Number one, the most immediately glaring flaw: If you paid 400ec for an ad under the old system to get about 100 or so back, it was fair and kept out an unnecessarily high amount of credits.

When you pay 1,024ec for the exact same flipping ad and get back all of the exact same flipping 100ec, it doesn't seem to be worth it.

Number two: Under the old system, at least it required a degree of effort to get a high ad price. Even John Chow doing nothing got in only the low hundreds, and the high droppers like Saphrym got in the 600 range. Now, say hello to Problogger getting in the high thousands for not doing a thing!

Number three: From the EC blog, "While your individual drops may be falling - changes in the way the categories are browsed will mean a bit of instability there...". Instability because THE NAVIGATION IS HELL.

Really, the old one did what this version is doing but without a maximum price tab, which brings this point back to pricing:

Hm, looking at some of the ad prices now - and they won't drop THAT much, 2x2 ten times is still a hell of a lot more then the highest price on the old system - did you ever wonder why you didn't need that on the old system? You can get 600ec in two days on the old one, which which buy an ad on a top blog. What in hell's name can we do now with 600ec? Buy an ad on some cheap-ass site that will give you about 20ec back?

Really, I had absolutely NO TRAFFIC WHATSOEVER on my old blog, and without even dropping a damn thing I got ten ads all the time simply because my blog was cheap and gave back as many ec as it took, about all of twenty, so it didn't really matter, it might bring back a visitor of the twenty that happens to subscribe - now it charges 1024ec for WHAT?

From the EC blog again:

"Remember that the price your blog will spend most of its time at, is the price unit one higher than people are willing to pay. So if you spend almost all your time on 1024ec, your blog valuation by the community in general is 512ec - that’s what they’re willing to consistently pay for your spot."

512ec? Great, that's a great flipping return. The old system tended to lean to the popular bloggers but now they'll flipping RUN Entrecard. Yes, it's too early to pay attention to these numbers, so we can expect now to get one or two ads on the smaller blogs in a little while. Great.

Number four: 75% of 1024 is 256. That was what it took to advertise on a medium blog before! The 75% tax is still as ridiculous and unneedingly, unfairly high as it ever was, but 256? At least it was all-out unfair before, now it doesn't mean a damn thing!

Number five: Can you say "shop price increase"?

Number six: EC blog: "However over all the ad pricing is clearly affordable, we have a significant increase in ad purchases today vs the same time yesterday"

Yeah, because the ads WERE TWO FLIPPING CREDITS! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN IN A COUPLE OF DAYS?

I can't continue, if any EC admin (all two of you) feel like responding, go ahead.

Users, of course, feel free to disagree with me in an exceedingly angry way.

Good summary of concerns.

1. Advertising on EC was never, from our perspective, about the return in credits. Advertising has always been about getting your name and card out there, and getting people back to visit your blog. If users in general were relying on the return in credits via drops, then it will no doubt reflect in the new valuations.
2. Advertising prices will now better reflect your overall value to Entrecarders, we firmly believe that this is still pretty much representative of your participation int he community, but also reflects your involvement in the wider 'net and the effort you put into your blog.
3. I can't really respond to Navigation is hell :) we've had good feedback on the new browser, but it's not perfect, I welcome suggestions.
4. 25% of 1024 is 256, yes, and is 2 queue steps away. If you assume, as we are, that prices will stabilize over the next day or two, there is time for the medium blogs to return to the 256 range for their value.
5. Not sure what you're trying to say regarding the shop prices, I presume they will modify in value somewhat depending on the outcome of the valuations.
6. In a couple of days, we expect the prices to have returned to a rational level, with a reasonably accurate valuation, including some sites which will once again be two flipping credits. The prices will drop if people decide they can't afford the spots, and the prices across the board will stabilize. We anticipate a mild increase in advertising overall.

