Members Q and A round 1
Written on April 7th, 2009 by Graham
I’ve gotten a lot of questions over the past few days, specifically with regards to the new paid ads system and the member payout of 75%. I’m going to take the time to answer all the questions I’ve gotten, and if you have more questions, ask them here in the comments and I’ll do a round 2. Without further ado:
How much will EC credits be worth? Can it be as much as $5 per 1000 EC??
If we deflate the economy back to levels seen in early 2008, credits should be worth approximately $15 per thousand. Whether we will get there succesfully remains to be seen, and whether this will be the retail price sold from EC, or the cashout price also remains to be seen.
I’m also wondering what the payment amount will be, this will be very interesting indeed.
The payment amount is going to fluxuate on a daily basis. We’re first going to try to clear all the credits from the system that people are willing to sell at very low rates. We have an internal supply and demand curve that will constantly adjust, so even though prices to sell credits will start out low, they will go up over time as more credits are removed from the system. But we will be starting at the bottom.
Do you have an estimated date or month for Entrecard to be launching the credit cashout service?
This saturday.
I have a ton of paid spots waiting, and I cannot help but wonder what that will do for my EC credit purchased ads.
The ads purchased with EC will display 50% of the time, for as long as you have paid ads running through your blog. Nothing has changed for credit-bought ads and the credit-ad system, except that they will only display half the time if enough paid ads are running through the blog.
Another issue is members resent the paid adverts immediately jumping ahead of the queue of those bought from credits which have taken people hours of dropping on blogs to earn.
Paid ads do not jump the Que… they rotate evenly in their own Que. Let me try to explain. Ads bought with credits via the regular system still show one day at a time for a full 24 hours. But, 50% of the time, instead of the Entrecard ad on your widget, we now rotate through and any all paid ads you have approved that have running campaigns. So paid ads rotate through their own que that is displaying 50% of the time on your widget, and Entrecard ads are still in the same daily Que they always were. Hope this makes sense.
I think the system will only really benefit those who have been hoarding ec credits. I for one always used them to advertise with so I don’t have a large bank waiting to cash in when the system goes live.
This is not true. The people hoarding credits will earn the most cash, initially, that is true. But over time, you will see many more people selling tons of new products and services in the market -which you will be able to buy for credits. Tying credits to cash will create all sorts of interesting opportunities and growth prospects not just with Entrecard and its community, but with what your credits can buy, and how they can be earned.
1] When paid ads are approved…. do they take over those ads that are bought using EC points? If yes when will the EC points purchased ads have a chance to be displayed?
Paid ads now display as much as 50% of the time. So Entrecard ads bought with EC points will display the other 50% of the time, or more if there are no paid ads running through a particular blog.
2] When approving of paid ads… does the system instantly add credit to our account?
No, you do not receive credits for running paid ads. That would inflate the economy further, and we’re doing this specifically to deflate the economy.
3] How long does the paid ads run for in our blog?
It will rotate through with all the other paid ads, 50% of the time, for as long as the campaign is running by the advertiser.
4] Are these paid ads shown in a rotating format?
Yes, all the paid ads you’ve approved rotate through your widget evenly during the 50% of widget impressions allocated for paid ads via the Entrecard system.
5] Will the new credit cash out contain a limit per user?
Not sure yet. Across the system, the only limit will be the amount of money brought in from the sale of ads. But on a per-member level, not sure yet.
6] Do you guys screen paid ads to ensure quality?
Yes, we screen every single paid ad to insure quality, approving each by hand and making sure they adhere to our Advertiser Guidelines.
What direct benefit will i get by advertising these paid ads on my blog ?
The short answer is that you a.) get to make money by cashing out your credits and b.) you get to continue using Entrecard as a free service that can continue to operate. The longer answer is that by approving these paid ads, the system becomes stable, the economy grows, advertising becomes cheaper, you’ll be able to find a greater variety of products and services in the shop.
Can someone PLEASE explain me in short and brief about what is written above?
Short and brief description. We are selling advertising across the network to anyone who wants to buy, permitted they adhere to these guidelines. With that money, 25% goes to us to help keep us online and developing new features. The other 75% will go to Entrecard members who want to turn their credits into cash. This will deflate the economy, make credits more valuable, and lead to lots of exciting new products and services in the market. By approving paid ads, you are investing in the Entrecard economy.
Do we still get EC’s credited for taking a paid add? Will it be for the same amount as the old style adds?
