Entrecard Exposed: Monies, Members and Mayhem. Part II.
Disclaimer: I am in no way an expert when it comes to running a business. The statements below are taken from my own experiences, both as a user of Entrecard.com and a Moderator, as well as other users/Moderators, during the 1+ year Entrecard has been “in business.” I have always wanted to be a journalist-I guess this is my first piece.
How A Business Should Not Treat Clients And Again-Where's The Money?
The quality, or lack thereof, isn’t the issue. Those who have used Entrecard since the early days have always heard the old, “funding the site is difficult,” “we’re in need of investors,” yadda, yadda, yadda babblings of Graham. According to him, he was barely staying above water and it was so bad-he was just making enough to pay for the dedicated-yes I said dedicated, server on which EC is hosted. Then where are the funds coming from for his latest project? And why is he spending time on another start-up business, when we all know- he can’t run a social-type network?
For those of you interested enough to read, my possibly 3 part series, start asking questions- not only to yourselves, but to Graham. Ask him why, after preaching transparency in how EC works, he canceled my forums account and closed a majority of it to non-EC members. Something to hide? Perhaps the disdain many members have for the direction Entrecard is headed? The constant bickering? The rude, inconsiderate manner in which Graham treats members? I’m sure if any of this was leaked, (oops), he’d have a difficult time finding sponsor, investors and advertisers to fund anything-including his extremely lame “Cournalist” project. (I’d love to know how he came up with the name- perhaps the combination of the words Con and Journalist?).
Oh another little thought: Has anything been mentioned about tax forms being sent-as in gathering information from the 30,000 members he claims to have, for reporting purposes? Because as US citizens know, if you make over $600 in a year, the income is required to be reported to the IRS. The 1099 form. This can mean 1 of 2 scenarios- think really hard and you may understand the problems.
I think I will continue with a 3rd post regarding Moderators, past and present, because I want to end with an experpt of a forum post by Graham to a member. Now-keep in mind, I was first involved in the incident. I’m not denying it- the person involved recently commented and I emailed- and I do hope we both understand the situation better. After the following was posted, I told Graham, although I appreciated being “defended,” I thought it was uncalled for to treat a loyal EC member in such a way. His response? Basically didn’t care- and I do have the text to prove it. This is how a business/service owner should never treat customers, clients, or members:
yeah… you have such a problem with the staff, moderators, service and policies just pack your bags and see ya later. I won’t have people like you disrupt peaceful and intelligent conversation geared at everyone gaining a deeper and clearer understanding of our new policies. We don’t have the time to waste when so many good natured people are asking real questions and looking for clarifications… only to get muddled by the mud you’re throwing around.
Someone kick this guy off the forums and out of Entrecard.
Part III will be written in the coming week.
BTW, “Cournalist” came from “The Hartford Courant”, the school newspaper Graham used to write for. The asshat was too lazy to be original!
Actually, the Hartford Courant is Hartford, Connecticut’s largest newspaper. An ex-boyfriend lives there so I know
I used Entrecard from Dec 07 to Jan 09, and while it seemed to have promise in the beginning, Graham’s lack of direction, and idiotic changes destroyed the once promising venture.
I read Graham’s reply in the forums, and was disgusted at the tone. I don’t know the whole story, but I would be very interested to hear what you have to say.
I’ll definitely be back to read your next part.
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I started in November of 2007 until March 2009- so we were there almost as long. My take on his response? He was in a sick way, trying to “defend” a moderator, who was me, while I was trying to get another member to understand the new system and things got out of hand. Most will know who the other person is-and I have contacted her outside of EC and my blog. Fair to both her and I.
Your point about 1099’s is a good one. I haven’t worked as a public account in a while, so I don’t know what the requirements are today, especially virtual world, third party income. My point is that you don’t fly by the seat of your pants when real dollars and tax implications are involved. Ever since I got involved with accounting and finance (a long long time ago) I’d tell people who asked me a question: “I’m too old, weak and good looking to go to jail. Let me look that up, and get back to you”. Start ups come in all flavors and colors. But usually the successful ones have one common denominator: the required skills and experience disbursed through the organization or purchased (consultants). Entrecard seems (and watching the video you referenced, seems becomes pretty close to confirmed on first blush) to be sorely lacking in one or both of the traits of a successful start-up. EC still brings me traffic, some good, some less valuable. I try to limit my expectations and explore every new option to generate traffic that comes along. My two cents.
