When is the new system going to start?

Sounds like a good start. I’m keeping an open mind.

[...] posted a blog article reassuring us that the ads will be in good taste, will not promote anything that isn’t family [...]

I have a question regarding ad content. Are animated ads going to be accepted? I don’t want any animated ads on my blog. In addition, I don’t want any ads featuring bikinis or other partially exposed figures designed to attract attention. Such ads might not necessarily be thought of as adult themed. Perhaps you can enumerate more closely what your definition of “adult themed” is.

Another thought is dating sites. I don’t want ads for dating sites on my blog. Are they going to be included in the external ads that will be put in the system?

Great idea and I would just like to add one more – highly sect-arized ads. Those ads for particular religions. Thanks and more power.

ooooooooo these open ended unclear pronouncements; certainly make it clear to me that there is no firm list in place for what will and won’t be shown.

I suggest you take a standard list from a marketing company which lists categories and embed that on each profile, so that each user may reject unilaterally the types of ads which are inappropriate to their blogs.

I for one want to know in advance what will be occupying my ad space. as I regularly turn down large commerical ads due to their conotations.

I do not want Alcohol,medical clinics, diet anything, rehab anything, military anything; mortages, banks, credit cards, Fast Food, Cars, Dating or lots of other types of things on my blog.

I for one am completely conscious of what that 1 ad represents to my visitors – in their association to my blogs character.

I think that I have a fairly common view, so lets have a selection mechanism for Entrecard Ads.

we have that privilige within entrecard, for blogs – so why should it be any different for your outside advertising.

I agree with NathanKP:
Do not want ads that are animated, immodest, promoting money making schemes or alcohol.

I agree with RE Ausetkmt and NathanKP. There are many more categories that should not be allowed.
And the timing is also something for what I’d like to get a better clarification. Will be those ads placed in a queue in the same way as they are now, or not? I’d like to have some time to see what they’re about and if they’re appropriate to be shown on my blog.

Wow this is a huge thing that happen to Entrecard. thank you very much. God speed!

I don’t want to see any ads from werewolves. One almost got me once, so I’m on my guard. I think Mr. Madoff may be a werewolf. If he were just a vampire, he would have shriveled up in the sunlight. I think he just made a living as a vampire to fool people.

A very specific question…..

Will there be a blanket setting to decline all third party ads which you want to mix into my widget?

I not want to have to decline them on an individual basis because I do not want any of the ads you sell showing on my site.

Sorry but I do not like the idea of you treating my site as one of entrecards assets to sell ad space from. With a blanket setting to decline all your third party ads I may be able to continue with entrecard.

I don’t want to have to decline all ads individually.

Good analysis James. I’d say your making some realistic observations.

There are a lot of good questions here though that deserves answers, and I’m going to write another post to answer them.

James and Graham,

More than happy to work off a membership if you want – charge every member $1 per month or $10 annually and that should more than cover expenses for entrecard. The blogs signed up in entrecard do not belong to you. They are not your assets to monetize or sell ad space on.

Monetize your own site, but when it comes to monetizing MY site you can leave that to me.

Still no answer to my question on if there will be a setting to opt out of these third party ads on the widget. Were you going to provide an answer to that?

Bruce

I’d say nothing political or religious as far as ads go -

@james – I don’t think there is anything wrong with not wanting to run 3rd party ads, I know for a fact that SOME people already help entrecard by spending a ton of money on credits.

I guess the home page of entrecard will have to be updated – no more “an ad network just for bloggers”

It is pretty obvious that there are a few different groups of people here

1) want 3rd party ads
2) don’t want 3rd party ads
3) could care less

So let the people who want to run them run them and those that don’t won’t have to as a kind of beta test – let everyone know that if this doesn’t bring in the money then they will have to run ads across the board.

aside from what you mentioned above, although I’m not a goody-two-shoes kind of person, but I don’t like ads that symbolized evil or anything that have something to do with them, I don’t care if it’s only their as their logo,i simply don’t like it, that’s all.

I, for one, definitely agree that good taste should be the foremost principle when it comes to advertising acceptance.

With that in mind, may I suggest some other categories of ads which should be rejected for obvious reasons:

Hatemongering, racist or white-supremacist content, especially so the sort where racist symbols, code words or slogans are invoked or appealed to.

