Who gets priority in the cashout service? Approvers, Droppers, and Community Supporters (announcing the community support algorithm)
Written on April 8th, 2009 by Graham
With the credit cashout service planned to come online this Saturday, one burning question is storming through the Entrecard community: Who is going to get priority to the cashout? Certainly we won’t have enough money from the paid ads to cash out everyone’s credits all at once, so we have to give priority to someone. But who should get it?
Some members said that those who approved the most paid ads should get priority in the cashout service.
Some members said it is the serious droppers, who drop hundreds of cards per day, who should get priority.
And still others have said it is the people who hold the huge contests and credit giveaways who should get to cash out their credits first.
The underlying common thread between all these arguments is that there are groups of people in Entrecard, each who support the service in their own way, either by being dedicated droppers, dedicated ad approvers, or huge contest holders. It immediately became clear that we’re going to need to reconcile a few valid arguments into a system that makes sense for giving priority in the credit cashout system.
Announcing our community-support algorithm
Our new community support algorithm is going to determine the priority with which you can cash out your credits. It is also going to eventually help determine your rank in our member directory. The main factors it will take into consideration are:
- How many cards you drop / how frequently
- % of paid ads you approve
- % of Entrecard ads you approve
- Listings you create / completed sales in the market
- How many credits you transfer to others (indicative of contests, tips, and generosity)
- % of credits you spend on Entrecard ads
So what we basically do is take all this data in, compute it, and determine a “community support” algorithm, because all these actions are ways to support Entrecard, and they are all very important. Critically important in fact. So now, we’re rewarding everyone who does these things by giving them priority in the cashout.
Thanks for everyone’s continued support!
April 8th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Interesting…. I don’t have much to say about this yet, but I think there is some likelyhood of abuse.
April 8th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Only way to abuse it would be to participate more!
April 8th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
that sounds fair, hopefully most members will think so too.
April 8th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
So I’m assuming that we’ll know if we’re eligible if an option shows up in our dashboard or something?
April 8th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
So does this have any impact on the amount of money you can get for your credits or just the priority you get in cashing out?
April 8th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
I guess in the end, people will keep dropping to get credits, then cash it out, then use the money to buy an ads.
April 8th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
but if enough people do that… credit prices for ads will get so low that people will naturally buy ads that way instead because it’ll be cheaper.
April 8th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
It is interesting that the biggest thing that controls inflation in the EC system, % of credits you spend on Entrecard ads, is ranked last. Any reason for this? Ah, maybe you reasoned that some people purchase credits (from EC) to use to purchase ads. That must be why. Of course, for the last year, this activity (spending credits on Entrecard ads) was the one thing preventing hyper inflation. So, beneficial activity for over a year falls four steps lower than something (paid ads) that has only been in place for a week. I think a message is being sent.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
If that’s the case, I will use the credits I earned to buy cheaper ads then use the left over credits to buy stuff from the Market.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Sounds about right to me.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
what ever it is, just do what best for EC graham.
I think you have done tremendous action from just a blog card to this.
Who will expect that EC will be this successful..
April 9th, 2009 at 12:04 am
I whole heartedly wish that this system works flawlessly as the entrecard team has put a lot of effort in it
April 9th, 2009 at 1:23 am
Excuse my French but what briefly sketched out is not an algorithm, but some factors you going to implement into algorithm
When those factors you’ve mentioned will be assimilated into algorithm that will be another game trying to abuse it. Similar to Google PR
Seriously, while there is much talk here and everywhere about new system, I still feel lack of transparency. For instance, we can’t see now from the dashboard what our ads are giving in number of clicks.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:39 am
since the day you announced credit cash out..people have stoppped advertising and spending credits…
April 9th, 2009 at 4:14 am
You should also take account of how long people have been waiting in line, otherwise some will never be able to cashout.
A way of estimating how long someone has to wait would be nice.
Perhaps take account of how much someone has recently cashed out as well.
April 9th, 2009 at 5:15 am
Graham. Thank you for commenting on my site.
This algorithm is no reason to call the strike off.
Why?
It can’t be controlled in any way, unless you put it all online so we can see for ourselves.
And you won’t, will you?
But let’s see:
1. How many cards you drop / how frequently
OK. That keeps the system running
2. % of paid ads you approve
You can’t use that at this moment, because you haven’t kept to the agreement of pre-approval control.
There are still ads circulating that are offensive, and you can’t punish those who won’t take that ad.
