Hello

By Casey | November 11, 2008

Hey guys! Remember me? Unfortunately, it has been a month since I last posted. I deeply apologize for that as I’ve just been busy and a little uninterested in posting. I’m still alive and I should not have waited this long for another post, so I’m sorry for that as well.

At the moment I am having trouble gathering inspiration for writing new posts. I usually experience this every once in a while but then I get over it in about a week. This is has not been the case this time however.

I am considering selling EntreBlast if there are interested buyers and the price is right. EntreBlast has achieved an alexa ranking of under 120,000, a Google Pagerank of 2, and 70 RSS subscribers. If you are interested in buying EntreBlast, please contact me via the contact page. If I do sell EntreBlast, the new owner will receive a generous amount of Entrecard credits to help kickstart EntreBlast again.

If someone is interested in writing for EntreBlast (posting news, tips, contests, etc) you can also contact me. In return you’ll receive links and free advertising on EntreBlast.

We will see what happens as I hope EntreBlast will become active again. EntreBlast has a lot of potential to be a useful and helpful blog.

Two Entrecard Contests - Winners Announced

By Casey | October 14, 2008

Check the Entrecard blog for the winners of the Traffic Quality and Outage Giveaway Bash blogging contests that went on early last week. Maritiza is the big winner taking home (well, at least to the dashboard) 30,000 ECs. There were 13 total winners between both contests, with well over 100,000 ECs given away. Wow!

To recap, the Entrecard Traffy Quality contest was blogging about why you like Entrecard traffic. It was supposed to be announced last Friday, but it was decided to announce both sets of winners together. The Outage Giveaway Bash was about choosing one of your favorite Entrecard bloggers and blogging about them.

Congratulations to the winners!

Introducing Entrecard Weekly Roundup

By Casey | October 4, 2008

Another weekly event here on EntreBlast is called the Entrecard Weekly Roundup. Every Saturday (well, almost every Saturday, depending whether Entrecard is busy or not) I’ll summarize what’s been going on in the Entrecard community, from new blog posts to hot forum discussions. The goal here is to give you the latest Entrecard news in a tidbit post.

This week was super busy at Entrecard- a new partnership, economic system changes, and Graham giving out free ECs like crazy!

Changes in Entrecard Economy

Eight changes have been made regarding the economy of Entrecard. The shop is closed temporarily, selling credits is not allowed, and there is now a tax and cap on EC transfers. Visit this post to learn more:  New Entrecard Economy Changes.

Entrecard is NOT Being Sold

After an overwelming response to the listing of Entrecard on sitepoint by Graham, he has decided not to sell Entrecard. I think it’s the right descision because Entrecard is something Graham is truly passionate about. Instead, he plans to continue heading thus huge community and furthur improve it. An insight into this can be seen from the latest changes involving the Entrecard economy.

Entrecard Partners with OIOPublisher

With the latest 2.0 release of OIOPublisher, Entrecard has been integrated into the ad serving plugin. This means you can now pay with Entrecard credits for ads depending if the seller has activated it. This is so far the best site Entrecard has teamed up with to bring a useful feature. OIOPublisher is just $47, and most people make that up and more with the plugin. You can buy a header ad spot for just 4000 ECs/month on EntreBlast now!

Free Entrecard Credits in the Forums

Graham has been on a free Entrecard credits spree lately on the forums. Quite a few threads have been posted recently titled, “first person to reply to this thread gets x,xxx credits”. The amount of ECs have varied from 1,000 ECs to even 3,000 and although most have been found in the community section, they have been spotted in other sections as well.

Graham is Homeless

Another topic in the Community Entrecard forums is Graham’s current home- or lack of. The gap between his old apartment and his new place is 5 days. Instead of staying at a hotel, he’s been camping out on the beach. Recently Graham was even attacked by a sea lion! Only one more day to go, you can do it Graham!

Whew! One of the busiest weeks at Entrecard certainly! That’s your news for this week! What do you think of this new feature here?

Entrecard Economy Change - Transfer Limits

By Casey | October 1, 2008

You cannot transfer more than 1000 Entrecard credits a week - a new change in the Entrecard economy as of yesterday. If you are a member of Entrecard with a lot of Entrecard credits, you probably sponsor contests around the community. Now, it’s harder to do that. Not only that, but how about giving away Entrecard credits? Most Entrecard contests (about 90% of them) contain over 1,000 ECs in prizes.

