highly visible and likely to promote products they enjoy – impressing a single Entrecard member with your product or service is likely to result in a flurry of viral networking as Entrecarders spread the word to their readers and other Entrecarders via their blog and the network as a whole.
What is my next step?
First up, take a closer look at that Entrecard member site with the above in mind. Few traditional statistics packages have yet caught up to the concept of the “Commuter” traffic class, including Google Analytics which still classes these users as “Bounce”.
Secondly, go check out the site owners Entrecard profile page. You can look them up via the search, but the best way is to locate the gold widget on their blog, and click the “E” button (small widget) or the “Entrecard” logo (big widgets), this will take you straight to the profile for that site. You can read a variety of information about the site on that page.
Thirdly, if you have a blog yourself you may wish to sign up to Entrecard. It’s free, you gain advertising opportunities, better information and access to the messaging tools to contact other potential advertising spots.
The take-home message is simple: Entrecard members are great advertising opportunities for many classes of online advertiser, they are dedicated hard working bloggers who offer both ideal real estate and a gateway into a vibrant network of over 4,000 potential high-visibility customers.
Advertise with a blogger who is working to help you succeed – advertise with an Entrecard blogger.
Written on February 15th, 2008 by Graham
Ben Barden has devised a nifty little system to reciprocate all the drops you receive.
Check out his method here.
It’s no secret that many Entrecard members consider it proper Etiquette to drop on everyone who drops on you. Our official position is that proper etiquette is to read a post and leave a comment when you drop, but dropping on everyone who drops on you is certainly very polite, and in the future we may reward members who take special care to reciprocate all their drops.
We also may develop an in-house system that works a lot like the Ben Barden patented system for reciprocal dropping, but it certainly won’t be released anytime soon.
Written on February 15th, 2008 by phirate
There was a relatively short outage on amazon’s s3 service a short while ago. No news as to what happened with them at this time. I honestly admit I never expected to see that service suffer any kind of global failure, but it seemed to hit pretty much everywhere simultaneously. Pretty crazy. All seems ok now.
Update:
Amazon continues to have issues, for more information see the Amazon forum and our own forum
In summary, there’s nothing we can do about it. This is the equivalent of an unexpected snowstorm, it’s completely outside our control. For those suffering problems seeing cards or widgets, I recommend a) trying control-shift-reload on the broken page, b) right-clicking on a broken widget, going to “This frame..” and clicking “reload this frame” (firefox only) c) clearing your cache. Any or all of these actions may help, but if Amazon’s service is still down at the time of reload, it will remain broken.
Update
For what it’s worth, it’s not just us that’s getting hit. It’s affecting stuff all over the ‘net, from twitter to tv stations. Probably a good time to do non-net things for a bit.
Written on February 15th, 2008 by Graham
If the buzz on the internet is any indicator, it’s an all out brawl between Graham Langdon’s self funded Entrecard vs. Adbrite’s 30 million dollar Spottt. I’ve received a ton of emails asking how the two services differ, so I thought I’d field this one on the blog.
The bottom line: The two services are VERY different. Spottt is not an Entrecard clone, but rather it acts exactly like Blogrush for 125×125 ads. It gives you credits based on pageviews, and automatically spends your credits to distribute your ad automatically across the net on autopilot.
When I came up with the idea for Entrecard, my goal was to improve the Blogrush model as much as possible. People wanted more control over what appeared on their sites, where their ad appears, and most of all they wanted more traffic. The Entrecard model takes all this into account, and solves it in logical ways. The Spottt model however, is exactly the same as the Blogrush model. Impressions translate into credits which autodistribute your ad anonymously. I’m not trying to trash or discredit anyone, but to be frank, there is general consensus that the Blogrush model does not work.
The basic reason it doesn’t work is that this type of system tends to favor the bigger sites like TechCrunch that get millions of pageviews per day. At Entrecard, we feel it’s important to provide a system that allows you to put in a little effort to self-promote your blog. We also believe in providing an incentive for you to provide the traffic. And we also don’t believe ads should run on your site that you don’t have control over. Who knows what can slip in there…
Here is a little more detailed analysis of the more important differences between Entrecard and Spottt:
Sites in the network:
Spottt lets anyone in the network, including myspace profiles, affiliate stores, and more.