Even more: you can’t favour those who do, because they lower the chance of getting good outsider advertisements.
+ you’re not doing justice to those who respect their previously approved EC paid ads.
So considering that, you can’t start a good pay-out unless you take a zero point at the moment that all….all!..previous allowed EC ads have run.
Another problem we’re protesting against is running paid ads in front of EC-ads. Simultaneously in a two-sided, or two widgets, OK.
3. % of Entrecard ads you approve
Well, I could have stuck my whole site with approved ads for 5 months. Which does no justice to EC-ads
4. Listings you create / completed sales in the market
Get lost. Exposure is enough.
Most items are US only, are not well described and it’s even unclear who pays the shipping costs,
5. How many credits you transfer to others (indicative of contests, tips, and generosity)
That has nothing to do with entrecard traffic, but marketing your own blog. When I see how people spreads enormous, boring, copied posts through the system, one can even say they’re devaluating it, because those blogs/sticky posts, are no pleasure to visit.
6. % of credits you spend on Entrecard ads
Well, those who won’t cash their EC’s should earn more….ooops… paradox!!
You haven’t taken into account the difference between advertising sites and real text blogs/content blogs.
And how does that algorithm look?
Or haven’t you constructed one yet?
You’re adjusting things ad hoc (after the facts took place), and that is not the way of dealing with these matters.
Why not give those who are OK with taking a two sided-widget this widget?
Or those who want to take two widgets, a paid and EC one?
How can you say people won’t like that when you don’t know?
That way you can keep those two completely apart if you want to.
You can create a cross over system of exchanging out EC’s for money and VV.
Just set a rate. That’s it.
I repeat the proposal to create an advisory team from bloggers and advertisors.
I want to point out that
- widgets were nearly not loading yesterday, so many topdroppers were not able to reach their targets. This morning it was slightly better.
-widgets are sometimes not loading with the square, but can be dropped. That’s bad performance for advertisers, because they are clicked but get no exposure.
Graham, I came this morning across a blog that offered to review your business plan and give a hand.
Graham…. where is your business plan??
April 9th, 2009 at 8:18 am
hey grahaam i have a suggestion for this priority thing… i think you should buy credits in a fixed lot…like minimum a lot of 5k or 10k
April 9th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Sounds about right to me.Great idea..
April 9th, 2009 at 9:09 am
I agree with Nitesh so everyone will have a chance to exchange their ec to cash.
April 9th, 2009 at 9:12 am
I have to say that I really agree with laane. This seems very poorly thought out and fails to take into consideration the diverse community here at EC. There is likely no way I would ever cash out through your system. That isn’t why I got involved with EC anyway. I actually took them time to bookmark some other alternatives to EC yesterday and plan to take a look at them soon. There is no warm-fuzzy feeling here anymore.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Thanks so much for your valuable feedback Laane. Ultimately, we have to do things in a way that is fair to all members and groups on Entrecard, which we feel this does.
Yes, there is a bug or two to work out. We’re working hard on them. Hopefully a little patience isn’t too much to ask while we fix any bugs.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Will the formula of the algorithm be revealed to us? So that we will know which actions has greater weightage in the formula?
April 9th, 2009 at 11:20 am
@Jack – The order in which I listed the metrics does not indicate which factor in more or less heavily. The specific algorithm, and the weight each factor carries, has not been revealed. We aren’t sure if we are going to reveal it or keep it to ourselves as a “secret sauce” to prevent abuse.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Haven’t been around in a while but my initial reaction would be to reward the people who deliver the most value to the advertisers. That would bring in bigger more trafficked sites from which advertisers would benefit more from. It would also increase advertising capacity allowing for more advertisers and more “cashing out.” I see the point in rewarding those who participate but does that sustain the model in the best possible way. Sites with 1 million monthly visitors could add a great deal of value to EC advertisers (assuming they don’t have the capacity to participate heavily in the EC community). Just my 2 cents.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
I believe there should not be any favouritism and everyone ought to start on a level playing field. Have you considered selecting at random?
April 9th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
^Exactly!!! excellent point! a site or the owner can contribute the biggest in EC community without him/her knowing it!
April 9th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
“Listings you create / completed sales in the market”
I think this idea is slightly backwards. Why not, instead of favoring those who create listings favor those who buy from the marketplace.
This would truly encourage commerce. The other way around, people aren’t encouraged in buying from the marketplace anyways because they just want the cash-out money.