There's something wrong with the fact that the top blogs aren't easy to find. I miss being able to read left to right from the highest to the lowest. The Most Popular sites are simply the Most Dropped On, why not call them that? Wouldn't all of this be hella confusing to you if you were new and saw there were "Most Popular" blogs and then three pages later blogs that were "More Expensive" blogs?

It used to be Most Popular were Most Expensive, that made sense in my mind. I think you need new words. Like Most Drops Received maybe?

ily, what's to disagree with?

the admins and the Kool Aid drinkers all say "the prices will stabilize" (whatever that means, I guess stabilize higher). but why would they? even if they go down, when someone then buys an ad, the price doubles again. tell me, do you love the number 2?

please, don't go reading in some tone here. this doesn't make me mad, it makes me laugh. put simply, no product should (or does) double in price every time one is purchased. hell, if that were the case, I'd have retired long ago after a couple weeks on a paper route. :]

question: what is this new system based on? not "how does it work" but who thought doubling prices would make them go down?

[put simply, no product should (or does) double in price every time one is purchased.]

Quoted for truth!

Why can't we have a Project Wonderful Highest Bidder gets the Ad Box like system?

Regards,

Deimos Tel`Arin (DTA) @ ahkong.net

|1. Advertising on EC was never, from our perspective, about the return in credits. Advertising has always been about getting your name and card out there, and getting people back to visit your blog. If users in general were relying on the return in credits via drops, then it will no doubt reflect in the new valuations.|

Okay, applicable enough.

|2. Advertising prices will now better reflect your overall value to Entrecarders, we firmly believe that this is still pretty much representative of your participation int he community, but also reflects your involvement in the wider 'net and the effort you put into your blog.|

Care to explain how it's a representation of participation? Here's a hint; it's not so much a representation of participation as it is a representation of whether or not your blog is featured in cheapest: http://entrecard.com/category/browser

|3. I can't really respond to Navigation is hell :) we've had good feedback on the new browser, but it's not perfect, I welcome suggestions.|

And that might have even had a chance of being a valid response if you had put a response for the other six paragraphs of number three.

|4. 25% of 1024 is 256, yes, and is 2 queue steps away. If you assume, as we are, that prices will stabilize over the next day or two, there is time for the medium blogs to return to the 256 range for their value.|

I DON'T assume that prices will stabilize. I'll paste the other 'part' of No.3 that you missed again:

"*Really, the old one did what this version is doing but without a maximum price tab, which brings this point back to pricing:

Hm, looking at some of the ad prices now - and they won't drop THAT much, 2x2 ten times is still a hell of a lot more then the highest price on the old system - did you ever wonder why you didn't need that on the old system? You can get 600ec in two days on the old one, which which buy an ad on a top blog. What in hell's name can we do now with 600ec? Buy an ad on some cheap-ass site that will give you about 20ec back?

Really, I had absolutely NO TRAFFIC WHATSOEVER on my old blog, and without even dropping a damn thing I got ten ads all the time simply because my blog was cheap and gave back as many ec as it took, about all of twenty, so it didn't really matter, it might bring back a visitor of the twenty that happens to subscribe - now it charges 1024ec for WHAT?

From the EC blog again:

"Remember that the price your blog will spend most of its time at, is the price unit one higher than people are willing to pay. So if you spend almost all your time on 1024ec, your blog valuation by the community in general is 512ec - that’s what they’re willing to consistently pay for your spot."

512ec? Great, that's a great flipping return. The old system tended to lean to the popular bloggers but now they'll flipping RUN Entrecard. Yes, it's too early to pay attention to these numbers, so we can expect now to get one or two ads on the smaller blogs in a little while. Great.*"

|5. Not sure what you're trying to say regarding the shop prices, I presume they will modify in value somewhat depending on the outcome of the valuations.|

Somewhat? Well, I'll wait and see if anything happens, I have no real proof but a slight theory to back this one up, so let's skip it.

|6. In a couple of days, we expect the prices to have returned to a rational level, with a reasonably accurate valuation, including some sites which will once again be two flipping credits. The prices will drop if people decide they can't afford the spots, and the prices across the board will stabilize. We anticipate a mild increase in advertising overall.|

With a response like that, who needs a counter?

