Who would’ve thought it it has already been over half a year since the blogosphere craze, Entrecard, launched and hit us bloggers with a long awaited gold mine. Since the beginning of Entrecard, I took advantage of it by putting down my blog in the money making category, which gave me a small boost. As more and more bloggers caught on to Entrecard, I had to move to different categories to stay ahead of the category. Bloggers left and right and up and down were jumping in on Entrecard’s free advertising opportunities. It’s not just because of free advertising, but cheap people like myself loves to hear the word “free” 
. With Entrecard’s success, it is starting to pull in bloggers from around the blogosphere, but some still hate the fact of Entrecard’s existence because it is ruining how certain things are suppose to be ran.
Being what I call myself, an avid Entrecarder, I noticed there were many different trends. Depending on this program was a bad thing, but not using it was also bad. What I mean is there’s nothing really good or really bad about Entrecard’s system itself. I have seen blog owners come and go because keeping up with things start to becoming more difficult as each day passes. Just because there is nothing wrong with Entrecard’s system doesn’t mean that it won’t have certain effects on us bloggers 
Addiction
I guess it is due to the free advertising that a lot of bloggers became addicted to Entrecard. Ever since the limit of drops per day changed to 300, hundreds of bloggers started dropping that amount. I guess before there was a limit, the members didn’t really feel a need to drop as much cards .
Dropping the cards do take time and everyone needs to sit on the computer for a least an hour or more to hit the daily drop limit. If you have a high-end computer with a lot of ram, you should be able to drop 300 within 30 minutes, but it really is a difficult task. Bloggers just became addicted to this free advertising method and most are even glued to Entrecard. Haven’t you ever wondered why your getting visitors when you’re not providing much content?
Not Reciprocating
There are a lot of those reciprocating Entrecard drop lists, where if you drop on a site that is on the list, you would be guaranteed a drop on your blog in return. The biggest list I know of is the one by Lee Doyle, but sadly enough, he hasn’t updated that in almost a month. A lot of Entrecard members are joining the list, but it’s not being updated. There’s always a craze in the beginning and then poof, it’s gone .
A drop on your Entrecard widget means that you have received one visitor, but it sucks how some bloggers aren’t participating in these movements anymore. With the new credit system implementation, there isn’t much need to reciprocate drops or use those “U DROP I FOLLOW” lists anymore. Some of the top members are denying the truth, but I’m not denying it since it is inevitable. I personally have experimented with almost everything I can think of and I am stating that it is an absolute fact that the new credit system has drawn away a lot of actual drops. The only good outcome of this is that the drops you receive now are a bit more organic, which means the visitors are actually interested in your content. Now for the ones that denied this before the credit system change, I’m sure now you realize how you weren’t getting readers, but only card droppers.
Stats Playing
Even though Entrecard served as a purpose of giving bloggers or site owners the chance of “free advertising”, many took advantage of it to mess with their site stats. I mentioned this to some Entrecard members before. If your blog/site was up for months before Entrecard and you received no traffic, what makes it think that people like your content right now?
The main reason why bloggers use Entrecard is because it gives free traffic. I love the traffic that I receive, but it isn’t anything stable. One day I would receive more traffic and the other day I would not. This is because it really depends on if Entrecard members want to drop a card on you.
I simply love Alexa’s new graphs because it really does show who received actual visitors rather than the same visitors each and every day that leave within 5seconds. Although Alexa is still not accurate as they’re still working on the measurements, I can pretty much say that a lot of blogs including myself that had a very high rank had now dropped. Now it may be a bit harder for bloggers to sell their blog after a few months of using Entrecard To the ones that mentioned that the bounce rates don’t matter, I think it is time to say that it does in fact matter. The higher your bounce rate, the more it means visitors just come in to drop a card rather than to read. I started my blog with about 50-60% bounce rate, but it jumped to a soaring 80% as I started to take advantage of Entrecard.
The Result
After all this Entrecard fiasco, I have decided to let go of my account. I’m not going to use Entrecard anymore because I simply don’t want to become one of those type of bloggers that depend on it for some fake traffic. I’m definitely not thinking of selling my blog at this time, so there’s no use for me to try to fake my traffic for others to see.