April 9th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
The algorithm does favor those who buy from the marketplace, because the marketplace uses the same “transfer api” that regular transfers do. …so to our system, a marketplace purchase shows up the same as a credit transfer.
April 9th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Ok, I have a question for those of you already established Entrecard bloggers who purchased an ad just to see how it went. I did…..like I know many of you said you were going to do. Just to experiment.
Here was ‘my’ experience:
My drops prior to the paid ad I purchased was about 75-90 a day.
My drops increased to about 200-250 a day after the ad purchase.
The drops have continued at the new higher drop rate (after the ad ran it’s course) since then because I’m one of those ‘very serious about dropping’ people and I returned to all my new droppers, who have since kept returning.
So, my experience has been completely opposite of some I’ve seen posting on their own blogs. I’ve seen several people say their drops are down. Some even say way down.
While it may have been a weird fluke (people just checking out my site to see what it was in the paid ad catagory)….the drops have continued to come in at the higher rate. Maybe it had nothing to do with the paid ad at all and I just all of a sudden had a huge increase for some random reason?—Either way—-my drops have increased, not decreased since all this started and that’s completely opposite of what so many people are saying.
So, I’m curious….did this happen for any of you that were already on Entrecard that purchased an ad just to see what happened?? Did your traffic/drops increase? Nothing change? Drops go down?
And it should be said, I was absolutely completely against the paid ad thing when it was first announced until the ‘tweeks’ were made. As long as I can control what’s on my site and where, it’s cool.
So, I wasn’t at all open to the idea and have been shocked/somewhat baffled at the increase. (and pleased) Anyone at all have this same experience?
Maybe I should have posted this in the forum…….?
April 9th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
“The algorithm does favor those who buy from the marketplace, because the marketplace uses the same “transfer api” that regular transfers do. …so to our system, a marketplace purchase shows up the same as a credit transfer.”
This entire deal sounds great, then. My only other concern is:
“How many cards you drop / how frequently”
I wonder if this may result in more credits being put into the system than being removed at the same time after the initial rush. This could mean that credits will gain much value as inflation suddenly drops, but that then inflation remains fairly constant.
I’m also a bit concerned over the prices of the ads. I think that if the prices on the ads do not increase, it will make more sense for people to cash out and then use the money to, in turn, buy more ads. In the end, nobody would advertise using credits. Moreover, I’m afraid that even with the benefits that the algorithm gives to those who participate in the community and pass the credits around, it will still be advantageous to not pass the credits around but instead horde them. While this would work out in the end for established Entrecarders who know how the system works, new users could be turned off if they get a ton of paid ads and very few regular ads, and don’t generate many credits.
Don’t let the naysayers get to you, though. This has never done before, and of course you will have to adjust things where you see a discrepancy. Such has been the nature of economies around the world for centuries. It will have its ups and downs, its problems and its strengths. It will require shrewd planning and response to problems to keep things afloat, but I think that Entrecard can do it.
April 9th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Geee.. lets see
1. we’ve made multiple sucessful sales in the marketplace from all three of our sites; in fact we sell exactly the types of products that Graham Suggests – which are Electronic Delivery, Blog Enhancements. Streaming Radio Advertising Publicity and links to our site - which never drops in pr rank. because we are serious bloggers, working at this daily, and not as a hobby.
we run a very successful radio station and joining entrecard was to open up our already hot network to others who wanted that same success. We’re Grateful that many of our former entrecard friends are now regular visitors, without the aid of entrecard delivery. we captured their interest and subscription with hard work, and diligence. not paid ads or mind games.
2. in fact BadGalsRadio got more than 2.1 million hits in March alone. that was up from 1.3 million in Feb. unfortunantly only 3000 of them came from Entrecard each month. wonder why ?
3. We drop consistently; befriend new members and offer help with site improvements; as well as leave comments all over the entresphere.
4. as suggested We give alot of ec’s away for contests others hold. from all three of our sites.</li
>
inquiring minds want to know where will we fit into this mystery math ?
April 10th, 2009 at 12:12 am
can we put the strikers at the back of the line?
just kidding of course
*prepares for massive throwing of pies*
April 10th, 2009 at 1:37 am
^I think the “strikers” hurts more the blog they visit regularly than Entrcard itself!
JMPOV!
April 10th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Well , if this system is implemeanted then the same people who win contests and get all the good stuff now will also be able to cash out their money ….so it will be big whales game not for little fishes like me!