In response to this problem, Graham says:

we can give them elevated status easily enough and have already contacted almost everyone running a big contest. no worries. contests will be paid out without a hitch.

We want to see contests continue and will do so in a slightly more sanctioned way.

I then left a comment asking for more information on the elevated status.

Here is Graham’s reply:

We’re working towards a method of sanctioning contests and will update everyone on the blog once its ready.

It will involve some sort of inspection, to see where your credits came from, some sort of planning so we know the exact day you’re giving them away, some sort of accountability -that you’ve been active in the community and we know who you are vs. someone who just shows up today with a million credits suspiciously and wants to hold a “contest”

So once we have some firm ground rules in place, the huge contests can continue because we do not want to see the contest culture of Entrecard die!

Alright, so that gives contest holders breathing room, but what about those who sponsor Entrecard contests? The ones that truly make huge EC contests possible? This not only limits them on how many contests they can sponsor, but also how much can they sponsor. For the Summer Credit Splash, I rewarded those who sponsored 4000+ Entrecard credits. This influenced people to donate more, and also helped make the contest a lot larger.

The purpose of the cap is to eliminate the selling of Entrecard credits, which is now against the rules, and I understand that. I think it’s legitimate and useful. However, I propose the transfer limit to be set at least to 5,000 ECs/week. This is fair to us and yet still helpful in getting rid of credit farmers.

Please share your thoughts on the EC transfer limit and on my proposal.

New Entrecard Economy Changes

By Casey | September 30, 2008

8 major changes have been made to the Entrecard Economy system:

• Buy Credits for Less ($6.00/1000 ECs)
• Pricing Increments Added (View the advertising page for details)
• Members are not allowed to sell credits
• Credit Transfer Limits (limit of 1000EC/week)
• Transfer Tax (12.5% on transfers)
• Blogs cannot be unlinked (unless you ask for deletion)
• Coupons are Gone
• Shop is Closed (until an improved shop is released)

Some aren’t so major, and some have been talked about a lot and were bound to be put in action, but there is only one I and many other Entrecarders have a problem about: credit transfer limits. Tomorow, I’ll post my little rant/investigation on this new change. Feel free to share what you think of these changes below. Which ones affect you?

For more information, check out the Entrecard Economy Changes official blog post.

Entrecard Halloween Scavenger Hunt

By Casey | September 27, 2008

The title is a bit misleading, but Acadia, a fellow Entrecard member, is holding a halloween-themed scavenger hunt. However, the winner of the hunt will not be a member of Entrecard. That means none of us will win the prize offered. However, it’s up to us to contribute to the contest.

The prize for the contest is going to be cash money. Obviously, we can’t award ECs to a non-member of Entrecard. So far, the prize total is $100. This is a really good start, and it should be expected to grow. To contribute to the contest, contact Acadia on Entrecard for details. You must donate a minimum of $10 and 500 ECs. For sponsoring the scavenger hunt, you’ll receive a ton of backlinks, and traffic as well.

Why are they holding a contest for non-Entrecard members? The goal is to attract publicity from all areas, not just Entrecard-specified contest blogs, and things like that. This way, we are working to get new people to join Entrecard. To those who have never heard of Entrecard, Entrecard credits does not mean anything to them. $100 on the other hand, means something to everyone!

For more details check out the Entrecard Scavenger Hunt blog post or the Entrecard Scavenger Hunt discussion in the Entrecard forums. Let’s drive new members to Entrecard!

Placing Entrecard Ads on Your Blog

By Casey | September 22, 2008

That’s right! I am looking to do some advertising, and I have a bunch of Entrecard credits I want to use to do so. I will advertise via Entrecard on one of your blogs, no matter what the cost is, as long as you are a subscribed member of EntreBlast. This will not only boost your ad price, but put some Entrecard credits in your pocket as well! You must be subscribed via e-mail. I thought about having this open only for current subscribers, but thought it’d be fair to give everyone the opportunity to subscribe, so they can receive access to new posts, and cool things like this via e-mail as well!

To subscribe, simply enter your e-mail address below:

Don’t worry, the e-mail subscription service is handled through Feedburner, meaning you’ll only receive new posts via e-mail and nothing else. I hate spam too!

To participate, just drop a comment on this post! Make sure the e-mail address field matches the one you used to subscribe with, and the link to your site is a member of Entrecard. If so, I’ll visit your profile through your site and place an ad! But hurry, you only have until this Friday to do so!

