08:55 by FoxTwo
I Don't Like The New Entrecard Pricings
I don't know how many of you noticed, but Entrecard just rolled out a new pricing structure for people to advertise on your blog. You can read the details here at their official blog.
On the surface, the structure looks good. It "reflects the popularity" of the blog by having a higher price to advertise on it if it's popular, and a low price if it's unpopular. All very capitalist-like, ie high demand, high price. Just like how an economy would work normally.
However, the issue here is HOW the price is calculated. Like a computer, the price works exponentially in binary - 2 raised to the power of X, where X = number of ads you have waiting to be run.
So, if you have no ads running, the price to advertise on your blog is 2 credits. If you have 6 ads in your queue, the price to advertise on your blog is 2x2x2x2x2x2 = 64 credits (2^6). Since each ad runs for a full 24 hours, the example above means you're sold out of ad space for the next 6 days. Unlike in the old system, Entrecard now doesn't have a "max cap". Previously you could only have like 7 or 10 ads in your queue at maximum. Now that limit has been removed.
And I have seen some crazy prices at some blogs now. A few more "popular" ones are sporting figures like 131,072 credits to advertise on their blog, as shown in the picture above. Notice that he has his ad space sold for the next 2 weeks!
Now, even if you're a super addict, dropping 300 cards per day, it will take you more than a YEAR (4 days to earn 1,200 credits just by dropping cards) to earn that amount to advertise on that blog!
Now, someone please tell me I'm wrong in my calculations, because I sure would like to be pointed out that I'm in error.
While I may agree that IN PRINCIPLE it is a good indicator of how popular a blog is by having a higher price to advertise on it, it is a bad idea to double the price for every ad placed on the blog.
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Min-tea @ Wednesday, April 09, 2008 9:10:00 AM I guess it's a good thing I dropped out of EC, huh?
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Pinay Jade @ Wednesday, April 09, 2008 10:26:00 AM
i totally agree w/ u.d pricing is just crazy...hey thanks for pointing out to me that my move to wordpress is unnecessary if my motif is to have a faster loading time.i'm gonna stick w/ blogger for now;)
Cheers! -
FoxTwo @ Wednesday, April 09, 2008 11:02:00 AM
Mintea - well you can still advertise on my blog. It's el-cheapo, costing you only 64 creds right now :)
Pinay Jade - yeah mebbe a better way would be to change the calculations once the blog has hit 256 credits and use a different algorithm. I mean seriously, who has 100,000 credits? As for your blog, well no sweat. You should decide to move to Wordpress only if Blogger doesn't let you do the things you want to do and Wordpress does. I have played with Wordpress and in my opinion, it's not "better", just "different". Besides, with Blogger whenever there's new features, your blog is "automatically" upgraded and you don't have to do manual upgrades. -
will @ Wednesday, April 09, 2008 1:39:00 PM Entrecard said that the prices would calibrate in a couple of days. Right now prices are crazy. They will soon come back down to earth and not too much will be changed in the Ecard world. Other than that, the other poster needs to get a domain then host wordpress.
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Haney @ Thursday, April 10, 2008 7:41:00 PM
Entrecard is adjusting to their system that's why some pricing are affected. 10000+ to advertise is absurd.
Need to wait for a couple of days to regain things back to normal. -
Mark @ Thursday, April 10, 2008 7:44:00 PM
Entrecard claim that the new system will allow anyone - with enough credits - to advertise anywhere. They're right. Sort of. But the question becomes: how do you get enough credits to advertise on a popular site?
1. Dropping and being dropped upon. Low rate of credits. This will take time to build up credits; far too long to advertise on a popular site in fact but every little helps.
2. Being advertised on. Rising level of credits. This can help so long as people are willing to advertise on you when there's a queue. So, popular blogs will be able to advertise on other popular blogs and get reciprocating adverts from other popular blogs with no problem, keeping their ad queues inflated. Smaller sites? It'll take a while but it is just about possible with patience.
3. Buy credits. Here's the real way to advertise on a big site. Pay. In other words: the Entrecard reciprocating drops and ads system works for sites at a similar level of popularity/userbase but degenerates into the age-old market-based system for exposure higher up the chain. Is this good or bad? I'm not sure.
On the plus side: the new system probably favours site and traffic quality over mere quantity of dropping by those with nothing better to do. Negatively: it seems to move away from the original ethos of Entrecard but that is understandable for a startup looking for financial backing and eventual monetization, which it surely has to do to survive. -
themuxicbox @ Saturday, April 12, 2008 2:29:00 AM
I sure do hope the pricing system goes back to normal. Won't want to slog myself dropping cards and reading blogs just to advertise on super-inflated-advertising-rate blog for what? 24 hours? lolx In this way, it gets more difficult to build readers as all are being crazy just dropping cards.
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FoxTwo @ Saturday, April 12, 2008 3:18:00 AM
Haney - "a couple of days" is an under-estimate. It'll take a couple of WEEKS for prices to stabilize. The guy whose blog I showed in the pic in my entry, he'll need at least a week for his ads to run their course and see if his prices come down to 1000+ or less.
Mark - yeah but still I think they shouldn't keep doubling the price for every subsequent ad in your queue. They should level it off at 1000 (or 3000 or 5000) or so creds and use a different algorithm then.
Muxicbox - I usually only drop cards at blogs who drop on mine, and those that I saved as favourites. I also seldom spend my credits to advertise on other blogs hehehe! When I do buy an adspace, again it's on the blogs I like :) -
Jasmine Shanea @ Tuesday, April 15, 2008 12:15:00 AM
Preach on sister! Really don't understand why they have to peg advertising to the amount of advertising you get. Sheesh. Doesn't make sense. What if you really don't want advertising on your blog. Does it mean your blog is worth 0 Ec?!
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FoxTwo @ Tuesday, April 15, 2008 2:07:00 AM
Jasmine - erm, make that "brother" :) Anyway I guess their intention is to show which blogs are popular, like how an economy works. The more demanded the blog is, the higher the price. It's just their calculation of prices that suck. Anyway prices have come down since their launch last week, but I guess that's because nobody would have 100,000 credits to spend (nor think it's worth it on blogs).
If you don't want advertising, if my understanding is correct, it still won't be zero - ads in your queue that you have no approved "contributes" to the price. Both your queues must totally be empty to come back down to 2 credits, the base minimum price.