I think EntreCard should get a balanced system that guarntees all get what they deserve even if they are not so entrecard supportive.
April 10th, 2009 at 9:58 am
The largest weight in the algorithm should be given to those who accept the highest percentage of paid adverts.
After all, it is the paid adverts that allow people to cash out at all.
It would be rather selfish for people not to accept paid adverts and then to sell their credits for money they have not helped to earn.
I would go as far to say that the algorithm should be mostly based (if not entirely) upon acceptance of paid adverts.
The other aspects of the algorithm that have been mentioned are self-fulfilling. If you drop a lot then you will earn more by having more credits. If you sell stuff in the shop then you will profit from having more credits.
The sole arbiter should be, “Do you help fund Entrecard by accepting paid adverts?”
I accept 100% of paid adverts as a thank you to Entrecard. I have not seen one advert that offends me.
April 10th, 2009 at 9:59 am
I think that % of ads accepted should play less of a role. Members shouldn’t be forced into accepting bad quality ads just so that they can get their credits cashed out.
Because lets face it: a lot of the ads out there on Entrecard are just pathetic, and a disgrace to any high quality blog.
Nathan – Inkweaver Review
April 10th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Why not skip the algorithm altogether and create a free market in ECs. Allow people to sell EC’s at whatever price they are willing to take.
This way the exchange rate reaches a “natural” level.
This is how things work in the real world. You also find out exactly what value EC users and put on EC’s.
Surely this is more interesting than trying to force your valuation on the market. Something that will fail, because a black market is sure to open up.
If you allowed a real valuation for EC’s then there would be no queue.
April 10th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Well i think that’s quite fair to me. I will see on the next saturday how are the system running.
April 11th, 2009 at 1:08 am
What is up with these paid ads?????? I rejected them and then go to my blog and find crappy ads on my blog that I rejected and are totally inappropriate for my content. If this is going to be your policy I will leave entre card immediately!!!
A VERY UPSET almost former member,
Susan
April 11th, 2009 at 2:42 am
I accept 100% of paid adverts as a thank you to Entrecard. I have not seen one advert that offends me.
April 11th, 2009 at 9:07 am
What?!!? Is this math class NOW?! omg! It is so confusing what is going on here to the laymen like me here who are not up on all this tech jargon but are simply looking to spread the word about their sites,business,blogs,products and services. i think Entrecard should expand on the concept of a ‘FREE’ network similar to ‘Ubuntu’ soffware which i have on my lap top as opposed to Windows which costs money to load along with ‘Webroot’ for spyware which costs as opposed to FREE adware out there. I think most people here are artists,moms and entrepreneurs who don’t have deep pockets but possess the spirit and survival skills necessary in these troubled,unstable times. One no longer has job security and can not count on a pension or a gold watch when they reach retirement age. Instead, many who have given their lives to their companies, to have a home and a better life, are losing their jobs,being handed a pink slip,being replaced by younger,inexperienced, but ed ucated workers and are being kicked out of their homes! This is our reality today. Why i became an entrepreneur and i think is why many of YOU did too! Make Entrecard a different better social network symbolic of that ’spirit’ of CHANGE facing Americs NOW!
April 11th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I see that buying help improve who will be able to cash in some of the credits… What about people who sell will they get be getting the same consideration?
Also, is there a minimum ro maximum that can be cash in.
Personal I would think just capping the amount that can be cashed in each month per person (not per account) would give you better control.. Say 100,000 max a month…
But I don’t see the whole picture.
Chato
April 11th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
First of all, as others have pointed out, that’s NOT an algorithm. I know that much even though I haven’t taken a math class in more than 30 years.
Those are merely the factors you plan you use when you develop an algorithm which, if you have developed, you haven’t shared.
The only fair way to manage this service is quite simple: Allow dual widgets. Those who wish to participate in the paid advertising plan should be allowed to place a double widget on their site. They can cash out their credits all they want, advertise in the marketplace, sell crap, whatever . . . the rest of us can just go along happily, as we have been since Entrecard was founded. I don’t need the money and don’t have the time to get into all of the nonsense about paid adverts.
However, I am also not accepting any of the ads that I see popping up on my dashboard for a few basic reasons:
1) They have nothing whatsoever to do with the topics about which I write, so running them will do nothing to help promote my site and draw in readers;
2) Most of them are horrifically ugly and when I visit the site to check it out, the content is abominably bad. One site had a post that was so poorly drafted, I couldn’t even figure out what the other was trying to say. Not to mention that most of those sites are cluttered with ads for all kinds of crap and so poorly designed that i just hit the “X” at the top of my browser and promptly declined them.