But here goes: Even if it does "stabilize" magically, you pretty much answered my own concern: THE TWO CREDITS. Before, could be any amount of credits. Now it's set? Of COURSE THEY CAN'T AFFORD THE PRICES. Double two ten times is more then most ECers have! We used to just be able to drop, spend, lather rinse repeat, but now for those huge sites that will dominate the ad market (number three, the response-less one) it'll take forever to save up. If, with this new system, you can even manage to get above any high amount. In case you haven't noticed, 1024-2048 is quite a big gap, and double that? Forget it.

A Highest Bidder scheme would only be good if everybody was online 24/7 to buy ads, many people come on for an hour or per day to drop and run. So how would it work?

|A Highest Bidder scheme would only be good if everybody was online 24/7 to buy ads, many people come on for an hour or per day to drop and run. So how would it work?|

The exact same thing applies to all bidding-based things like that. You think most people on eBay can stay there for all six days until the auction ends? Or that people just take five minutes out of their day every thirty minutes to check on their PW ads status? Bid the highest price you're willing to pay.

I still like the old system more, but, hell, I'll take a bidding system over this any day of the week if EC feels so compelled.

I still prefer the old system aswell but we need to give this system a chance and voice our opinions when the new pricing has settled down, Maybe admin will reconsider the ad purchase price at a later date, I think the jumps are too big, Doubling the price is way over the top.

|I still prefer the old system aswell but we need to give this system a chance and voice our opinions when the new pricing has settled down, Maybe admin will reconsider the ad purchase price at a later date, I think the jumps are too big, Doubling the price is way over the top.|

Hopefully this will make your quote orange. :( I just noticed it didn't on the first one, if this works I'll edit the others so that it can be read easier.

EDIT: Yay! It worked.

But, yes, I will voice even MORE of an opinion when the dust and blood has settled, but for the meantime I'm content with concerns so I won't have to deal with it for much longer hopefully. I can dream, right?

Sorry that this is an irrelevant reply but those why is every posting so long replies:)

The constant thread through this seems to be the belief that the blogs will always be unaffordable. That simply can't be true - if they're unaffordable for everyone generally one day, they'll drop on the next, that's the beauty of the idea.

For those complaining that they'll never be able to afford particular blogs, once it has stabilized, these will probably be the same blogs you could never get advertising on before because their queue was always full. The difference now is that if you decide to, you can save your credits and be guaranteed to get a spot, rather than attempting to play games waiting for the hole in the queue and racing it (something you can still do now, if you want).

The new system is simply better overall. You can still work hard and get your ad price to increase, but now the work you do on your blog counts just as much as the work you do on Entrecard - the value reflects not just the number of drops you're likely to get, but the buyers assessment of how much your blog can help them as well.

I can see the averages across the whole system here, and they're dropping smoothly from the high we got yesterday - the average has dropped 200ec in the last 24 hours. It's not showing any sign of slowing down yet, and that's simply sensible, demand has slacked off, prices will drop. Eventually, they will hit a point where they're generally affordable again, and they will reach equilibrium.

If this equilibrium point is too high vs reasonable earning from dropping, then we'll do something about it. We do not intend to leave people unable to afford ads. It is simply too early to make that kind of intervention, when we have not yet let the system reach stability.

"If this equilibrium point is too high vs reasonable earning from dropping"

I think this is the concern, and a valid one.

A 2EC blog will generate ad buying because they are cheap, and then overnight they won't be cheap. But these blogs will still not give you eyeballs on your ad.

A popular blog with good traffic, say problogger, will always be expensive and potentially out of reach because it will always be full of ads. You'll have to buy credits to get in or drop 300 a day for weeks.

With this new scenario, the low traffic blogs and the high traffic blogs are not as easily distinguished from each other.

