Yesterday Was a Good Day For Bloggers To Unite
One of our dear friends from Entrecard, the advertising widget that you see in the upper right hand corner, ran into a problem. One of the art blogs that used Entrecard was taken down and not allowed to use them any longer. You can read it from my previous post here.
Entrecard provides us bloggers a great opportunity to get our blogs known out into cyberspace and also helps bring many of us bloggers together. It is a way for free to advertise our blogs. All it costs us bloggers is some of our time daily to visit each others blogs and to me personally that is a good thing although some days it is time consuming I admit. But I get to read many fine blogs on so many different subjects. I also get to meet some incredibly wonderful people. Not to bad of a trade off.
A few of us bloggers got together and wrote to Entrecard and asked them to reconsider reinstating the blog they cancelled from their advertising site. I emailed them a polite letter asking them to please reconsider and I also believe other bloggers did as well. I do not know how many bloggers participated, but the fact is this. Within an hour Entrecard did just that, they reconsidered and put Art Shout.net back up in their system.
I might be one of the few in the minority because I am very grateful to be part of Entrecard. I have read from many blogs about people quitting the service because they have instituted a program to have paid ads interspersed on their widgets across their entire system. If you surf many blogs you will most likely also see many bloggers stating they do not accept paid advertising from Entrecard. In order to not accept paid ads you must pay a yearly fee of $50 to not have paid ads shown on their sites widget. For many bloggers who have been with Entrecard from the beginning this upset many of them and thus they either left or wrote negative posts in regards to this service.
I can only state what my dealings have been with them as I am a newbie and have only been with them for two months, if that. In that time since I have joined Entrecard they send more traffic to my blog then any two or three other services I use combined!
I am sure if I had been with them for over a year and saw the changes that have been instituted, maybe I would also have been upset. But in all honesty I don’t believe I would have. If I get this much traffic from them now, I can only imagine how much traffic bloggers got before the changes were made.
I know the amount of time and effort it takes to maintain a service like Entrecard. I also understand it is a business and being a business, the only way it can stay viable is to meet expenses and I also believe the owners deserve some profit after everything is said and done. This is what being a business owner is all about.
Being a blogger means you like to write, talk, take pictures, paint or make videos. In other words, we are all a bit narcissistic and if we didn’t want others to read or see our thoughts, then why post it in cyberspace? Just keep a personal journal or make your blog closed to everyone except for those you decide should to see it?
So Entrecard might have made a mistake, I know I do. They quickly fixed that mistake. Entrecard is a business and in that deserves to make a profit, their entitled to that. Entrecard is far from perfect, but to me they are by far the best free service out there. Yes it costs us bloggers time, yes we have to show some advertisers on our widgets we might not agree on. Those who are strongly against that, then please pay the fee and be done with it. If it does bother you that much, paying thirteen cents a day to control who shows up on your widget is not much to pay. Yes their are probably other grips many bloggers have, like the fact the forum is now closed, but it didn’t stop anyone from starting a new forum and rant there.
I am sure I am not making many friends from this post. Maybe just maybe, we can stop writing about problems about Entrecard on our blogs and just email them your concerns. They listened to us yesterday, maybe they will listen to your problems also.
My rant of the day.
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Posted by 
I’m never leaving Entrecard. I may not agree with everything they do but I’m not leaving. I may alter how I do things, but I’m here to stay. I met you through Entrecard. I’ve met many through Entrecard. What you did yesterday was a very good thing. Thank you Glenn.
Have a terrific day and weekend. Big hug.
I like Entrecard and so far do not have any objections to it. And that is wonderful that they reinstated that one blog. I have met many people through Entrecard and have made many friends. So I hope it keeps going.
It is always good to see a community come to the aid of one of its members. Entrecard has been good for me as well, and I think we joined up at about the same time.
Cheers-
David @ Robot Armageddon
MOB,
I agree with you.
I’m new to this, too. I think I’ve been using this service for about 2 weeks now and am happy with the results. At first I was overwhelmed, until I read their FAQ.
It’s nice that bloggers united to help out a friend and that Entrecard was reasonable and open minded enough to reinstate him.
Lauren
The best is the request is accepted. That is wonderful.
I have to clap for you And for Entrecard Team.
Cheers!!!
I haven’t been dropping much this past week so I had no idea that blog had been terminated. I’m glad they were reinstated. I also will probably never leave Entrecard unless kicked out, but I am taking a break till next year. I felt bad again this morning because I had to decline a ton of ads. I didn’t want to disappear, but I finally had to disable all ads so I wouldn’t have to decline everyday. I get some search traffic, but all the nice bloggers within the EC community are my biggest source will miss everyone, but I need the break. Happy Holidays to you and yours.
My and Paul’s thanks go out to everyone in the Entrecard community who helped us to fight the fight, amongst them being Glenn who is nothing short of a miracle worker! I am so glad that Artshout can remain a part of the EC community, it’s the people that keep me and Paul here, their community spirit is phenomenal. If only the management would follow suit! Merry Christmas one and all – Christina
SUCK UP!!! (LOL?)
Hi Glenn, You are just a nice guy, Glenn. Well, heck, I decided to join Entrecard again, I think I have my computer issues resolved that I had before, and there a lot of nice people in Entrecard, like you.
I agree Glenn you Just Have to Tell them Directly.I am not using them for a few reasons one of them is a Design Clash and another is that they were Very Slow Approving My Ad and I just Got Tired and Took it Off.
I like the way you summarized the “ArtShout” saga! I also wrote directly to EC politely asking them what the problem was and their answer was “Reconsidered.” The blog was back up! I like a lot of things about EC and especially that I’ve met so many terrific fellow bloggers! I’ve been minimalistic with dropping of late as I cannot spare the time, but I’ll get back into it when my studio slows down! Go bloggers, go!
Bounce rate from Entrecard is terrible but I’m still on Entrecard because there are a lot of nice blogs out there and I don’t want to be out of the loop.
Nicely done Glenn! Too many people just stand back and whine.
The whining can be annoying and is definitely not limited to just entrecard. Usually anything new with a service where people are used to a certain way is bound to be flooded with rage posts after those ways are drastically changed. But Entrecard is a business, doing what is best for itself and still giving bloggers a great tool to connect with others, have your blog receive more light of day, etc. Just cancel your account or adjust to the change.
I was in Entrecard for about a week, maybe more. I tossed my account away purely on look. I did not like having the cards on the main page of my website. I’m also focusing more on keyword, organic ways of getting the site around. I’ll admit I do care less than I should about networking though, but I’m happy just posting on the site whether or not 10 people or 10,000 people read it. I’ve actually discovered what I really want to do as an online business and it will be design. So I’m focusing on getting the funds via working at my old job and gradually building a set of free/premium for launch (which can hopefully happen in a years time)…
Okay so that had little to do with the topic probably, I’ve been excited for forever to rant on my new business venture lol. Anyhoo cheers =)
I totally agree on the point of people reacting to change by lashing out rather than simply adjusting. I’ve used Entrecard for 3 months now and am also happy with the results.
Really nice to see how everyone came together to help out Artshout!!
I used to use Entrecard. I stopped when things started going in directions I didn’t like. I’ve been using CMF Ads awhile. I don’t know why people still stick with Entrecard.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Cruised here from Spike on CMF.
That was a nice effort done to get a blogger back into the Entrecard network.
I gave up Entrecard on my main site because after being with them since the beginning, I find it really disappointing how detached the new owners are with their members. A lot of good blogs are still there as well as new ones like yours.
Happy Holidays!!!