3) Since this whole system was implemented, drops and advertising on my site came to a virtual standstill. I have more than 13,000 credits and I am thinking I will spend them quickly and move on because it is obvious that Graham, et al. have determined that this is how they want to make a living & the system they have devised may help them do that, but it will do nothing to benefit me or enhance readership of my site. I have a career . . . if this is theirs, perhaps we need to have a parting of the ways because their mysterious business plan does not appear to mesh with my blogging goals.
Just my thoughts . . . there’s no right or wrong in this . . . I’m just stating what is, sans judgment. except as to the crap ads they are trying to get me to run on my site.
April 11th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
That should read “author,” not other. Sorry.
April 11th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
@Hopeful you’re totally up to make your own decisions. we need to pay for our servers somehow, and are very thankful that some people help us do that, while simultaneously raising money to create an exchange. I hope that you at least stay open to approving a paid ad here or there that you enjoy. Most paid ads (approx ~80%) are from entrecard members with blogs, and thus are basically the same as the ads you approve anyway, just paid for with cash instead of credits.
@chato we’ll likely take many steps to ensure fairness. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up with a few of those.
@Ann we’re trying
the reason we’re doing this in the first place is to stay alive, so we can continue to connect bloggers and help you reach your goals. We need to pay for our servers somehow, and we feel that being able to give people money for their credits is, overall, a value-added feature.
@Glen you rock!
@Susan please visit the “advert settings” on your dashboard. Unless you specifically check off the box to approve all ads, ads will go through after 24 hours of not being approved or rejected. A rejected ad will never display, but an ad that wasn’t approved or denied after 24 hours of waiting will start running. There are “advert settings” to turn this off.
@DevilNoAngel keep an eye on us! This is a big move.
@Tim we are going to move as close to a free market as possible, but with the potential to abuse of the drop system, black markets and “farms” in the eastern world bottomed out the price of credits to about .25 cents per thousand, at which point it became clear that we needed to nationalize until further measures could be taken to safeguard proper issuance of credits.
@Nathan % of accepted ads must play a strong role, because that is where 100% of the money is coming from to pay for the credits we’re cashing out!
@Yesar: any little fish can start offering blog reviews, other forms of advertisements, diggs, stumbles, etc. in our market and become a big fish overnight.
April 11th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
About when can we cash out?
April 12th, 2009 at 12:08 am
Allow separate widgets. That’s all you have to do. People who do not have the money to spend on ads or want to go through a number of crap blogs about how you can make big bucks with some scheme don’t have to. And that’s something that should’ve been implemented from the start.
I have no EC ads in my queue. When I used to get 4-5 requests for ads, it’s now down to 1 every few days. And it all happened as soon as this new system started. I’d love to just accept EC ads, as you have suggested. But they’re just not there. It speaks volumes when there are EC members who are putting blog directories together of members who ONLY deal in EC creds. I’ve got no problems with people who want to deal in cash. But I have no desire to buy an ad or cash out, or to see hundreds of paid ads that are to me offensive or just plain ridiculously ugly or just a scheme. That’s why I truly believe two different widgets is the way to go.
I agree that there doesn’t seem to be a clear plan other than to make money. You’ve already made up your mind. And now you’re just riding it out, hoping people will just give up and assimilate.
April 12th, 2009 at 12:43 am
@nadia as easy as it may seem to just “build another widget” this actually costs thousands of dollars in development fees. And as you can see from http://entrecard.com/advertiser/stats we’ve only made a few hundred dollars from this, where’s as entrecarders have made nearly 2000$. we can maybe build a separate widget when we’ve made enough money to cover the cost of developing it, but we can’t just pull the money out of thin air to do that, as much as we’d like to
April 12th, 2009 at 2:00 am
In a real economy money is not made from thin air like credits in the EntreEconomy.
April 12th, 2009 at 3:13 am
@sixmats
What you’re describing is what’s called a fiat currency, and ever since the states abandoned the gold standard we’ve been printing currency out of thin air. It’s the American way. Call me old fashioned, traditional, what have you, but this is just how we do things here.
April 12th, 2009 at 4:34 am
After further thought (and seeing plenty of blogs where people proudly and selfishly announce on their blogs that they will not run paid-ads) the algorithm should be thus.
