Wow, I never expected posting the keywords “Entrecard” and “asshat” in a twitter post to show someone the folly of scraping another social network’s content would have such far reaching consequences. Friends from across the world have posted on my blog and sent personal emails wishing me well, including the owners of two other social networks. Thanks to everyone who showed support for me. Now I would like to answer some common questions and clear up some misconceptions “out there”.
How does it feel? Great! It feels like I told my boss to “take his job and shove it.” With saddened co-workers cheering me as I clear out my desk, put my stuff in a box and walk out the door. Time wasted on being a slave to dropping cards can now be better spent on friends, family, writing content, and flirting with other social networks. The hardest part of the day was answering all the personal emails. It did feel weird not dropping cards at my usual hour. For old times sake I clicked an Entrecard widget one more time to see what would happen, and it turned black. How fitting, the true soul of Entrecard revealed.
Are there misconceptions out there? As to what happened yesterday? No, all the events are documented with screenshots in my post Banned From Entrecard For Using Twitter. But there have been many things said by others that were flat out lies.
Misconception: I asked people to Twitter bad things about Entrecard. Nope, not true, never happened. I posted on my blog, which generates an RSS feed, which automatically posts a tiny URL onto twitter. What happened is that everyone in the blogosphere that ever took crap from Graham Langdon came out of the woodwork. Some posted repeatedly on twitter, on their own blogs, on forums and other social networks. You would think someone who claims to be so web 2.0 savvy would recognize that.
Misconception: The top 3 posts on Turnipofpower.com are about Entrecard: This one made me laugh. Even if it were true, doesn’t that mean Entrecard should kiss my feet for promoting them? A Turnip hater came out of the woodwork using two hidden identities to claim this one. That “top posts” widget in my left sidebar isn’t dynamic. It’s a hard coded text widget, and in alphabetical order, as any native English speaker should recognize. My top 2 posts are actually video game related, pre-Entrecard for the most part. Even yesterday’s post wasn’t my busiest day ever, nor my most commented post, yet. For the record, here are my 3 top posts, in order, based upon popularity:
Top Posts
- Frontlines: Fuel Of War Vista Game Crash Fix, 4,765 views
- Crysis Singleplayer Demo Review, 2,234 views
- Top 5 Entrecard Tips and Tricks, 1,738 views
What Social Network will you move to next? I’ll revisit some old favorites like Stumble, and review some new upcoming networks, including my own CMF Network. It wasn’t Entrecard that made my blog successful. Entrecard was merely the tool used to promote the content. In the end, it’s the person behind a blog that makes or breaks it. After today, hopefully I will receive fewer “Love your blog, but can you write about something other than Entrecard” comments. My goal has been to write about all Social Networks and now I have the time to do exactly that.
Will you ever go back to Entrecard? No, Entrecard passed it’s prime right about the time of their sezwho upgrade fiasco the same day WordPress released version 2.6. It’s been downhill ever since, despite any claims to the contrary. I had to laugh when someone told me Graham had a list of conditions under which he would reinstate my Entrecard account. 1. Publicly apologizing to him. 2. Promising never to insult him or his staff again in the future. Doesn’t he get it? I talk to his staff more than he does, and it’s always been that way. They will stay on my messenger client, and if i have anything to say to them, i will say it privately. At this point, if he publicly apologized to me I wouldn’t go back. Two words Graham: maturity and responsibility. You won’t learn them from a sea lion.
Response from friends and family: I wore a Turnip of Power t-shirt to work yesterday and my boss noticed. It’s funny because my coworkers are all computer programmers, and not one has a blog. He asked me how my site was doing. I told him about the controversy and he just laughed. I just hope he doesn’t go out and buy me a silly ass hat. I described the situation to my wife and she just shrugged. To her, blogging is no better than playing World of Warcraft . Too much time on the computer is always her opinion. All my kids cared about was showing me their happy meal toys and hinting what they wanted for Christmas.
Once again, thanks for the outpouring of support. It’s great to know so many people are in your corner when the going gets rough. I wish each one of you a happy holiday and hope to see everyone stop by in the future. For my old card dropping friends, you can always get post updates by following me on twitter, RSS, subscribing by email, or simply bookmarking my site and stopping by every so often. Take care!
Update: No sooner did I publish this article than I received the following Email from Entrecard:
Your account ‘CMF ADS’ on entrecard.com has been warned. The administrator provided the following message:
machomacho
Please contact support@entrecard.com if you have any questions regarding this warning.
PLEASE NOTE: You are expected to resolve this issue promptly. Failure to do so will result in the removal of your Entrecard account.
My Response: HA! Who is harassing who? An account I don’t even use receiving childish emails with the message “machomacho”? Juvenile, and shows panic mode has set in over at EC.
Machomacho is the answer to, “What Graham thinks his hat makes him?”
There is no way you or anyone else else can make Graham look like a fool, he manages to get that right all on his own. I stopped dropping about a week or two ago. The last ad is on my site right now (I did hasten this process by canceling a few of the last ads). Tomorrow the EC widget comes down for good. I am looking forward to seeing you a bit more active in some of the other social sites.
I left EC back in May and ever since my time and focus elsewhere has paid dividends. I laugh sometimes when I visit the community forum and see his self induced me-me posts. I just saw the latest one called “First 4 people who post get 2000 EC’s” or something to that affect. Whatever, the site is ran by a diaper boy and that’s a dead on statement.