Entrecard is for bloggers only, and high quality blogs at that. This insures that any Entrecard ad you click brings you to a high quality blog.
Ad Control:
Spottt offers you no control over the ads that appear on your site. They also offer no control over where your ads are placed. They do not even tell you where your ads are placed.
Entrecard offers complete control over your ads. You pick the blogs you want your ad to appear on. You pick what blogs appear on yours by approving
Social Network:
Entrecard has a complete social network. It allows you to favorite other members, message other members, chat in the forum, see your “top droppers,” provides an inbox of your recent droppers, and more. We have a tight-knit community that supports each other and helps each other out in the forums.
Spottt, by comparison, has no social networking component. You can not even see the other sites in the network.
Credits:
Entrecard gives you full control over your credits. Send them to people as tips, sell them for money, transfer them to different accounts, and do with them what you please. You can even spend your credits in the shop, for graphic design services, SEO consultations, comments on your posts, advertising, blog reviews and more. We try and make the credit as valuable as possible so that you can sell them for cash and earn some money, or purchase other really useful items.
With Spottt, your credits are distributed automatically to advertise your card on site. What sites specifically, you’ll never know.
The House
Spottt takes a whopping 50% of all your impressions for themselves to self promote and eventually, to sell for profit.
Entrecard, however, gives you 100% of the impressions. When you buy an ad on a site, 100% of the time that site loads, it loads your ad.
Take Home Message:
If you are looking for a piece of code to slap on your site that will run on autopilot and leverage existing traffic to your affiliate store, myspace profile, or any other web site under the sun, Spottt is for you.
If you are looking for a more prestigious social-ad-network of high quality bloggers, where you can put in some effort to build a significant amount of targeted blogger traffic, then Entrecard is a better choice, and I don’t mind saying it.
WIN 100 CREDITS to help people understand
Naturally, I have more than my fair share of email to get through on any given day. I’d rather not deal with any more emails asking me how spottt differs from Entrecard. So, if you post the chart above on your blog, and title the post something like Spott vs Entrecard, or Spottt compared to Entrecard, I will give you 100 EC. It’s that simple.
I just really want people to understand the differences in the two services. Maybe it’s an ego thing, but I think my model is pretty good.
Comments?
Written on February 14th, 2008 by phirate
Hey all, we’re going to be doing a site update in a few hours. Normally I take some glee in not telling anyone so the new stuff comes as a surprise but this time there are a few pretty serious technical changes so I thought I should get a bit of a warning out.
We are changing the way we “render” the menu at the top of the screen (the Dashboard button etc), and a few other parts to make it more suitable for a particular form of performance improvement. Visually it will look the same, however it will be more reliant on javascript and cookies to get it right.
I believe it should work fine for everyone, I wouldn’t do it otherwise, but we have often been surprised by failures caused by interaction with other components, browser versions etc. Given that, I thought I should let everyone know, so that if you’re browsing away later and you suddenly find you can’t see the menu on entrecard.com, you know to email support at entrecard.com and let us know asap so we can fix it.
Thanks everyone for your patience while we improve the performance aspects of the site, once we’ve got this release bedded away we’ll get back to the shiny features.
Written on February 13th, 2008 by phirate
Wow. What a day. Haven’t done that kind of coding under fire for a while. The following post is quite long so I won’t take up the front page with it, but if you’re interested in what happened, you may well find it an interesting read.
Read the rest of this entry »
Written on February 12th, 2008 by phirate
Heya all, a quick update for those not tracking the forums regarding the current site problems.
We’re having a problem with the app server at the moment, a watchdog script is having to restart it regularly. This issue appears to be related to a problem we had a while back.
We’re working on it now, and doing what we can to mitigate the effects while we figure out precisely what the issue is. To that end a couple of pages in the category browser will be disabled temporarily since they’re quite resource-intensive to generate.
Seriously sorry for this folks, we’ll get things fixed up as soon as possible.
Update
We have what basically amounts to triage changes in place that appear to be mitigating the issue significantly. We are now investigating the main problem in more depth.
2nd update
Ok, we believe we have nailed down the cause of the issues now, and have developed a solution. We’ll be trying it out within the next 30 minutes. Thanks everyone for your patience, and please cross your fingers with us 