% of your credits you can cash out in a given week = % of paid-ads you have accepted during the given week
People not running paid-ads should not make a financial gain in any way.
I run 100% of pre-paids and have set up my account to auto-accept them. It’s the least I can do for a service that has doubled my readership.
However, I will not be cashing out 100% of my credits in week one. Credits are of value in more ways that just financial and keeping them to see if there is a price differential between paid and credit ads would be sensible.
April 12th, 2009 at 5:04 am
I don’t think that credits are “made from thin air”, as it is supported by the ability to purchase ads, as well as the purchasing value on the entrecard market.
As long as there are people willing to accept entrecredits and to trade it, it has value.
April 12th, 2009 at 6:29 am
So how much do you think that you can sell 1000 credits for right now on the open market?
@Graham I believe the United States of America to be the greatest nation on the planet but it has its flaws, and “States” is capitalized.
April 12th, 2009 at 6:43 am
It sounds like those of us who just come to drop EC cards and visit other sites are being forced out. I don’t want to buy or sell things in the marketplace and I don’t want to accept paid ads, so where does that leave me? Sigh…
April 12th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
@ James Says:
April 12th, 2009 at 4:34 am
After further thought (and seeing plenty of blogs where people proudly and selfishly announce on their blogs that they will not run paid-ads) the algorithm should be thus
/\ James I am one of those people not accepting paid ads at this point, what has proudly got to do with it and what has selfish got to do with it, there are many un informed people here that are very quick to pass judgment.
My reasons for not accepting paid ads in a personal one and is do not judge you for accepting them nor do you have the call to judge me.
Further to this I am a heavy ec advertiser and am growing in strength, I spend 100% of my credits earned on ec advertising, and in that i cover as many blogs as possible with that 100% of ec I have.
The paid ad network only covers 50% of the time, and I see people saying where are the ec ads for my blog, well they need to get there some how, second as i spend and do not hoard the ec in effect i am taxing out 75% value of these ec, this in turn raises the value of the ec portion you will cash out, meaning in effect the value you are paid is more because of this.
Lastly I will not be taking $ out of the system as I don’t need them, so maybe before you go calling people selfish you should think a little.
There is room for people to choose to remain ad free and for those who wish to use the paid ad network without throwing or casting stones.
I know when I advertise with my ec daily that i do not choose based on if that person is accepting paid ads or not as it makes no difference to me, I much prefer to look for well written, well laid out and active blogs that will will give me a return on my ad and not an advertising preference.
April 13th, 2009 at 2:11 am
I am excited my blog’s standing with this algorithm. I don’t have much EC credits anyway to sell so I am not mainly concerned about the selling out. I use my credits to buy ads, utilize it in the market as well as promotions but of course, if cash is needed, and we have this ready service here in EC, that would be amazing…. but first, I think I need to get in as being a “priority” by this algorithm…
April 13th, 2009 at 2:22 am
hey i thought entre was about to cash out last saturday.. finally when n how are you cashing out credits.. please lemme know…
being a top seller in market since launch.. i guess i will get priority for cash out… m i right?
April 13th, 2009 at 5:19 am
I have approved all paid ads for my blog, because I noticed that majority of these paid ads are blogs that belong to Entrecard anyhow. These are also the blogs that I usually drop on.
After I have approved all paid ads through clicking on the option through my adverts, the long queue of paid ads that has previously cluttered the right side of my dashboard are all gone now.
Sometimes, we do forget that it takes big money to run a site as enormous as this one; it would not hurt us if we give back something in return.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:40 am
Thinking of cashing out? Hmmm..still undecided. I just go with the flow. Not so active in dropping recently.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Maybe you reasoned that some people purchase credits, I think a message is being sent, cheaper ads then use the left over credits to buy stuff from the Market, I still feel lack of transparency and you can’t punish those who won’t take that ad
April 15th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
How about we making a pool which system is useful? And whether to include ads, we need to separate the paid ads? It is useless to pointing finger and strike.
I got more than 15000 but i dont know what to do with it. Anyone got idea how I gonna spend it?
April 16th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Slightly on another topic – there is a bug in the system – Paid Ads that are waiting for my approval/rejection still appear on my blog. Very annoying! They only disappear when I actually reject them. And I’m sure I’m not getting credit for the time they appear on my blog (in error) before I have hit “Approve” or “Reject.”