So-called “multi-level marketing,” “home business opportunity” and “work from home online” schemes, especially such making vague, exaggerated or unrealistic earnings claims, or whose content tends heavily to glowing generalities–especially so in the testimonials department.

Appeals to latent nativist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic feelings vis-a-vis “patriotism,” especially the latent, ad hominem sort.

Questionable “investment opportunities” such as “High-Yield Investment Plans” (HYIP’s), offshore investment funds, “trusts” structured solely for tax avoidance (promoted under guises such as “wealth preservation”) and offshore banks offering unrealistically high rates of interest.

“Guaranteed” loan, credit card, auto loan, mortgage or other financial offers targeting such with problem credit or no established credit, and know not where to turn locally–especially “hometown” banks, credit unions/caisses or finance companies.

Supposed “treatments” for loathsome or otherwise serious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, cancer, sexual dysfunction, arthritis, rheumatism and TB.

Lottery pools, syndicates, systems and forecasts.

“Travel clubs” not recognised by the American Society of Travel Agencies (ASTA) or equivalent industry organisations elsewhere.

I, for one, may have designs on checking any intending advertisers with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) online databank in the interest of protecting consumer integrity, confidence and trust, and would recommend this.

Luckily our system gives full refunds for cancelled ads,so it’s no big deal. admins can easily cancel all your ads for you with a singgle click. Let me know if you’d like us to handle it for you.

Graham, how come you are so quick to run people off?

Is “Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out!” better or worse of a route to take for a start up than membership fees?

It’s sort of like when I shop on ebay, how a person responds to the negative feedback almost says more than the feedback itself. If I see a seller being aggressive back to a person for no obvious reason, that’s a turn off.

My first boss taught me something about annoying customers: “They don’t realize that they’re not the first person to ask you that same question today.” I know you’re fielding a lot of hostility right now, but it’ll get better, especially if you keep talking positively to your customers.

Hang in there, let people be jazzed about how awesomely you responded to their initial questions.

@James I have shut everything down. The answer I received in these comments seemed pretty clear.

Had to cancel ads which I had agreed to run for other members which I hated to do. I like to fulfill my comittments but that was made pretty clear to me also…

My account is still active as I still have a eccles I need to spend. Having difficulty finding enough things to buy right now so I will be checking in on the marketplace and keep an eye on how this shakes out.

Till then I will still be blogging.

My understanding is that so far – when the new system rolls out all adverts will be displayed the same as the current style and we will have the option of accepting or rejecting them. I am being advised that although this is my belief I am mistaken and that choice has now been withdrawn from us yet again. Could you please confirm what the ruling is not just on this blog but as a general message to all bloggers on their dash so that we all have the same information at the same time.

I have one major reservation with regard to this system that being by the introduction of outside advertisers onto the current widget layout bloggers will have the number of sites they can advertise on via Entrecard reduced. It may be that a double widget would solve this problem – one side could contain either the E for Entrecard or a commercial advertisement the other could remain as it now is with an advert by a member of the community. That way internal advert spaces could remain the same. (Of course with a double widget it would still be desirable to be able to accept or reject a commercial advert … just in case!)

still waiting to hear what’s being done about today.com ….any news?

I am pretty much a lurker on this blog and the forum…. I don’t say much.

But I just wanted to say that while a few people are quick to anger and shout out, there are a majority that are a fantastic community. No one likes change. But EntreCard is an ever growing entity. Things must be done to appease the “growing pains”. We have evidenced this before when EntreCard was almost sold. I thing Graham and the majority of the hardworking and unpaid moderators do a great job. They are not perfect and are human and the have to deal with the solutions to keep the ‘growing pains’ from disrupting our community overly much.

Sometimes it comes to the point when bluntness is called for. This is a “free” community (monetarily). With this freedom comes the choice to “play by the rules” or not. If you don’t like it you are free to remove yourself from the community. I, personally, think that Graham and EntreCard, often receives a bum rap. I am know this undertaking has not been easy. Everytime an attempt is made to help EntreCard grow all that flies around is negativity. Here at the blog. At the Forum. On your blogs. I am tired of EntreCard bashing!

My hat off the Graham and his crew! Keep up the good work. I TRUST YOU to make the right decisions for EntreCard and our community.
Christina

Thanks Graham for listening to us, Many of us use Yahoo and Google, yet we don’t complain about the ads they run. Blogger from time to time runs pop-ups that irritate me. These ads are run without notifying me or even giving me the chance to reject them. We cannot be dismissive of change. We will stagnate or worst regress should be too self-centered.

