I think that non-blogger accounts are a very interesting idea, though I wonder how much interest it will generate. You can’t get much stuff on the market unless you have several thousand ECs, and many services on the market now are blogger-specific: advertising, diggs, stumbles etc. Even if the general account holder drops to the limit every day (which I doubt anyone would want to do – who visits 300 blogs a day?!), it will take a very long time before they would be able to buy anything useful on the market.

I do think it’s a cool idea and am interested in hearing more details about this as it develops. It would be a good way for readers to discover new blogs, I think. Maybe you could implement a recommendation system, recommending blogs that are similar to the ones the reader has already dropped on? Based on favorites, or drops, or something like that.

I dont see the value in it for those of us with cards unless there is some sort of outreach by Entrecard to pull in the targeted group somehow. The last deal offered allowing us to earn credits by completing offers is horrible. I started one offer that kept directing me to more and more “offers”. I quit after thirty minutes, with no end in sight. The bad part is they got my info and started calling me on the phone before I could get off the internet. I got nothing for my time. This time, it sounds like a way for Entrecard to maybe appeal to a group of readers with the card droppers getting nothing as well.

Here’s a suggestion on more incentivizing of Entrecard. Find another method besides penalizing (removing EC credits from an account) when the system goes goofy, and respond to customer support tickets.

I reference the three page long post currently running in the forums.

I think you’ll have to offer more incentive to these people for it to work. Marketplace items tend to be fairly limited in scope.

That said, I think there’s potential here.

EC has the infrastructure setup. I say you should create another widget (maybe a blue one or something) for non-blog webpages (that accept paid blogs from the beginning). That would expand the scope of the system. I’d also create a different widget for blogs that accepted paid ads too. It may be more work, but it would certainly be the way to go IMO.

These non-yellow widgets would be the ones that got cashouts. The old yellow-widget system could then be left in place for people who just wanted drops, as it used to be.

I guess it depends upon your final objective for EC tho.

The general accounts I think could be of benefit to all the blogging community. In the very least it will encourage us to be better writers to keep readers returning to our blogs. At the other end of the spectrum any EC’s spent in the marketplace will support Entrecard on the whole with improvements and further development.

Hello Graham,

a further development was already announced on 1st of may.

“We will raise the price for the cashout soon up from the original 1$/1000 EC”.

Hmm, at the moment we only see creating more ECs by new offers and by creating these general accounts.

How can you be sure that these “general account” members really read the blogs? Do they have to answer questions about the content of the blog, post a comment or something like that?

When they really only could spend their credits in the market what should they buy? There are more or less only things available for blog owners (widget creation, favorite in social bookmarking, Ad space).

Chris,

If you have been following the blog lately, you’d be aware that we are no longer in a state of inflation. We are now deflating nicely. 200,000 credits are removed every day from the cashout service, 250,000 are removed every day from the ad tax, and about 300,000 are created daily from drops. So net-net, the economy is deflating by 150,000 credits per day, or there abouts.

I guess I do not understand why there seems to be a constant need for inventing a new idea. There are ways to make money all over the internet that are tested and work. The many failed attempts make people lose faith. I just do not think there is a customer base for such ideas.

I also do not understand why there are still no ads on the toolbar. The toolbar has a big empty space on the right side. People see the toolbar more than anything else. I would think blogs would pay good money to be on the toolbar.

Entrecard users like the service and I think most people understand that if Entrecard can not make money it could cease to exist. I think that people would rather have a few inconveniences rather than lose Entrecard.

Is there a way to have the toolbar load a “paid sponsor blog” after toolbar users have hit a certain amount of drops?

I just think that everyone needs to remember that the majority of people that use Entrecard do so because it is free and they will not go along with anything that costs money.

Dear Graham,
Interesting newbie by you ,but not you think this will stop the linkage between the bloggers and furthermore earning credits to purchase stuff from entrecard market means they cannot purchase most of the things.
Is the purpose of this thing to increase traffic one way to the entrecard and also to sponsor market.

I think you need to make some modifications to make it more usefull.,
anisha

i’m still waiting for answers to my emails, i tried cashing out 30k in credits, and nothing.

emailed, no response.

i stopped dropping all together.

now there’s movement forward? At the cost of many of us that still have no response? this is getting ridiculous.

@Graham will you still have the accounts as they are now, or will you get rid of the blogger/publisher accounts, and make it all General accounts?

I agree with sir jorge with no feedback with the cashout system.

I cashed out 11,000 on 6/05 and nothing yet. I have emailed, logged a ticket (HUW-168431), posted comments, sent feedback from admin panel and still nothing.

I don’t know if anyone is interested at all. Some small message back to me would be great. I’m almost at a stage where I might just drop EC altogether.

I’m looking forward to seeing some of these changes.