No, you do not get EC’s for accepting paid ads. The whole point of this initiative is to clear ECs from the system, which is why we’re taking almost all the money it generates and buying your credits back from you.
Can we have a second box on our widget to show paid ads on?
Soon we will release a grid that will show multiple ads at a time, but it will always likely be half Entrecard ads and half paid ads.
When I saw they were PAID ADS I assumed I would get a chunk out of these… maybe only 50%. But I get nothing at all?
Actually, members are getting 75% of the money we take in from paid ads, but its being taken network-wide and distributed network-wide via the credit cashout. You will see benefits to the entire Entrecard service whether or not you actually cash out your credits.
April 7th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Graham… thanks for clearing that up. One question I have to ask you though is via this scenario:
Case Study – Entrecard Blogger
1] rarely drop
2] seldom engage in the community
3] own semi/extremely popular blog with high traffic
So if I am not mistaken… these kind of bloggers will not benefit at all from this entire new system right? In fact he/she would not even accept any paid ads cause it does not benefit them as much as say an active entrecarder.
From an advertiser point of view… they would want to be seen on his/her blog especially those in the same niche.
So Graham… don’t you think this situation will arise with this new system you guys are proposing?
Regards,
Daryl Lau
April 7th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
For your case study, I would tell the popular Blogger to sell blog reviews / other forms of advertising on their site for credits, tap the huge Entrecard market that would pay the credits, and then cash those credits out for the one thing popular bloggers truly care about: $$
It’s all about economic participation. We’re not an ad network, we’re an economy. Yes, an ad network is a huge part of our economy, but we are primarily an economy.
April 7th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
[...] of the EntreCard cashout system can be found here, but here a few more major [...]
April 7th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
I love the idea of having multiple ads in one widget. I use mine in sidebars so a 1 x 4 vertical set up would work better for me then like a 2×2 square. I’m sure there are others like me. So just an idea, lol!
April 7th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Well, I seem to understand a bit better now. Since one of my blogs is a today.com (www.motherforlife.today.com), I will accept NO paid ads. I was quite confused and had accepted a ton of them by accident, had to cancel, and I apologize to those that I had to cancel. For my other blog, I will accept them for as long as it seems to help me.
I still have questions, but for now I will research into other bloggers and their voices on this subject.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
I take issue with item 6. If someone is approving ads for content, then how did the blog “delicious and edible blog” with half naked girls!!!! show up on my blog in your widget? I clicked on the link and it was disturbing to think that my readers may see this.
My blog content is set-up for anyone to look at and view…I’m sure “blogger” would lock out my blog since it would appear to them that I was not telling them the truth –since that link was mature content.
Perhaps the person who is approving the advertising has a more liberal view of what is acceptable, but you can not manage this that way, you must take a more conservative approach when dealing with a large membership like this. Even more upsetting was that I didn’t even get a chance to approve or disapprove this ad. I think when this was implement you should have made a global setting that everything had to be approved. Then if the user didn’t care they could uncheck the box. This is very much opt-out marketing tactics which is frowned on by the FCC.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
It still sounds bogus to me. I’ve never been a big dropper, and I’m in a small niche on entrecard, so why would I feel the need to sell a blog review? You’re trying to make people buy ads, but the advertiser isn’t getting anything back, except you’re letting them cash in their credits. How nice, But like I said before, I’ve never been a big dropper, so now what? Let’s just say everyone cashes in their credits, and a new group of bloggers join entrecard. They have no credits to cash in, so they’re buying advertising, but still aren’t getting anything back. And you’re telling them they need find something else in the entrecard network to reimburse them for that free advertising?
April 7th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Half-naked women are seen on beaches across the world, in commercials across the world, and 100% of people use the restroom half-naked.
April 7th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
heh, point taken
April 7th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
These changes do not make me happy. I liked the traffic I could get by dropping and advertising, and I liked widget surfing and finding new blogs.
I believe the new changes will decrease my traffic due to decreasing the effectiveness of my EC purchased ads (since now they’ll show only half the time), and by making the “widget surfing” style of dropping basically impossible, which further diminishes the effectiveness of my ads (because there’s not much incentive to click through from widget to widget only to keep hitting “dead ends” of paid ads that you can’t necessarily drop on).
