If you are an avid user of Entrecard then you may have noticed they have been having some growing pains. I joined Entrecard as soon as I heard about it, which was a time when the site only had a few blogs. Now there are over 5000 blogs listed in the system. I don’t think Graham and crew really expected it to grow as fast as it has. Well with this growth you should expect some issues. And there have been some. Whether its would sluggish response of the system to temporary time of drops not getting counted. The issues get fixed, but you still have people complaining on the forums.
I for one do not really understand the complaints. Yes the system does work, but a the same time, its not like it costs you anything. Some people are even earning money by selling credits. My personal opinion is since I know a little about programming, that the guys are doing a really good job of incorporating enhancements requested by the users as well as the constant battle the face from the people you want to spam the system for personal gain. Whether these are attempts to gather credits in other ways than how it was designed or whether its just spamming members with your latest join this program message. As the system grows also grows the number of people trying to use it for their own gain without regard for people who want to use it as it was designed which is to allow bloggers to obtain advertising on other blogs.
Several high profile bloggers have commented that Entrecard traffic is worthless. In someways I agree with these people as the traffic does not convert, but that really does not mean its worthless. It just may be worth less than traffic you get from the search engines through a long tail search.
The one real weakness I see in Entrecard is the basis of how the system works and this is not really Entrecard’s fault. Its the spammers who are trying to game the system. To earn credits in Entrecard you must surf sites and drop your card. Many of the spammers have realized this so they are putting up popups or pop unders to try and gain some revenue from the Entrecard surfers. Some of these ads have even been of a pornographic nature. Of course then there are the blackhaters who will attempt to install spyware or adware on your computer. Of course the people at Entrecard will kill off these sites when ever they are discovered, but the spammers will just come back with a different email address and another site. So when ever I surf Entrecard sites I make sure my Spyware definitions are up to date and I always use Firefox to drop. Now firefox is not a sure way to combat these items, but its is a lot safer than Internet Explorer. I wish there was a way to get rid of these sites, but I don’t see anyway technically to do it.
Overall, I think Entrecard is a great site with a lot of potential. It can really help a site launch into the blogsphere, but some pains should be expected. For those people who constantly complain, just give Entrecard a little break. The service is provided basically free and the only cost is your time( which is a cost). Perhaps it should be called a Beta, but it is coming along and as long as they can keep the doors open, the service should really become a true asset to the blogsphere.