When I wrote paid posts, the companies required information for tax purposes-simple as that-even if you weren’t planning on making over $600 a year-they’re businesses who pay taxes and are required to show monies paid out and income made- just as we’re citizens required to show income received. Makes you wonder doesn’t it? Either the service isn’t planning on anyone making over $600 in a year, or well- I’ll stop there.
As for the traffic- is it only traffic and numbers you’re concerned with? What about quality readers? Someone who comes to your blog because they enjoy what he/she reads? Take the number of hits in one month received from EC- how many of the “dropped cards,” made comments-more than one comment- of substance? My guess is- few.
If I thought that I could generate quality traffic by a simple prayer, I would take up praying again, despite bad knees. It doesn’t work that way. I know of no system that would just bring me nice, friendly intelligent witty articulate…readers. I’ve tried, and continue to try many. Boy, if someone could invent a social system that gave me grain (substitute readers) as free of chaff as possible with the chaff and stalks removed I’d sign up. I limit getting too personally involved in any. They are tools, a means to an end. There are jerks everywhere. I laugh a little at their antics and move on with my life. For me, my blogs have improved over time. The bottom line, if I write, and broadcast my publication, people come. My stats improve. I make money through sales of my prints and comics. I’ve discovered some fantastic blogs on EC, and though other networks. I’ve learned from many. For me, the system I’ve followed has worked, but hopefully will get better.
Excellent articles. I have to agree on the chances at EC being disturbing. In defense of EC though, I have to say from my own experiences of starting a new traffic sharing method, getting people into the system is hard and frustrating.
I think what has helped me is the transparency of my system and that getting it off the ground has been (painfully) slow. I think the biggest problem for EntreCard is it grew too fast and as such, grew out of control leaving Graham buried in a massive amount of work.
Graham really has a double edged sword to deal with. if EntreCard grows to fast, he runs our of money to keep it going. If EntreCard grows to slow, nobody wants to back it, especially in the current economy.
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@ Mar Matthias Darin
Indeed, getting the people into the system is hard and frustrating. But in the case of entrecard, it’s success generated more success. Spreading of the world became a self-empowering and self-continuuing process because of the widget. Those who dropped the full 300 drops a blog, and those who dropped less, all did the work that usually needs to be done by the company itself.
Instead of valuing these people, and setting up entrecard-premium, paid, which would pay for the basic system too, normal entrecarters are now pushed aside and treated like dirt.
We agreed no-one would be penalized for wanting to chose the ads that fitted in their blog, but I was penalized…Oh, I sure was.
When this Graham would know how to set up a business and he would have some insight in his own actions, he would leave answering to someone more capable.
This person has no sense for the feelings of others, and no idea that a content client is the best client. Well, I live between people like that so I dare to say what needs to be said.
One interesting thing is happening.
We can see who are loyal to their fellow entrecarters and who are in it for the money.
Not all quality blogs.
Thanks Beth for your insights.
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@lanne I do agree that Graham lacks feelings for others. Why else would he tell bloggers with PR 3 and better to leave but now it is more than that. Now the new system is in place but kinks are not worked out and bloggers are getting upset. If anyone believes Jawsome EC stands to give $11,250 into money for members tooted to be 30,000. That works out to 37 cents per month for that spot on your blog. If they set the payout rate at $10 it is 27 months before you can cash out and guaranteed EC is not going to last that long and if by some miracle they did there’s no guarantee they will actually pay you. So they make money off of you the blogger but you the blogger may never see anything more than rather lousy traffic that may greatly boost your bouncer rate. If you have Adsense that’s a concern so now EC is actually harming your other earning potential because advertisers do not like sites with high bounce rates. Anyway, and this is just my current rates, Adgitize is averaging about $2.40 per month; Project Wonderful 5 cents per day and CMFads $1.25 per month all using 125 x 125 and they do pay out as does Adsense and a few others I’m involved with. I purposely removed some like WidgetBuck that was making nothing. If you are trying to make money do yourself a favour and stay with the tried, true and you know will pay you advertisers.
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It’s very interesting to read about what happens on the inside, and yes, I too was disgusted when I saw that reply.
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This is REALLY good stuff … I’ll be back!
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