Review: EntreCard “Card” Exchange (EntreCard.com)

I am always on the lookout for new blog promotion ideas and techniques - which is why I signed up for and have been trying out Entrecard for a few days (entrecard.com). This is one of the newest in a long line of web 2.0 style widgets, designed for blog sidebars. This widget idea goes beyond blogging though, as it can be implemented on any web platform, but it definitely fits the blog-widget genre. The idea is pretty simple - every person who signs up creates an “entrecard” - basically a 125×125 pixel ad, or business card, to promote your site. You have the option to “drop your card” on the widget of any other Entrecard member, which puts your card in their inbox.

Things quickly get more complicated when you introduce the features found beyond “drop a card.” There is a credit system, and for every dropped card you earn a credit - but that’s not where it ends. Credits can be used to buy the advertising space provided on other sites, by every entrecard widget. There is an approval system, so any advertising request has to be approved by the potential adspace owner, and the purchase price for each user’s entrecard space is figured based on the number of cards people have dropped into the inbox of that user. Confused yet? It gets even better - as a publisher of people’s ads you earn credits equal to half of the cost to advertise on your widget. Ads run for 24 hour blocks, and each user’s account has a limited number of spaces in the ad queue. In writing this I have found that it is a very hard system to describe, and I would suggest that everyone look into it for themselves if they are still confused.

There are a few flaws in the Entrecard system that I have found in my days of testing. Firstly, it seems that the longer a user is involved in the network, the more credits they will amass, and the more credits it will cost to advertise in their adspace. Basically, newbs don’t have a chance to do much advertising, and they may find it hard to catch up to a user who joined a week ago. They may never be able to attain enough credits to advertise where they would like, because the prices for most sites are continually increasing as people drop cards on their widgets. As the network grows in size some of these issues might become less obvious, and get spread out over a larger group of people - but the fundamental problem of a pyramid structure, isn’t necessarily sustainable. Newbies are also overwhelmed upon joining the program, because initially the cost to buy an ad from a newb is only 2 credits, and all of the existing users flood them with requests, in an attempt to get a good deal on advertising.

Secondly, some of the widgets (including the one currently found in my left sidebar) aren’t easily identifiable as anything beyond a 125×125 ad - the entrecard network isn’t displayed prominently enough in some of the widgets. It blends in as just another ad.

Lastly, because a user can change their display ad whenever they want, a publisher has an impossible job as editor - you may approve an ad that looks decent today, to be displayed on your blog in 3 days, but if in 2 days that user changes their ad to something you would rather not see on your blog, you are left with two options - either let it run - or cancel the ad and look like a jerk; and that’s assuming that you log into your account and notice the change. I would like to see the feature added that once an ad is approved, that image is locked in for that ad run, even if the user changes their card before it runs.

The big question that is important for a service/widget like entrecard is, does it actually drive traffic? As a new user, I actually did get a rush of traffic from people checking out my site as I dropped my card around the network. I got a good number of referrals from the actual “campaign” area of the service (listing of sites to advertise on) while my cost to advertise was only 2-5 credits, but now that my price is 16 credits, that traffic seems to have trickled off. I believe that if I continually dropped my card for other bloggers I might get a small trickle of traffic, but I don’t find that it’s worth the effort, as many entrecard users are likely ignoring the cards that flood into their inbox (like I am). The still unanswered question is, do the purchased ads actually drive traffic? Of course, this would depend entirely on the traffic at the publisher sites, but my results so far have not been good (only 2 clicks for purchased ads so far) - this may improve once I expand my purchased ads, or target higher profile blogs, but for now it’s not sending me much.

I think with a few changes entrecard could have a good run - and may even stick around as a useful service that isn’t forgotten after a few weeks, but it will have to evolve with the community, and make beneficial changes continuously. Also, I have to say that it’s launch on the blogosphere has been impressively well executed. I also like the interface - I haven’t found any problems with it, and it is easy to follow and well set up. If you run a blog, definitely try it out, but try not to get wrapped up in the card dropping madness.

Traffic Driving Ability: 3/5

Widget Quality: 3/5

Launch Quality: 4/5

Potential: 4/5

Interface: 4/5

Overall Rating:

What do you think of Entrecard so far?

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