Before it was traffic = higher price (even if the traffic was entretraffic)

Now it is ad demand = higher price (which has no direct connection to traffic)

And that, slacker heaven, means you need to actually VISIT the blog and make your own assessment of it's quality, ad position etc.

Phirate hit it on the nail. Nothing more to add to it.

I'm waiting to see if any ads will be priced at below 16 or 32 EC for more than a minute or two. The browser search feature that allows for a search by cheapest allows folks to bottom fish and just hope they get a few clicks.

I had to kick myself last night when I realized I have a classic case of Entrecard tunnel vision and have gotten caught up in the idea that clicks from one's ad mean a whole lot, without factoring how attractive one's ad is. For example, I'd click on Marcus' card just to find out more about the girl sooner than I would click on my own card. We talk about click rates as if we have a level playing field, but honestly, some cards are more enticing to click on than others.

@Entrecarder... yep. I just had to go visit Ferox's site because of his big cat widget. It could be a blog about SEO and other things that make my head explode, but I had to visit. Since it ISN'T about SEO and other things that make my head explode, I'm delighted. :)

"The new system is simply better overall. You can still work hard and get your ad price to increase, but now the work you do on your blog counts just as much as the work you do on Entrecard - the value reflects not just the number of drops you're likely to get, but the buyers assessment of how much your blog can help them as well."

Sorry to contradict you, but the above simply is not true.

When you implemented the new structure, I had many 1,000's of credits, earned through a combination of selling ads here, selling ad blocks on my site, and dropping cards. I was able to purchase ads regularly on high quality sites. (I have no interest in some of the ones that had zillion credit price tags, but was paying up to 400 per ad.) I run a high quality blog with well-written content -- of that I am 1000% confident -- and my ad price was always fluctuating in the 250-350 range which was more than respectable. I have NEVER been without an ad on my widget, i.e., there has never been a time when my widget was displaying my own ad because no one had purchased advertising from me.

I now have 693 credits. My price is fluctuating between 256 and 512 credits per ad. So I would appear to be one of those people whose ad price is allegedly "stabilizing." I am continuing to drop -- usually around 100-200 cards per day.

But do you notice anything in those facts? Here's the problem: I HAVE NO CREDITS WITH WHICH TO BUY ANY MORE ADVERTISING BECAUSE OF THE INEQUALITIES BUILT INTO YOUR NEW SYSTEM.

In addition to the ad currently on my widget, I have EIGHT lined up and ready to roll after that.

So you're going to have to explain to me once again how this is going to "stabilize" because what I see is that I have NO ABILITY to participate in this system in the manner I had been up until you changed the whole process. I am pretty much cooked. Done. Over and out with this.

And I am NOT alone. I am confident that my situation mirrors that of many other A-list, high quality, regularly participating sites.

Forgot what it has done to those who are newer, draw less visitors and had fewer credits when you changed the rules of the game without asking the players if that would be agreeable with them.

"If this equilibrium point is too high vs reasonable earning from dropping, then we'll do something about it. We do not intend to leave people unable to afford ads. It is simply too early to make that kind of intervention, when we have not yet let the system reach stability."

Here's my summation: The equilibrium point is too high. You need to put the old system back in place before it is too late. Intervention is already needed and if you don't see that, I suspect the blogosphere will shortly be filled with headlines along the lines of "Entrecard: The Death of the Golden Goose."

I predict that your own new system will be your undoing. You had a great thing going but like so many tragic cases throughout history: You just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you?

JHS

@Rant

Um. I do visit a blog before I advertise. Doing that will only weed out the obvious splogs and blogs that were just started last night. There are tons of nice looking sites here with little traffic.

The ad price used to be another indicator of traffic (yes again, maybe only entretraffic, but it was still eyeballs and exposure)

My gripe is now that seems to be gone.

That, and the ability to afford an ad on a decent site. Sigh.

Pirate,

you assume people want their ad price to go up. well, before we wanted our price to go up only because a higher ad price was a by product of more in drops, etc. now, the price is simply set to double when purchased. see the difference?

what you have done is to have "gamed" the advertising system.

please, we don't need to be patronized about "working" on our sites. content mattered before, matters now, and always will matter. you aren't helping me take better photos by screwing up your pretty good site.

