Entrecard’s Features and Why It Could Work

Here are my observations about Entrecard.com, a system that allows bloggers to introduce themselves to others by dropping a card on their blog. The homepage features a video tour of the site, but what I did was jump right in. On the front page are links to bloggers’ posts, some of which are really interesting, but I refrained from going to their blogs for now. It was time to explore Entrecard!

My First Impressions of the Entrecard system

The dashboard prompts a user to upload a 125x125px card (your entrecard), which will be used to advertise on other blogs. This is also the same image that they will see on their dashboards. A script on top of the dashboard tells you what sites visited you (an image of their entrecard is visible) clicking on those links will take you to the blog owner’s profile page.

At first, I was confused. Is this a social network, an advertising system, a chat site or a blog earning program? Dropping my first card and visiting the campaign area and the user forums told me that it could be what I want it to be. Then it dawned to me. The way people use entrecard varies, and entirely depends on their individual needs as bloggers.

Visiting a few sites gave me my first credits, and I just found out that my ‘dropping’ also rewarded the site I visited with another credit. When I accumulate a lot of these credits I can start advertising on sites I like. If a user is not in the blog visiting mode, however, he may simply buy credits. The cost? It’s six dollars for every 1000 credits. A bit cheap, but I found out why.

Some of the more popular sites require thousands to advertise, but an algorithm in the system decreases or increases the value of advertisement on the site depending on how many people want to advertise there. So, if I want to advertise on some of the more popular blogs, I could simply wait and accumulate credit while advertising demand drops on a site I want to advertise in. Some sites, however, have advertising space prices that are constantly high, and it’s understandable. These are the “power droppers”, the blog surfers who diligently surf blogs on a daily basis. Either that or they have built a strong following within the system and other bloggers just keep visiting because they’re hooked! Now, that’s another reason to keep tracking that site’s advertising rates right?

Being online for a while now, I notice sites that have several other things on their sidebars, like “u drop I follow” and “u drop I link”. I even saw one with “u drop I happy”. I realize that the community initiative is high in this social network slash advertising network slash blogger resource.

Did I mention that I thought it was a chat site? Well, the on-site messaging/email service made it seem that way. Pretty easy to use and there’s a report button to report spam. I don’t know if I could be receiving spam this early, but the easy access to a report page is reassuring.

I have seen several sites that bash Entrecard.com and now, I wonder why they can’t just use the system as they see fit. Can someone help me understand why?