April 16th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
So I want to turn all of my credits in for actual cash in my pay pal account. Now. How do I turn in my 20,000 credits? I see no link and no explanation of how to turn them in for money.
How do I turn them in for cash?
April 17th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
The percentage of paid ads accepted has no bearing on the benefit that the advertiser receives for their advertising dollars.
If no one reading your site is interested in the advertiser displayed, the advertiser is not going to increase their views or products sold or what-have-you because you accepted the ad on your site. Bloggers know the audience of their own site and should not be penalized by helping advertisers receive more value by only displaying relevant ads.
April 17th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I just read that 1000 credits=$1 How lame is that? Initially Graham wrote it would be worth more like $10. so I sold my earrings in the market place for 1000 credits so I could cash in later..now totally not worth it and i will be removing my ads from the market place as it costs $8 to make them! They sell normally for $22. as are gemstone with sterling silver. I am really disgusted and disappointed.
-Ann
April 17th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
That is the problem with this whole idea that having cash value for credits will encourage the marketplace to expand. That would be true IF there was a fixed rate of exchange, but with a floating rate of exchange vendors have no idea at what price they are selling goods and buyers have no idea at what price they are buying goods.
There is no way that the marketplace can function with the idea of credits=$$ because, as Ann points out, there are real costs associated with some products and those costs have to be recovered + a profit to make the marketplace useful for anyone selling physical goods or services that require a large investment of time/resources.
April 18th, 2009 at 3:12 am
There seems to be loads of comments praising the sellout of credits and just as many who are against it.
I really can say that since the launch of paid ads, my advertisers is almost null. I get one maybe every week or so.
My site use to cost over 100 credits to advertise, but has dropped down to 16. This has made me think more about if I should even use EC or not.
EC users are using more paid ads than advertising. It would be nice if we could maybe get 5 EC for every paid ad accepted. That would at least me us users are getting something instead of nothing.
Just a thought.
April 18th, 2009 at 6:14 am
Yes, 1,000 EC = $1 is absolutely lame. I’m thinking to remove EC altogether from all my blogs.
April 19th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Dear Graham,
Why my credits do not increase when I accept advertise by credits . I noted that before and after approval of advertisement my credit score of ec remained same it did not increase by 32 as it is mentioned that 32 ec to advertise on this site .What could be the posssible reason for that .Please expalin me in details regarding this .
thanks,
anisha
April 19th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Dear Graham,
If I want to purchase 1000 credits from system than I have to pay $6 .So why you are paying only $ 1 for redemption of thousand credits.
Means you are charging 6 times more for purchase from system then doing redemption to system.
You told that you are to give 75% of your earning to entrecarders ,but here we see that it is just 13% .Please expalin it ,
thanks,
anisha
April 20th, 2009 at 1:54 am
I belive that people who should get the most money should have a priority. Someone who’s spent countless hours working on those couple hundred dollars certainly deserves them more than some kid who just approved couple ads and made like 5$.
April 20th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
EC has value or it doesn’t how can you put a different value on something because of the actions of the owner. If ec’s are going to be worth something then they should be worth the same amount to all, not how much you drop, how many contests you have, if you pick your nose if you are white, black or martian……….. Make a stand.
April 20th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Well Graham and team.
. Now the forum is closed for those who are not able to pay for EC’s I’m proved right in that it’s only money you’re interested in.
It’s even more interesting because the freedom of speech is limited.
quote:
“The rules for the new structure will be:
You must be an entrecard member.
You must have purchased 400 ads
The only all user area will be community support. Anything that is not a valid community support thread will be deleted.
From here forward there will be no bashing of any kind.”
You’re mistaking a real interest to keep entrecard alive for bashing?
Well, some people can’t deal with honesty.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Hi
I looked in on the forums for the first time last weekend and they were just being taken over by flamers who are not even Entrecard members. It was obvious they did not have the best interests of either Entrecard or the members at heart.
It was making a really bad demoralising atmosphere and I was quite upset to see it happening.
So I think Entrecard has had no choice but to implement these new rules to protect the community and the company.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:06 am
Why ?
Why bother with all this
Why not decide that you’re going to buy back a certain amount of EC’s and first in first serve .
Then have a lull where no buy back and then commence again.
There are peple such as myself that was consistent dropping but due to outside reasons I am no longer doing so. Why should I be penalised ?
I was a reasonably good dropper and I always accepted most ads
April 21st, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Jill’s point would be valid if the only requirement for the new forums was that you were an Entrecard member. However, forcing users to wait until they have bought 400 ads before being able to introduce themselves in the forums or chat with other users or discuss Entrecard policy is overboard.