Nice to know that democracy thrives here. The fact that we can reject ads is enough to ease my worries. Even charitable institutions use ads to sustain their operations, much more a network like EC.

Environmentally bad companies…..for instance those involved in factory farming like burger and chicken chains. Could impact badly on many in many categories like green, religious, spiritual, animal loving, etc etc.

Whereas alcohol might be great for a wine or beer blog but not a teenage blogs. Or organic milk for some health blogs but bad for other health blogs depending purely on the individual viewpoint.

Almost impossible to guage what would make the grade.

Graham wrote –

[If you don’t like our move to sell advertising across the network to cash out credits for members and cover our costs, there is a very simple solution. Just take the widget off your blog and quit Entrecard. I don’t see why that alternative it’s such a big deal. No one is forcing anyone to use Entrecard, and if you’re unhappy or unsatisfied for any reason, it takes approximately two seconds to remove the code from your blog.]

It is with great regret that I have followed your advice as quoted above.

I’ve been an Entrecard member for over a year. Not long after I became a member the first of many changes came to me as a surprise. That one involved a complete change to the credit system, which has resulted in my not being able to afford advertising on the really popular blogs unless I saved up my credits for a fair time.

Unlike other entrecarders I didn’t have a lot of time to drop credits and really I got into it more for the community aspect and visiting blogs I liked rather than reading them via a reader.

As time went on, I often found a lot of the blogs I could afford to advertise on were not approving my ads at all, and when I looked into it a bit more I found that many of those people had not blogged in a really long time. And sure, I could have reported them to you but again that is something that takes time and wasn’t something I felt was my place in any case.

I would actually have preferred to have people pay a membership fee because at least that way you could have removed all the non-active people from the system. I have paid membership fees for many things as a blogger.

I know as a company you have to make money but to be quite honest there isn’t bucketloads of money to be made in blogging for the majority of people and while some do get into it for making money they usually don’t hang around long. Many of us are blogging for personal reasons and there are some who have made a decision long ago not to place any paid ads on their website for their own reasons.

I wish you the best of luck – but for me it is time to say goodbye to Entrecard. I am not the only one, and I expect you will lose a lot more people as a result of not just this change, but *too many* large changes to the system over a fairly long time.

I also find it a bit disturbing that the changes you announced have for the most part been “walked back” by you after people complained – the above the fold thing and the rejecting ads thing, and the suggestion of having one rule for some people (eg the today.com people) but not for others. If people complained enough would you drop all the changes that you sent out in the email?

Had you guys thought this through beforehand? It seems like the answer to that is no – either that or you thought everyone would just throw their hands up and applaud in glee at the thought of making money via entrecard? Sorry but many of us bloggers have experienced “making money” via ads and have thrown the idea out the window because generally it is such a small amount of money it isn’t worth the hassle – especially those who have to report the earnings to the IRS etc – and then many people got discouraged thanks to Google slapping them. too. You do realise that the majority of advertisers on the web want do follow links, and they don’t get that via the entrecard widget? Have you fully researched all of this?

Anyway, as I said, I wish you the best of luck.
Kelley

Any word on Today.com issue? I know you guys are talking but no word from them yet… but it look like we are going to lose the Entrecard use.

Overblog as well. Competition is not allowed if you use their ad system.

Would it have avoided angst if instead of needing to manually reject any inappropriate ad, you had to manually approve every paid ad you wanted to run? Possibly with they being automatically approved in 48 hours if no decision is made. You’ve probably already set up your system, but it was just a thought.

Personally, I don’t think it should be a problem if users have two days or so to regect any offensive/unsuitable ads in their list. Every blogger will have different definitions of what they will accept and what they wont.Let them moderate their own queues.

As a rough guide, I wouldn’t accept anything that’s
- topics that commonly appear in spam emails
- the bikini girls
- sites with content I disagree with
- ads that may cause epilepsy / a desire to rip eyeballs out

Very subjective and unhelpful, I know.

The questions I’d like to know are:
- How long to reject paid ads?
-Will all the paid ads run before the usual ads, or will it alternate day by day?
- Do you have any advertisers signed up already that you could use to give us an example of the sort of ad which will be appearing?

I understand totally what are you saying, and i am glad that you will be filtering and not allowing problematic ads. That’s the normal way it should work.

Thank you! This is what I looking for for your help!