Entrecard issues continue: Bug, glitch, scam?
Posted By admin on April 23, 2009
Surprise, surprise! Entrecard is quietly scamming members again. Since sometime in March, Entrecard quietly discontinued a blogging incentive.
Graham Langdon, founder of Entrecard, has long expressed that one of the best ways to drive traffic is to attract traffic, and that should be done with fresh content, visiting blogs and leaving comments in addition to dropping your Entrecard.
That was part of the driving force behind the partnership with SezWho, the now-defunct comment platform.
One of the more successful efforts encouraging Entrecard members to create fresh content was to award 25 EC per blog post up to 3 posts per week, no matter how many blogs you maintain. That’s a maximum of 75 extra credits per week for positive contributions to the blog community.
Now, I can only look back to March 24, but I can safely say that I’ve received zero EC for blog posts since at least that day. There were no announcements in the now-private forum. There were no announcements in the Entrecard blog… heck, nothing’s been updated there since early April.
No, they just quietly stopped awarding the EC hoping no one would notice. Way to go Entrecard.
Granted, Entrecard has a credit inflation issue (to the tune of many millions). They’ve introduced a paid ads system which deflates the value of the drops by up to 50%, since paid ads can run on a widget up to 50% of the time, and the dropper gets no credit for a drop on paid ad.
Look at it this way.
If you generally dropped 50 cards a day (six days a week), were credited up to 75 credits for your posts, you could earn 375 credits on your own efforts. You could count on at least 50% of your drops being reciprocated, so add another 150 credits.
New paid system comes along…
You get credit for 25 cards… but you could get 0, since the software works from the advertiser side, not the dropper side. You no longer earn 75 credits for posting. Your own droppers experience the same problem and they stop reciprocating.
Boom… you’re earning squat!
But Entrecard is taking up space on your blog, showing ads you may or may not approve of, and then treating you like dirt by closing the forum to you unless you’ve sold 400 ads… hellooooo!
So, why don’t I ask Graham what’s happening?
Seems he’s taken a runner. Yep, I’m calling him out. He hasn’t updated his blog since early April. The last time he responded to a comment was April 13. That’s also the last time he bothered to tweet. So… I believe Graham has left the building.
He appears to have left Entrecard in the hands of a 19-year-old kid who has no real people skills, less management skills, and is on a total power trip. Since he’s taken control, Entrecard has gone from a community to concentration camp.
While Andy says he was directed by a higher power… let’s see Graham has left the building and Andy claims to be the “Head Moderator - EC Staff Trainer”, who joined the Entrecard forum on Feb 23. That was about the time Graham was looking for more (new) yes men moderators. The only guy “above” Andy would be “Phirate”, the programmer, and he’s not talking.
So, I’m calling Entrecard dead on arrival, buyer beware, poison, you name it. The card has gone toxic. Members are leaving faster than they’re joining. Don’t believe the crap Andy is feeding you.
The Alexa stats spiked on April 19, the day Shoemoney wrote his stinking piece of excrement review and plug. Tell me… do you see the Entrecard widget on his blog? Ever since that day, the traffic is doing a slow drop. Watch for it to continue to drop, right off the radar.
Great review of what’s been happening. EC is on life-support. I give it three months.
The ShoeMoney article was a paid review. He had the EC widget on his blog at the very beginning of Entrecard because Graham paid him too. The same goes for John Chow and ProBlogger. Chow was the only one to ever drop on websites and actively accept paid ads there. The other two couldn’t have cared less about EC.
The moment Graham stopped the payments to them they took it off. Surprise, surprise. Anyone who reads Shoemoney’s article needs to take a drink of reality.
Yes, as Kathy said it’s like EC is on life support. Now who’s gonna pull the plug, already?
the last time I received credits for my blog posts was 4/15/09…meaning that the information you are posting is incorrect. Either you don’t understand how the credit distribution works on blog posts, there is a problem with your feed or setup, or you are jumping to very premature conclusions. If anyone is having problems with their feed they need to submit a ticket at help.entrecard.com or let us know at forums.entrecard.com
Matt, this blog has been around for a fair period. The feed is picked up successfully at Adgitize, and has been for some time. Being a Moderator, I understand you need to defend Entrecard. Let’s let some other folks see if they’re having the same issue.