Since Entrecard is still a fresh program, there will probably be a lot of users, so whoever purchases my account should be able to take advantage of Entrecard even more If selling my Entrecard account is not allowed, I will remove the listing, but I don’t see why not since Twitter accounts are being sold too.
Checkout the eBay auction here and watch as the bids grow as more and more Entrecard members find out about the sale Before you think of leaving Entrecard, you should check out my ORGANIZED Entrecard forum. It sucks how Graham didn’t want to use my forum even if I gave the whole site to him. A least I am able to assign more mods in my forum 
GOODBYE ENTRECARD! YOU SERVED ME WELL, BUT IT IS TIME TO MOVE ON!
Hey man,
I know ive not updated… sadly I have had tons of things happening and the list has been a big casuality of that.
I have started a V2 which I will work out a system of updating more easy. I need to rework the list anyway.
Sorry for the bad service
Actually Lee, I forgot to mention that your list is actually great for Entrecad members, but I’m just saying that it is useless now due to EC’s new system
-Mike
You get what you give.
While there are very few ECers in my niche, I have managed to network with some great bloggers. Remember that was the whole idea behind EC. To network and promote each other.
It does require a lot of time, to use the program to it’s fullest. But so does everything else out there. If it was quick and easy, everyone would be doing it (professionally).
BTW, if you have a bounce rate of 80% that means you are getting MOST of your traffic from EntreCard droppers. Think about it. If they weren’t the majority they wouldn’t be dictating your bounce rate.
The reason to stay with EntreCard: Other bloggers are more likely to discover you. They will network and become friends with you. I don’t know about you, but I am more likely to quote or promote a fellow ECer over someone I’ve never met. Plus, haven’t you ever had a problem that an ECer helped you with? It’s a community.
I hope you will change your mind about leaving the family.
Too many people end up playing the Entrecard game and confusing it with real blog success.
You wind up in a cycle where you have to keep dropping to keep your numbers up. You blogs “success” ends up dependent on something other than blogging.
I drop about 5 cards per day now. On sites I visit that happen to have the card. I get about 25 visits from Entrecard a day from all sources. That is fine for me. I’m not taking the widget down, but I’m not wasting time dropping.
Mike, how many credits are in the account? Not that I’m really thinking of buying since I have a fairly low number too, but it seems the number of credits in the account may help you to sell it.
I don’t normally drop now, except for reciprocating. I don’t really care about the traffics anymore from Entrecard, but I know most of my loyal commenters come from Entrecard, and it’s worth to keep Entrecard around for just that reason
To be honest, we’ve always been a bit baffled by the desire for people to hammer through 300 drops per day. The system originally had no limit because we didn’t even consider that anyone would work that hard at it, we put the limit in because people were doing *more* than that a day and it was just crazy.
In general, we consider the best use of Entrecard to be a combination of casual dropping on your favorite blogs, discovery of new blogs in your niche or from those who dropped on you, and some basic promotion via adverts and a bit of dropping on bloggers in your area, or whose work you respect or would like the attention of.
On top of this, is the more general networking and help stuff added by the messaging and forums systems. We never intended Entrecard to take up huge volumes of time, nor do we believe it’s necessary at all.
But we’re the first to admit there is room on Entrecard for a wide variety of ideas and methods, one of the more popular of which appears to be the 300-drops-per-day thing.
I think Graham says it well in this interview:
“I thought that people would mostly drop cards on the blogs they read every day. For some reason, I didn’t realize people would go on dropping sprees, or feel pressured to drop, such that if they couldn’t find the time to drop 300 per day they would quit the service. I really don’t understand this. The whole thing was meant to be a little more casual. You know, build up credits for a few days, place an ad here or there, find some good blogs, etc.”
Finally, it’s really not fair to accuse Graham of ignoring what’s best for the users to get a profit, he’s invested an enormous amount of both time and money into EC and that isn’t likely to end any time soon – pretty much everything we do is for the benefit of the users and if we miss things like a dodgy ad turning up on the PW stack it’s because we’ve got *so* much to do we just didn’t have time to appreciate the seriousness of the situation, $6-$8 a day is nothing compared to the money invested every month in EC.
