John Chow Whining About Gaming Entrecard While He’s Gaming Entrecard
Posted on January 25th, 2008 by DotComMogul under A-lister, John Chow, make money online, mogulFROM: JOHNCHOW.COM: Misleading Credit Pricing
Something that Entrecard needs to work on is its pricing system. For the longest time, I was the most expensive blog in the network. Now I’m not even on page one. This is because of members mass dropping cards in order to inflate their price and build up their credits. The current number one site cost 466 credits per day but has only 72 RSS readers (he wisely removed the FeedBurner count from his blog).This gaming of the system is making it hard to tell which sites will deliver traffic and which sites won’t send anything. I wouldn’t spend 466 credit to advertise on a blog with only 72 RSS readers but all his spots are sold. People think high price equal quality but for many Entrecard member sites, that is not the case. Until Entrecard figures out a way to prevent gaming of their system, you should check out the site more to prevent having your hard earned credits wasted.Get 200 Entrecard CreditsEntrecard allows me to send any credit amount I want to another Entrecard user. So, the first 35 Entrecard users who writes a recommendation for me will each get 200 credit add to his account. That’s still not enough to buy a spot on this blog but it’ll get you a lot closer. You don’t have to use the credit to advertise on my blog - feel free to use it to buy space on any of the 2,500 blogs in the Entrecard system. In order to write a recommendation and get the 200 credits, you need to be an Entrecard member.
John Chow, of all people to complain about gaming the system, is doing exactly that. While bribing people with a measly 200 Entrecard credits to give him an Entrecard review, he bemoans the fact that he is no longer on the front page of Entrecard for his category. He belittles the higher priced blogs that are on the front page by speculating that they are just worthless mass card droppers and that your points are better spent on a “quality” splog like his. I recently read one blogger who paid for an ad on Chow and received a whopping 43 visitors from the ad. Whoooop didooooo … 43 visitors.
In reality, the leaders of the category “Making Money Online” are some hard working dedicated bloggers who post quality content and work hard to drive traffic to their blogs as opposed to such banal content as what they had to eat today or bribes for Entrecard recommendations. In the top 3 listings are the likes of Problogger, one of the top blogs on the Net, famous for it’s quality content.
Of course, John is no stranger to gaming the system. Bitch Slapped by Google, banned by Digg and Technorati, John is a Master Gamer. Gaming the system only seems to bother him when the tables are turned and someone else is on top. See also: John Chow Buys Comments | Evil Blog Promotion Ideas | Evil Blog Contest | John Chow Stuffs Cookies — Pretty obvious that Chow’s evil gaming methods have made his blog popular rather than quality content.






















































January 25th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
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January 25th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Great article,
Not everything John Chow says is right! There’s some good stuff on his site but people keep praising him too much. Okay he made it alright i get that but it doesn’t mean he’s right all the time.
He himself did a lot of gaming to get himself where he is right now.
Nhuong Son’s last blog post..My Thoughts on Zhang Yimou’s “To Live”
January 25th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
The truly remarkably stupid thing about all of this is he was asking for recommendations. Has anyone who has used Entrecard read the recommendations? Not to mention, has anyone read Chow’s? Recommendations are nice as favor to do for people, but in reality no one really reads the recommendations. He’s gaming the system in a way that makes no sense.
StanHayes’s last blog post..Fantasy Baseball Team Names
January 26th, 2008 at 12:04 am
Couldn’t agree more.
Bill’s last blog post..Some Things You Must Know About StumbleUpon
January 26th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Bravo for a speech well spoken! I predict that John Chow will be a has been next year because of the dribble he writes. You can see a difference in the quality of his content. Look at what he writes and what his guest bloggers write. Who provides the quality? Let us not forget his blog description; “ramblings of a dot com mogul.” And that’s exactly what it is.
BloggingPreneur’s last blog post..Earnings from Working at Home: January
January 26th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Looks like you might be trying to get a little link baiting when John Writes his post about everyone’s reactions to his whiny post. Good for you if he sends his link juice your way.
But I agree that he’s major complaint is that because he has hordes of sycophants hanging on his every word that he should get the top spot in everything. What I don’t understand is what these readers of his get from the relationship. Don’t they merely serve to elevate his blog and make HIM more money. Forget that. I would rather spend my EC on a Blog like Saphrym’s because people are interested in what he has to say and what he has accomplished. Plus with everyone putting down Saphrym’s blog he’s getting more and more visitors. I bought an ad on Saphrym’s blog and I know it will get me more clicks than one from JC would.
Drew’s last blog post..Crunchy, Chewy, Yummy? PAD 1022
January 26th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Botton line for EC and it’s users: he’s still attaching his name recognition to EC and just by blogging about it he’s increasing EC’s users (as in “In order to write a recommendation and get the 200 credits, you need to be an Entrecard member.”)
EC’s allowing him to “game” because it’s sending tons of new members but like Stan said, “Most Recommended” doesn’t really stand for much other than a feather in one’s cap.
Jason - GorillaSushi’s last blog post..What NOT To Put In Your Yard
January 27th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Agreed. I can’t believe he is complaining.
Selene’s last blog post..Why Going Outside Your Comfort Zone Is Worthwhile
January 27th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
He is always one of the first to try something until he feels everyone else is getting the better of a new system. Then he has a habit of dumping it and then complaining about it. Shame their are people out there that follow everything he does like sheep.
Colin’s last blog post..Traffic by Blogexplosion
January 28th, 2008 at 12:31 am
Thank you for displaying my EC today.
Cybercelt’s last blog post..Airstream Ranch in Florida
January 28th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
John Chow is a master at gaming the system He cannot stand it when someone else ranks higher than him on anything.His site has become quite useless in the past few months unless you want to see what he had for dinner or who’s elbow he rubbed.
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January 29th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
John wants the recommendations because there is a tab for MOST RECOMMENDED that virtually doesn’t change.
Don’t underestimate the Master Gamer.
February 8th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Kudos for a great post, and having the guts to post what many others are probably thinking. I think it’s funny that he started the whole EC craze, and now he’s getting pissy because he’s not the most expensive site anymore.
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February 9th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I think it says alot when a person is reduced to bribing people to write recommendations. If you want to be at the top then you to give out quality stuff. Has anyone ever notice that the most expensive one to advertise on drop a card on anyone?
Carol’s last blog post..Making Money From Blogging
March 24th, 2008 at 3:26 am
All of you are just jealous of John Chow’s success. John Chow has a point. I agree entrecard has to work on its credit pricing.
And what’s this accusation of bribing ? Dictionary.com defines bribing as “money or any other valuable consideration given or promised with a view to corrupting the behavior of a person, esp. in that person’s performance as an athlete, public official, etc.:”
John Chow never said write a “positive” reccomendation. He only said write a “reccomendation.” He does not even need the recommendation he is already too popular. You can give him a negative recommendation or even write something bad about him and still get your 200 ec. Now do you call that bribery ?
Bribery will be to tell people write a “positive reccomendation” in exchange for a measly 200 ec. Or when you tell people to write a “positive review” for your blog. But if you pay people to review your blog or website or write a recommendation that isn’t bribery that’s called “Commerce.”
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