I can promise you that the rate at which real bloggers are leaving Entrecard, all you have left are a bunch of newbies who don’t know any different.
As far as asking at your “forum”, I wouldn’t ask Andy to rescue me from a trainwreck. He’d probably spit first and look the other way. He’s just that rude!
if you give me your dashboard ID i can check into it for you…I really think you are assuming the worst…mine is working fine, if it was intentional they would all be down, i assure you.
you should see my email when i post this so you can feel free to email me personally and I will handle it for you. unless of course you want me to delete your account, i notice you don’t have a widget any longer.
I have sent an e-mail as requested. Prior to doing that, I checked my feed with feedvalidator.org and it checked out just fine. In the e-mail, I asked that you provide me a zip file attachment with screenshots of the past 60 days. Should those screenshots contradict what I have said, I will make an apology.
It would be courteous of you to refrain from deleting my blog until such time as we (that’s you and me) have confirmed the facts.
Graham could care less about EC members, or, EC as a system, so long as he’s received money from 3rd party advertisers. He has other ventures and getting the most money he could from EC, I believe, was his goal. Nothing worked as it was originally stated. People’s blogs were basically spammed by paid ads (non credit) and the advertisers were obviously not screened as they were signing up- one of the requirements discussed.
What I don’t get- Matt- dude- you don’t need Entrecard. Your blog receives a lot of traffic and has more readers than most I read. You once told me I didn’t need to use EC- but you’ve now surpassed me. I trusted you as a confidant, you helped me when no one else would, other than Stuart and you saw what was happening. You’re above this- and you know it. Unless I was completely duped into believing you gave a rat’s patootie. I left you out of my posts about EC, because you never did anything to me personally, or to any members that I saw. And you were with me through the whole mess. Open your eyes and realize- you’re above the others.
sad to see entrecard implode like this. it never really makes sense when services act in such a manner as it benefits no one. graham has enjoyed bad press in the past, or at least claims to, but this time there is absolutely no evidence that it is helping member numbers.
i went from cheering entrecard on through the “paid” ads transition to being one of their most outspoken critics (with a factitious screen name of Adele’s Sister’s Cousin) in less than a week because of their actions of late. i’ve never seen an exodus away from a site/service so quick and dramatic as what i am witnessing lately.
its a shame… but in the end it may prove that all we really lose out on is extremely high bounce traffic.
*facetious
Well, I’m afraid that I am not playing silly kids games. I simply wont play at attempting to be part of an elite club, which is what EC is now turning out to be.
I deleted my widget and requested my account also deleted.
I used to look into dozens of feed-related problems when I was part of Entrecard, so I know what I’m looking for. I can see the problem quite clearly. Here’s what you need to do:
1. In your browser, look for the orange feed icon at the end of the address bar.
2. Click the icon. A list of three feeds will pop up.
3. Click the first feed (this is the one that Entrecard picks up). An error occurs.
I actually tried clicking all three of the feeds listed there and they all display the same error. The reason is because in the header of your blog, the URL is:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/yourfeed/LetsDoBusinessWithRealOnlineCompanies
Remove “yourfeed” from the URL and it will work:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/LetsDoBusinessWithRealOnlineCompanies
Does Adgitize give you a field where you input the RSS feed URL? Because that would be why Adgitize picks it up. Entrecard picks it up from your blog automatically.
This is actually a bug on your end and is the reason why you would not have been receiving credits for blog posts. There is a page somewhere in the Entrecard help docs that explains the steps I outlined above - I know it’s there because I wrote it!
I’m surprised Rev didn’t check this before he commented.
@Shari:
I sen’t an email to you explaining what the problem was…there is a plugin that you may need to get that can often fix this as well…I think its just called the Feedburner plugin for wordpress….I had this same issue when i changed themes because it screwed up the code in my header…keep me updated on whether or not it works please
@Beth:
I will just email you.
Heh, seems like we posted at the same time, sorry about that Matt/Rev
It would be a good idea to get the URLs fixed as you could be losing subscribers because of this.
Gentlemen, I found the problem. Watch for a blog post about the solution.
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