I came to Entrecard to increase my blog traffic. Not to make money off the credits, not to sell or buy things in a “marketplace”. How do these changes bring me more traffic? I don’t think they do, I think they diminish it and I’m really disappointed.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Hmmmm….I guess that makes it ok to have an ad placed on one’s blog without permission that is offensive? Especially when your blog is rated as being safe for any viewer? What a pointless remark you make! Well, Graham if that reply was in favor of of what lmpnerd said…then I have lost all respect for you and EC.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Well, the quick and simple answer to your question is that this allows us to continue operations. Whatever traffic we bring you, it would be zero if we had to close up.
That said, the majority of all traffic in the Entrecard system comes from two places: our directory and our toolbar. Widget ads make up less than a third of all our traffic, and we’re only cutting that in half, so the impact shouldn’t be too bad.
In addition, although we are taking half the impressions, we made everyone move their widgets to the top of their blogs. This means that the ads your buying now have more visibility than before, which helps compensate for the 50% we’re taking.
Hope this helps…
April 7th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
@waterrose
Gary was making a joke. It was in poor taste. I apologize for laughing. It is NOT ok to have an ad placed on one’s blog without permission. I would never allow half naked ads to go through the Entrecard system. We hold our ads to the highest standards and wouldn’t resort to filth. Ever.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. Just wait and see. I promise you that you will never see a half naked ad.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
@Graham…I beg to differ. I just sent a message to Tec and you should see the site that comes up….I can post the link here. I took a screen shot as well….and it’s pretty offensive. I don’t cry wolf.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
well they are explicitly against our TOS, so if a mod approved such an ad, they did so in error and I will make sure they are aware these types of ads are not to be approved. can you send me the screenshot as well, so I can use it as an example?
April 7th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
I need to know where to send it.
April 8th, 2009 at 1:11 am
Nice job graham ,Now you have explained each and everything in detail and lets see what happens on saturday .I generally approve all adds except which have vulgar or nude or half nude pictures or some offensive material shown in the add which is not suitable for my site.
Lastly you have regained confidence of your entrecarders giving them a bullet shot of your new add pattern,
thanks,
anisha
April 8th, 2009 at 1:16 am
graham at entrecard
April 8th, 2009 at 2:32 am
oh ok it’s a bit clearer now. for a few days i was feeling tired with all the changes and had to not open entrecard. but now am back!
April 8th, 2009 at 2:41 am
Maybe you could pay me to spell check your posts for you.
April 8th, 2009 at 2:46 am
Thank you so much. I like this post very much. Entrecard you rock. I will stay on Entrecard. Love it.
April 8th, 2009 at 2:53 am
Well it sounds fair enough when i’m using this services, but what i don’t know is EC can be turned in to cash ? is it really true ? that i can sell my EC to cash ? this is look ambiguous to me.
April 8th, 2009 at 5:52 am
I would suggest the point that Entrecard will start out buying credits at rock bottom rates and gradually try to go up over time be communicated to the entrecard members with more emphasis.
Otherwise, when we members see the rock bottom rates without any warning, more angry feedback may ensue.
April 8th, 2009 at 6:01 am
From an advertiser standpoint, I am pretty happy with the new set-up.
So far the ads I have test run through the system are getting good response rates.
If I can get greater volume, I will be dumping a lot more money in the coming weeks.
April 8th, 2009 at 7:08 am
I’m enlightened by this..2] When approving of paid ads… does the system instantly add credit to our account?
No, you do not receive credits for running paid ads. That would inflate the economy further, and we’re doing this specifically to deflate the economy.
What direct benefit will i get by advertising these paid ads on my blog ?
The short answer is that you a.) get to make money by cashing out your credits and b.) you get to continue using Entrecard as a free service that can continue to operate. The longer answer is that by approving these paid ads, the system becomes stable, the economy grows, advertising becomes cheaper, you’ll be able to find a greater variety of products and services in the shop.
Thanks for making it clear.
April 8th, 2009 at 8:07 am
I think it makes it a little confusing when you say an EC purchased ad will run 50% of the time. The way I am understanding it is like an every-other-day thing. The EC ads still get their 24 hour time slot, but instead of going to another EC purchased ad the next day a money purchased ad will run for 24 hours, then another EC purchased ad and so on. Is this right?
April 8th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I always used to have a queue of EC ads for a week, now I have zero, due to the paid ads. I have approved quite a few paid ads to support EC, now I want to try the other way around.