This blog hasn’t been updated in 2 weeks, but lots of issues have come up that people need to know about (like the insecure cash out form which has now been secured) that only get addressed in the forum that is now hidden.
Has the exchange rate for ECs changed to $2? Who knows? Those are the things that were addressed in the forum that I can no longer see.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Graham appears to have left the building.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:48 am
How long will it take to be approved for the cashout program?
Thanks.
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:28 pm
My comment is about the forum, what the heck was happen? I want to post a question why a paid ads showing up in my blog eventhough I didn’t approved anything?I cancell every single freakin ads, but still showing up,what’s up with that,what’s the use of approved/cancell option if it didn’t work? and what’s up with the private forum,forum is supposed to be public, if you want to discuss private matter, why not call a meeting?
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Way are ads showing up on my blog that I did not approve. This has gone far enough.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:17 am
Still not approved for cashout but I do get requests for paid ads!
April 24th, 2009 at 2:16 am
Dear Graham,
I know that you might be busy but atleast I can expect some answer from your side for the querries posted earlier by me so that I also can be satisfied that everything is going well and there is nothng to hype.With this querry also solution will come many of the bloggers querry so clear this querry as early as possible.
Reply to my comment no 67 and 68 as early as possible.
I am accepting all paid adds and all credit adds also above all am dropping more than 70 cards/day currently,
waiting for your clarification ,
thanks,
anisha
April 24th, 2009 at 8:56 am
I think we need a bit more transparency in the process than this. We need to know for certain that no money will go to werewolves, and that all of their credits will be put into “stamp out werewolves” contests.
April 27th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I realise you’ve got a cash issue at the moment but EVERYONE who is approving paid ads should be given priority. After all, these people are paying you to place these ads and the blogs that they are appearing on may or may not get money for them… Very strange in my opinion.
Also my CashOut application has been in waiting for weeks and weeks now which is not too impressive.
April 28th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Those who have ads appearing even though they’ve cancelled them all:
Do you have any EC ads running? The reason I ask is if you don’t have any ads running (EC or paid), then Entrecard runs “internal” Entrecard-related ads on your widget. You will always have some kind of ad running; there is no option to just display your own ad when there are no ads in the queue. At least that is my impression from the ad settings page.
I’d post this in the forums, but even if I could get in, the people who need help can’t.
May 2nd, 2009 at 11:47 am
Dear Graham,
What’s wrong with your system and why you have stopped replying to people.Why I did not get reply to my querry .Can anybody help me out in this matter.
I am not getting a single credit deposited in my account when somebody purchases add by ec credits from me .
Please let me know if anybody gets credit points where it is mentioned that 64 ec to purchase add so do you get that much credit deposited in your account .
I never got it so I just wanted to get out myself cleared from it.Please anybody if can help me out,
thanks in advance
May 4th, 2009 at 8:55 am
how Can I cashout my 2300 points
julius
http://www.sportsblogph.com
May 8th, 2009 at 2:00 am
Look at me, I approved the paid ads no matter how crazy they were and supported this so called economy. But I my cashout application was DECLINED. They said the info I gave was incorrect and incomplete? How come?! I answered the form truthfully and carefully? Must be because I live in the Philippines, huh? Well here’s some news Entrecard, the info that you require is different from US residents and NON-US residents. Unfortunately, I am not from the US. Therefore, the info that I could give you is NOT THE SAME as the info a regular US-based Entrecarder can give.
After months of staying here, helping “the economy”, abiding the rules, all I can take away now is the fun of meeting other bloggers in different parts of the world. That’s all. And it’s simple. I think I can do this somewhere else. thanks but no thanks Entrecard.
May 12th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Where can we see the algorithm now? AM curious to check my own status…or is it invisible^?
May 12th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
@Vikki,
How did you get the notification that your application was declined?
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:41 pm
[...] Until now, I have been content with my Entrecard experience to simply visit new blogs, evaluate them, revisit the ones I like and ignore the ones I don’t. All the while, I’ve been growing a small base of regular visitors to the Ultimate Blogging Toolkit, experiencing a wonderful variety of new blogs and building a balance of Entrecard Credits (ECs). With my newly acquired and safety net in my EIN, I am now ready for the Cashout Program. [...]
June 10th, 2009 at 3:53 am
So, when will this kind of thing again happen?