Mike,
I had a for sale sign on The Entrecarder for about a week and would still consider selling it if anyone was truly interested. (I’ve got 50000 ecs.) We talked Android Guys into staying in the community for a while and I think I’ve decided to stay also, but the bigger decision was to stop dropping cards. I don’t mind having an Entrecard widget on my site and you might consider the same thing, if no one pays enough for your account. It’s been 9 days since I decided to stop dropping cards and I’ve found that I have renewed energy for blogging now that I’m not spending 1-2 hours a day dropping cards, posting in the forum, etc. I have noticed something missing for the past week or so in Entrecard and I’m wondering if Graham is out of money and Phirate is only doing damage control. Very few posts by either in the forum and no new features or fixes since the big pricing system change. Sorry for the rambling…hope everything works out for the best for you!
This line just jump up from the page:
“If your blog/site was up for months before Entrecard and you received no traffic, what makes it think that people like your content right now?”
I am a blogger way before entrecard, but i never knew about directories and that other bloggers actually exist. I was part of the organic online traffic that blogs just to record day to day stuff. And guess what, when i discovered directories, Entrecard and other places where my blog can be seen, exposed and read… I didnt find readers… They FOUND ME.
See? I KNEW you completely missed the point of Entrecard. This is fake traffic? So you mean those dropping cards are scripts, not readers with eyes? You’re funny, Mike.
“I love the traffic that I receive, but it isn’t anything stable. One day I would receive more traffic and the other day I would not. This is because it really depends on if Entrecard members want to drop a card on you.”
Honestly, it’s your posts. Sometimes you post about something useful to blogging (which I like), sometimes your post reads like a directory for A-lister links.
I enjoy long posts about blogging. Like “the rifle blogger and the shotgun blogger” and “sex sells even if just news”… See? I read you in my mail because of THESE posts, but sometimes you are way off your objectives to ‘help bloggers’.
See, when you started in EC, your motto was to “help the small bloggers, not for profit”… I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you’re blogging from your heart. But you were unable to sustain that, because in the end your true colors showed.
So guess what, the people you call “fake traffic” are the same ones you said you HELP and CARE ABOUT when we, who didn’t know you before, first heard of you.
As BadEvan said above, it’s all about what you put in. I changed my personal blog to a site about blogging and website tips about a week before I found Entrecard. I’ve tried dropping loads of cards, posting in the forums, guest blogging on the Entrecard blog, commenting on other people’s blogs that I found through Entrecard… and while only dropping cards didn’t do much for my site, the other methods worked well. All of them were done as a result of Entrecard.
I may have more visitors than commenters, but I think you’ll find that’s true of most sites. Did you know the vast majority of readers don’t leave a comment?
Mike,
No harm done leaving the widget on your blog, right? At least we EntreCarders can still plaster our Ad on your blog.
Aiya, you can sell off the old account and more bonus for you if you made a decent amount of moolah off it.
Then, apply for a new EntreCard account.
Use it casually, not so hardcore as before.
Can try that, right?
I left a couple of weeks back due to 2 reasons. The pricing structure and bounce rate. I am now slowly seeing entrecard.com vanishing off my analytics list and my bounce rate decreasing so I am happy.
I think people using the entrecard system don’t care about what’s on the blog, stopping to read what’s there, maybe post a comment, it’s all about that 1 click. Good luck in your sale
Interesting blog post, I never have had them on my site but did buy credits to place a whole lot of drops. Worked well but confused with latest updates.
Hey actually I like a lot of your posts Mike. I used to drop 300 per day on Entrecard but now I’m just taking it easy and advertising on a few blogs and dropping at the blogs I like everyday. Hate to see you go, but I will still drop by.
Mike good luck with whatever you are planning to do.
Cheers,
Marie
Umm… Before you leave. Our blog is sort of short in credits lately. Mind if you donate at least 20 to 50 credits to us. Just for old times sake. he he he
I was never able to drop 300. Don’t have the time However entrecard is still a great place to get your content seen. I think you should keep the widget though. I have a few blogs that i visit regularly. And although i don’t like the fact that you totally ignored my thread and started a counter thread on the Monday stumble. I still consider you a friend. Take care.
So I wonder what account #7 would go for…?