I completely agree with waterrose. That delicious and edible blog imagery is very offensive on blogs that are for all audiences, including mine. I already had to reject it several times. The worst part, is that with the opt-out system you have by default, which I did not know about at first, it may have shown on my blog during the first days… unsettling to say the least.
Other ads that may be not offensive as far as content, are either completely unrelated, or they have a really tacky badge, which ruins the look of my site.
I still have to find a balance that works for me too.
April 8th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Okay, now I am understanding a little more of the uproar. I have to say that it does not seem right that we earn our EC credits by dropping cards and selling ad space on our EC widget exchanging credits. Why should we pay our hard earned EC credits and now only get 50% of the display time? We are exchanging the same amount of EC credits and only getting half of the display time. I did not understand that the ads would be changing throughout the day. I find this unsettling.
April 8th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Hi
A lot of members are really upset though. I’ve had mails from long standing members who are leaving or have left. I’ve seen calls for a strike on dropping. I’ve seen the same complaints that this new system is unfair over and over and no real attempt to address those complaints other than a ‘wait and see’ response.
Members are loosing their usual number of adverts paid by credits, they are loosing the value of those adverts and in exchange they are expected to approve a lot of paid adverts for which they get nothing. They are also being punished by being knocked down the popular blogs list for not accepting adverts. All this is causing resentment and bittterness.
Not paying anything to members for accepting adverts may make sense economically for Entrecard wanting to establish credits as having a good monetary value in exchange but it is not good psychologically on members who feel it is unfair and that they are being conned. Psychologically rewards are far more effective than punishments and so far there have been no rewards for having to deal with all these new paid adverts. The promised new cash in exchange for credits system isn’t enough to quiet the resentments building up.
Many good members use all their credits up on credit advertising and won’t have any credits stored up to sell. Plenty can’t afford to advertise. We at Creative Cafe have tried out the paid advertising to show some support but in general we can’t afford a regular campaign.
The new system is putting those who can afford it and pay for ads ahead of those who work hard doing drops and visiting blogs often for hours a day. But those hours a day are also the reason why Entrecard is a viable system in the first place and to ignore the voices of complaint now could mean you won’t have the number of droppers you need to even click the paid for ads.
I realise it is hard to balance all the different needs of the system and Entrecard has to be able to pay it’s way but the way this is being handled feels like the members complaints are not being listened to in the rush to force through a new system which is not in their best interests.
I hope these issues will be resolved and things work out better soon.
April 9th, 2009 at 9:06 am
I am also getting frustrated with the lack of response. I have sent three emails via the feedback feature, and I have had no response. I also keep checking back here to see if the questions are being answered. Still nothing. This is not very encouraging.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:06 am
I have been using Entrecard for quite some time now and one thing that I always liked about it was that I could advertise on blogs that I found while surfing through the Entrecard widgets. I am very disappointed that you seem to be making this a pay only advertising medium. I specifically liked using my entrecards that I earned through surfing to advertise, so why would I spend my hard earned money to advertise on a website when that blogger doesn’t get anything for it. You say that Entrecarders get 75% of all payout, but what you are missing is that most Entrecarders don’t want to do payouts. If you are worried about longevity, I don’t think this is the way to fix it. If the ad dollars brought in from the ads that we accept could be converted to EC’s, I might consider that but at this point I don’t agree with this concept and I don’t support it.
What about those of us who have been here since the beginning, why is half of our ad time being split with these paid ads? There has got to be a better way. As I mentioned before in the forum, if there was another box added on the widget for a Paid Ad I might be more inclined to accept those ads but at this time I am only accepting ads from those who have previously advertised with EC’s.
Just being honest.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:26 am
SunEGirl:
It saddens me that you are under the impressions we are moving to a “paid only” advertising medium. This is not the case!
Paid ads are only going through half the network, whereas regular for-credit ads are going through the other half of the network.
Half your ad time is getting split, that is true, but what we expect to happen is for advertising prices in credits to decrease by half, thereby allowing you to buy twice as many ads for the same number of credits, and being even.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:55 am
I’m happy that the cashout came so fast. I was affraid it’d take a lot more time.
April 25th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
I live in NC and was wondering how many credits I have to have to be considered a sophomoree? If you are in an 8 period school, you take your 4 regular classes and 4 electives and you electives are 1/2 credit each shouldn’t it be 6?
May 12th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
It’s sad to kow that what really turned out is 1/15th of the original projection…