See, told ya it was a good idea to subscribe to EntreBlast!

70,000 EC Contest

By Casey | September 20, 2008

I guess I can’t hold the title of having the biggest Entrecard contest ever. The Freebie Reporter is giving away over 70,000 Entrecard credits (71,000 to be exact) in their new contest. Entering is easy, and it ends in less than a month! You have until October 10th to enter.

The Prizes

There are 18 sets of prizes being given away, meaning a HUGE chance at winning something! Right now only 14 people have entered, with just 20 days left to do so. Since I earn 10 entries for listing the sponsors, here are all the prizes and the sponsors. You’ll see that you can also grab some free advertising spots as well.

1st Prize:

30,000EC  from  Freebie Reporter
125×125 ad for a month from The Asian Economist
125×125 ad for a month from Free Famous Quotes
1 VIP membership to CreateBanner.com
1 Entrecard banner design from  A Phone Sex Life

2nd Prize:

20,000EC from  Freebie Reporter
1 VIP membership to  CreateBanner.com
125×125 banner  ad for a month  from Journal Of Journey
125×125 banner  ad for a month from  Charcotrip.com
1 month blogroll link from A Phone Sex Life

3rd Prize

2000EC  from  SimpleBrowser
2000EC  from  Debit vs Credit
1500EC  from  Positive Thinking
2000EC  from  Realm of Prosperity
1500EC  from  NickThrolson
1000EC  from  Fantasy Baseball
125×125 ad for 3 months from  Cash Advance Blog
1 VIP membership to CreateBanner.com

Other Prizes:

EC Credits:

11 Lucky winners will get 1000 credits from one of our fabulous sponsors:

1000EC from  Michael Aulia

1000EC from  Øblog

1000EC from  Better Inspirational Communication

1000EC from  Random Detox

1000EC from  Multiply Themes

1000EC from  Momawannabe

1000EC from  Singaporean In London

1000EC from  Abhishek

1000EC from  SEMscoop.com

1000EC from  A Second Cup

1000EC from  Kutsara at Tinidor

Advertising:

4 Lucky winners will get premium advertising spots from the following bloggers:

125×125 ad for a month  from Positive Thinking

125×125  ad for a month from Gift Reviews

1 month blogroll link from Freebie Reporter

125×125 ad for a month from Freebie Reporter

How to Enter

Entering is super easy. For 5 entries, just blog about the contest. For 10, blog about the contest but list all the sponsors. Additionally, you can subscribe to Freebie Reporter and receive 2 entries. Make sure to comment on the Freebie Reporter’s contest post in order for your entries to count! Hmm, these ways of entry sure sound familiar don’t they?

Blog Standards for Entrecard Updated

By Casey | September 18, 2008

Looks like the Entrecard staff has finally taken intiative to get rid of a wider variety of spammy blogs. Entrecard has updated their quality blog standards for participating in Entrecard. Some are old and obvious while a few are new.

The new standards for being able to participate in Entrecard include:

• No Full Screen Ads (the ones that take you to another page and though you have the option to skip, it is seriously annoying)
• Entrecard Widget must be present (doesn’t make sense for you not to have the widget on anyways)
• No Auto-playing audio (not too many of these but they are annoying as well)
• Content must be recent (last post cannot be older than 6 months; about time they did something like this!)

I am very happy with the recent update to their blog requirements. It is possible to fix your blog if you are not meeting any of these requirements, just make sure to do so soon. Check out the full list of blog standards for Entrecard on the Entrecard blog.

Stay Subscribed to EntreBlast

By Casey | September 17, 2008

The Summer Credit Splash contest may be over, but that doesn’t mean things will slow down here. Entrecard news will continue, announcing other Entrecard contests will start up again, and the tips, tricks, guides, and interviews won’t stop.

In addition to receiving Entrecard news, contests, and more via e-mail or your favorite RSS reader, you’ll also be getting the good things that will come along before anyone else reads it on here. For example, since the last huge EC contest went SO well, I want to do another one, don’t you? We’ll talk more on that soon. But, the benefit of being subscribed is that you’ll always be automatically entered in EntreBlast’s contests. Subscribing via e-mail will always be a requirement to joining in on our contests, so if for some crazy reason you have decided to stop reading EntreBlast, at least you’ll still be entered in the contests!

So don’t unsubscribe from EntreBlast just because the first contest is over. There is so much more to come! And if you aren’t subscribed yet, it’s best that you subscribe to EntreBlast now.