Hi Mike,
It’s sad that you’re leaving. Hope you thought of that multiple times.
Know what, I am nobody when I joined EC and now, I am somebody somehow.
I do not know any site or community where you can visit a lot of blogs with an opps for a free ads.
You’re right, there may be a lot of droppers who just drop and go that’s why I only recipro-drops to those I feel it’s worth to. It paid off and I must admit, I am enjoying my stay.
But all’s well that ends well. Good luck to your future endeavors and hope to see you again somewhere.
Thanks.
Mike…I find it interesting that when I spotted your post on the Tuesday Stumble that we had both posted about pretty much the same topic (See Post) which Graham has commented on.
Being a newer blogger I thought EC was great for getting a new blog noticed, but now I’m seeing that a lot of the visits are spam. I have found a few really great blogs in my dropping adventures and continue to visit them regularly. I don’t know if I would have found them as fast without EC, but I’m glad I did.
Choice, is all about what we make it. I found entrecard to be addicting at the beginning, as a new blogger, it got me quite a bit of exposure and some valuable readers.
Sometimes there is a gap to bridge when our passions become a source of income, Graham and Phirate have always answered questions and seemed to be interested in connecting bloggers as a community, as in everything, as it grows.. there are growing pains.
I for one have learned quite a bit from it, met some really great people. Sorry to see you go Mike.
I followed you from EC. To be honest, I don’t usually come here simply because I’ve seen some of your comments at other places and was turned off by them. However, I made a comment on your thread over there and thought I’d share that with you here:
The important part of all of that is the number of posts on your front page, which someone visiting daily would see and not need to delve into your archives for. By putting interesting excerpts on the front page (instead of whole posts), readers would have to go to the permalink page to read the content.
I suggest that you stay in EC for a while longer, change your theme style to improve your bounce rate and then reconsider if you’re staying or going.
Sorry to hear you won’t be on the EC any longer..but..as long as your blog is still here..I’ll still be dropping by. I agree with a lot of your assessment, but..I have received traffic through EC that I normally would not have received..not talking about the fake stats..talking about the people who like the content and drop a comment..then come back again..and eventually become regular readers. Had I not been with EC, most of those people wouldn’t be subscribers now. I didn’t use any of those stupid contests to get subscribers who will just delete the feed or let it go to SPAM anyway.
I’m not one of those 300 day droppers. I actually like to read the blogs I visit..which I think is the intent of EC anyway.
I may not always comment here..but…I do think a lot of your posts have had merit. See ya round!
Please don’t knock Mike for making choices regarding his blog, it’s his space, he should be able to make his own choices about Entrecard or any other widget.
That said, the bounce rate thing is simply silly.
Even in the worst case, assuming every single ec visitor bounces, removing the widget cannot possibly improve the quality of your existing traffic. The lack of EC visitors does not magically make the remaining visitors click through more pages or stay longer.
The physical world equivalent would be a main-street shopkeeper who counted the number of people who glanced in his window, and the number of people who came into the shop, and said “Gosh! only 20% of people who look in the window enter my shop!”
And then, instead of finding ways to entice the remaining 80% to enter the shop, he instead solved his “problem” by moving his store into a back alley so that nobody looked in the window of the shop unless they were going there anyway.
See how this doesn’t make sense? I’m not knocking you Mike, I firmly encourage people to do what they want with their blog, but there seems to be some weird logical disjunct among people with regard to “bounce rate”, or as the EC user is, in fact, the “commuter class”. Removing EC in order to improve your bounce rate simply doesn’t make sense.
There are lots of sane reasons to remove EC – maybe an advertiser has offered you $250/mn for the space the widget was taking up – but ‘bounce rate’ isn’t one of them.
A lot of people see EC as a way to a goal of reaching Google/ Technorati/ Alexa. If they make EC a tool that is all it will be. EC is what you put into it. I’ve found bloggers I enjoy reading and that is what I do when I come to my EC dashboard. I’ve got a few blogs I like reading to join EC so I can card drop on more of the blogs I have been reading before I ever joined EC. Card dropping is an extra, not my focus. That you would think to sell your account shows where your focus is.
