Sam Freedom's Internet Marketing Controversy Blog: April 2008

Holy Crapamoley, Entreman! Have you seen what they've done to Entrecard? They've actually taken a huge leap forward in making it a VIABLE economy. Entrecard has recently just made the leap from Marxism to Capitalism. And I can't wait to see how it goes...!

However, there's been a lot of bitchin' and whinin' lately... and from the usual suspects.

But It Wasn't ALWAYS Like That...

You see, in the beginning, as it is with most things, Entrecarders were all on the big ol' honeymoon. It was like every night was sitting around a big campfire or a ski lodge with Saphrym trying valiantly to get his bodyfat numbers down and his testosterone numbers up and the siren-like EvilWoobie quietly and cleverly becoming every lonely man's Asian dreamgirl. BigPap was blinding everyone with his Big shiny bald head and I was busy trying to find the community's pain threshold.

We Were Ignorant. And It Was Bliss.

We'd start recognizing some of the ads belonging to the real hardcore go-getters like that red cake box with the white bowtie on it that looked just so damn you good you wanted to suck it right off your screen. Then there was that simple unassuming black and white Entrecard of a turnip, so bland and unnoticed in real life, that it, ironically, invaded our minds. We all got to know the Easter Islandesque stone statue of a man that, without a doubt, caused every first-time viewer to ask aloud, "Dude, wtf?" - I was almost sure it was never gonna make it. But it has, and how!

The price of a barrel of oil was still under a hundred dollars. Graham and Phirate made themselves unusually available. Everyone was pretty content to lay in the tall grass like a lion on the prowl just to POUNCE on the EntreNoobs at 2EC to advertise. And our biggest problem was something like the now laughable....

"AD REJECTED - COLOR SCHEME DOESN'T MATCH."

We Entre-laughed. We Entre-cried. And we Entre-visited each others blogs... at first, like a little rascally coyote, we were just trying to grab a credit chicken from the credit coop and run away to do it all over again somewhere else. But then something weird started to happen. We started to fall in love. Ok, we started to fall in love as much as bloggers can.

There was, has been, and continues to be so much quality, new interaction due to Entrecard that, if one were to really take a bird's eye view of the whole thing, it would truly be staggering.

Take, for example, the supreme irony of the following article at Optempo,

"Why I Removed Entrecard"

... who includes the following reactions to Entrecard's EC valuation changes:

Surf the Mind: Thinking Through the Entrecard Changes
MoneyBites: EntreBashing: The New Pricing System
Michaels’ So-Called Life: EntreCard: The New Supply & Demand System
EntreCard Blog: Myths about the new pricing
The University Kid: WTF Is With Entrecard?
Quick Online Tips: Entrecard Changes Pricing Algorithm: Card Dropping Game Stops
Tha Slayer: The new Entrecard Credit system

The supreme irony lay in the rhetorical question, "Just how did OpTempo get learn of these 7 other bloggers?" and why would these 8 bloggers spend their valuable time, energy and blogspace writing about Entrecard if they didn't have a significant audience of ENTRECARDERS to care about it?

"Out With the Old, In With the New"

or...

"The Strong Will Live and the Weak Will Die"

I would say, in general, the same people who complained about the credit valuation system way back when are the same people who are complaining about the credit valuation now. In fact, some of these complainers were supposedly going to retire, but like Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler or "Manos de Piedra", Roberto Duran, they just couldn't resist the allure of "the comeback", of giving the thing that attracted them in the first place just one... more.... chance.

So, how would you like it if you were a young 20-something year old entrepreneur and every time you made a significant change in hopes of bettering things for everyone, a small faction of fair weather users would splinter off and start screaming bloody murder? Or what if, also at that young age, you had demonstrated your intellect and know-how by bringing such a venture this far only to have people threatening to instantly jump ship whenever something was too brilliant for them to comprehend? Or what if every time you tried to outmaneuver the inevitable gaming of the system, various peoples starting predicting the date of your demise?

It wouldn't be much fun, would it? Unless, of course, you had an unshakeable confidence in yourself and in what you were doing. Then, eventually, as you stayed the course, you would attract to you all those who DID possess the intellect and understanding to comprehend the vision and the direction in which you were taking things. But just imagine what all that would be like - and you might begin to understand why you are just a blogger making less than a couple hundred dollars per month and not an entrepreneur losing, or borrowing, a couple thousand per month, so as to allow for the extraordinary to come true.

Graham, Slam, Thank You, Ma'am!

While so many fly-by-night entrepreneurs and work-from-home wanna-be's pop up on the radar only to disappear a short time later, Graham has stayed the course. That doesn't mean Entrecard will definitely succeed or become a household name but it DOES mean that Graham has already outperformed the majority of those who ever dared enter his field. For example, out of the thousands of people who've joined Entrecard, or tried their hand at online marketing, how many of them have been invited to display their innovations at web innovator's gatherings? Or anywhere for that matter...?

In Conclusion

For all you naysayers out there, please, for the love of G-d, shut your traps and give "the kid" a chance. If all you can do is bitch about "bounce rates" or the bumpy beginnings of an effort to forge a REAL, VIABLE Entrecard economy, then you'll never make it online until you get that focus problem sorted out. Because YOU are focusing on what you DON'T have, while I, and others, are focusing on is what we DO have.... and are trying to show a little gratitude for it.

And if your bounce rates are high maybe it's because your site isn't sticky enough.

But that would require taking a new level of responsibility. And why do that when it's so much easier to blame a 20-something Entrepreneur and his flagship, Entrecard for not making you an overnight success?

Taking strong early actions like posting in the forums can really make a difference over the long haul. Once again, I refer people here: Click Here to Get the Most Out of Entrecard