@slacker I agree with you and what somebody else way up above this said -- the only way you are going to get on the A-list sites now is to buy credits. Granted a lot of us here won't do that, but there are people who will, so their price isn't ever going to drop to the point that we regular users are ever going to able to have our ad there. At least before it was a little luck and having enough credits at the time.

Seems to me that stabilize is the key word. Means very little to me at this point, as I feel the new system is simply not going to work-period. I have to agree with Colloquium on most of the points that were brought up.

I don't know but how much harder does one have to work? I had saved a lot of my credits like I usually do to mass purchase. I usually do advertise on the sites I like without a problem. Now, though they are so expensive that I am sad to say it would wipe my credits out completely to advertise on those sites.

When the issue of the 600 IP came up I told a few other ecer's that it was like entrecard was trying to shoot their selves in the foot. The only communication is by visiting the forum which many people do not do as they do not like forums. No notification of any of the new structures were explained to members. Like some dirty secret only a few were in on. That was and still is not right. People are confused and dazed. Angry and disillusioned. Like I said before, a mass notice to all members could have, no should have been sent. If you can take the time to stabilize one thing stabilize your members and how they feel. One notice could have been sent to everyone's in box.

Like the new system? Nope. I'll continue to drop but in regards to all the other changes I just do not see it as working.

Phirate, How would you know that the system has stabilized?

The way I see this, the new system will help blogs that are already popular gain more traffic if they use Entrecard. For the less popular blogs (but with high quality content), it would take some time for them to build up traffic outside of Entrecard system before Entrecard starts driving traffic to them.

So in summation, if you already have high traffic, Entrecard can help drive a few hundred more visitors to your site. This traffic is probably not that valuable to you. If on the other hand, if you do not have high traffic, Entrecard will not help. In either case, Entrecard will become irrelevant to most blog authors. It appears that Entrecard will probably work well only for the blogs that drive respectable but not high traffic.

I am sure the prices will stabilize. What I am afraid of is that the prices will stabilize for ALL blogs in the system very close to one another, probably in the 128-512 range, if the system is only relevant for middle of the road blogs. Even at this level the advertisement activity on the system will drop off significantly. I think in retrospect the older system would appear to be a stroke of genius

@NY

Exactly. A higher ad price meant you got decent traffic, that you were popular. You got popular by buying lots of ads so people (entre and non entre would click on you), and by dropping to encourage recip drops and by having a decent, interesting site that others would want to visit and advertise on.

It was easy to understand, and had an attainable goal to work towards.

Now a few tweaks were in order to stop scammers, but it now seems like the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater because of a few.

Well, I'll wait for everything to "stabilize".

In the meantime, anyone wanna take predictions on how long it will take until EC dies because of this new pricing scheme? Anyone? Anyone?

I'll give it two weeks.

But since I just realized that this is way off topic too, I'll close it myself and save Phirate the trouble.

No more opinions! Stop posting.

I'm glad I've already sold 3000ecs weeks ago. I kinda felt something like this was going to happen.

ily, yes, a funny thing happened on the video blogging tour to Silicon Valley...

seems to me what the new system really does is simply makes it harder to buy so far in advance. I Think the highest someone actually paid for my spot in the new system was 128 but by the time it caught up my Price was 2048. I don't for a nanosecond believe anyone is going to pay That and the real question is at what price point will I again get bids. some blogs will get the 512, some will get the 256, etc. until the dust settles there is no way of knowing what prices people will actually pay for what spots and not yet time to panic about affordability

Regarding how we'll know when it stabilizes, we'll know because the average ad price will stop falling. It was 520 earlier today, it's now 425. The average queue length has fallen from over 7 to 6. I expect it to stop falling within two full ad rotations. It's not easy to predict where it will fall, if it falls too high, we will take action.