Mike,
I am glad to know you from Entrecard,perhaps you thinK Entrecard is not the best tool for you,but imagine if without Entrecard i might not know your blog and i get so much useful resources from your blog.Thanks
You are right. It doesn’t work as it promise.
What would make EntreCard fail is that people are there for one purpose: GETTING TRAFFIC. It’s like one way street, people go one direction, not the other.
Yeah, I’m going to drop it soon. It’s just falling apart
Technically, I still have an account/widget for my blog but I stopped dropping AT ALL a couple months ago. And Mike, I come to your blog pretty regularly, and I can guarantee you haven’t seen my Entrecard dropped in your inbox for quite sometime now.
But to comment on the Twitter selling, I heard Ebay has contacted people “suggesting” that they should take the auction down. Just a heads up… and if you DO sell your Entrecard account, let me know, I’ll try to sell mine as well!
Jay
Ow Mike. At first I never thought this was true. Since I have joined Entrecard, although I’m new to blogging, I didn’t actually considered dropping much. Because I know it will just burn me out pretty soon. I have still my widget, I haven’t generated as much traffic as I generated from the search engines, but I’d still want to keep it. Probably you could do the same.
I’ve bookmarked around 40 quality blogs that have entrecard widgets on it. Though i’ve subscribed to a reader, i don’t usually read from there as i want to visit the site, drop a card, and read excellent posts.
When there are no post updates, at least there is the entrecard widget.
I think the high bounce rates won’t matter if you just believe in the quality of your own posts. Sooner or later, these bouncers would be enticed to read more. Some entrecarders, in their clumsy chain-dropping, often end up dropping on the same widget twice.
Hi there,
Hi again,
Good news! You’re among my Very Serious Droppers and with that, your widget is now appearing in my sidebar and will stay there for 3 days as my reward.
Mind you, this is a reward NOT because you are thinking of leaving. It is you who made it. I am just giving a reward.
Thanks.
Mike Come Back!! We NEED yer Bikini Ads!!
;PPP
Does anybody know about that Script that gave U yer last 50 Visitors?? It doesn’t work + I loved it cuz I like to Pay a Visit back to the Peeps that have bother to Drop by!! Even better if they drop a Lousy Comment!!
)
EntreCard RED HOT DROPPING!!********
iGOO MEGA TRILLION $$$ DOLLAR LAUNCH!!
EVERY BLOGGER in the UNIVERSE will receive a $$$ TRILLION DOLLARS!!
iGooMEGA$$$TRILLIONS
Cheers Everybody!! Billy
) Peace*
I said goodbye as well, except I’m holding a contest to give away every single one of my damn credits! 10,000!
Hi Mike, Sorry to contact you here, but your post is related to my issue.
On April 21st. I’ve made a purchase from you on Entrecard Shop and sent you 1000 EC. I’ve not heard from you since even though I’ve sent you a note through EC inhouse messages on April 24th.
Now I’ve read you are quitting EC, maybe you haven’t visited your EC back office and don’t even know I’ve purchased something from you. Just want to know what are you going to do about it.
Regards
Anthony
I haven’t been dropping Entrecards much since the changes and the fact that I’ve been busy in the offline world… but I have no plans on removing the widget anytime soon. I love the way that you can get free exposure, but it can be time consuming dropping cards…
[...] hasn’t been done yet. What I did last week was publish a post stating that I was going to sell my Entrecard account and leave Entrecard for good. Now a lot of bloggers have already stated they would leave Entrecard, [...]
Just as you did,many others also wished to shut it down!.But the recent changes(major ones) once again received accolades and solved some of their problems!.
I wish you would take it up again!.
My last blog post is..Doodle 4 Google contest :see the winning logo on Google’s homepage!.
[...] could drop the widget, but I said that I would stay just a little while longer. Mike of Bloggin-ads said goodbye to Entrecard not long ago, and his farewell post made me think real hard about whether I should drop the widget [...]
I’m thinking of saying goodbye to entrecard as well, have a look at how long droppers stay on your site, usually less than 10 seconds.
And then the blogs you advertise on get you very little traffic for the EC’s. I would usually be lucky to get 1 viewer from the ads.
I think ill leave it a few days, then sell my EC balance and close the account…
My last blog post is..Will Cuil Replace Google?