I am not a fan of EC.
Turnip I know we had a few little run in’s, but it’s all good and not sure if you remember, but anytime I published a negative post about EC you chimed in as the defense team
Anyway that was yesterday’s news on the history channel. Hit me up on SU “FrankJov”
Peace asshat!
Its good to see that you’re fine. I hope Graham grows up once, but I think it is too late for him and his Entrecard. Its unstable and the system looks like an old soviet console-interface. Sure many will hang on to it because of easy traffic but I bet only splogs will be left visiting eachother.
I rejoined EC because I am naive and hoped it would be better and I kind of felt left out, but the way he treated you took the cake, and now more and more great blogger leaves.
I look forward to follow your blog and your work, with or without EC. CMF is a great project. I can understand why Graham envy it.
I’m glad that life after Entrecard is working out good for you. You description of your family’s reaction would be the exact same reaction of my family – including the kids.
I am still thinking about dropping Entrecard, and maybe spend more time on other networks – you know the ones that actually have a future.
If I did I would probably replace the EC widget with something CMF related.
Lyndi: I just see he posted on his EC blog accusing me of creating twitter accounts to type the words “entrecard-=ass”. He still doesn’t get it and probably never will. That explains the machomacho comment. twitter.com/machomacho/ is someone posting entrecard=ass. I really have no clue who it is. I don’t even understand the reference. Oh well. Anyone can create a twitter account using any name. Duh.
Good post, Turnip. Yeah, I read the asshat thread on a the EC forum a little while ago, and I can see that Graham is busily making his usual excuses.
I am now considering a nice, lengthy post on Inspire Emotion, wherein I describe how and why I was banned from the EC forums.
They claimed it was for personal attacks on a certain person I can’t stand, but the truth is, we were attacking each other, and I did not make the first move. Furthermore, she had been attacking me for a week or so, daily.
All that just to say that when Graham says that they don’t tolerate harassment of anyone on EC, he is bloody lying. He simply uses it as an excuse to ban people when he feels like it. He does discriminate, very clearly, and I believe he made a very large mistake this time.
Twitter is very useful. I love it. EC may grow to hate it.
Turnip,
This whole thing couldn’t have come at a better time for me. After a 2 week vacation from blogging, I was just starting to reevaluate my priorities and think about where to best spend my time.
For now, I am going to stop dropping cards. I will probably leave Entrecard entirely within the next month. First, although there are a lot of blogs with wonderful content, I am tired of all the splog sites. Secondly, the way Graham handled (and is continuing to handle) the situation is ludicrous. My 2-year-old would be in time out if he acted like Graham.
I’ve always enjoyed your site, and will continue to visit. Best of luck in your future endeavors!
entrecard is just meeting its dead end…i really njoy all ur post
I just read the post on the blog and it sounded like he, GL, likes the drama around it.
I’m the one who said that your top 5 posts were about Entrecard. That’s my fault. I looked to the left sidebar and say that Entrecard-related posts are at the top and I didn’t see that the posts are actually categorized.
http://entrecard.com/details/92383
This guy’s using your banner.
Freedoms just another word for nothin left to lose,
And nothin aint worth nothin but its free,
Feelin good was easy, lord, when EC sang the blues,
And buddy, that was good enough for me,
Good enough for me and my Graham’s EC
Welcome to Freedom
Life before EC was great..life during EC was great with wasteful widget clicking.. life after EC is great and back to normal.. asshat has to be the internet word of the week… why does he wear such a stupid hat?…who knows but when he does change his avatar it will be an admittance he does/did look like a tool..
Oh come on, the hat is fine.
I told you that EC has increased my traffic – and it has – but I’m really, really taken back by this action against you. I haven’t been dropping, have about 3000 ECs combined… still, I consider leaving after this fiasco. Utter bullshit is all that comes to mind.
Bas: I saw that EC user stealing my turnip logo. Seems like a bad move to me. How angry will people be once they find out he’s a scammer?
Tom: While I see you did mention my top five posts, the person I was referring to posted in the EC forums. They have a long standing grudge against me, as you can easily verify by checking all their old posts. I guess I embarrassed them once too many times in the forums over their investigative journalism.
Great! It feels like I told my boss to “take his job and shove it.”
Well, did you used to feeling such obligation ???
Yep….I didn’t drop today. I’m done with it also. I’ll stay on as long as the adverts are on my site for the benefit of others, but yeah, I’m done. Thanks for sharing this information Turnip. It is greatly appreciated. The middle of the night dropping won’t be missed although I must admit I think it was becoming somewhat of an addiction. I’ll go back to my networking on art sites along with CMF network. Dang, someone is using your logo???? Sounds like grounds for something to me! So, on to investigating all that CMF has to offer…along with any other networks you can recommend! Laurie B. of The Looking Glass
Diaper wonder has changed his ad at least 3 times today under the guise he is playing with Photoshop. As if! A monkey could do a better job in Photoshop. On a good note if he learns a few more Photoshop tricks then he will have a talent to fall back on when EC hits the fan. My guess is within the next week but in the holiday spirit I will give him to the end of the month. I do hope he realizes that with the current economic conditions being a douche bag is not a quality that will put food on the table. OTOH as an online character his name and EC will be good keywords for a month or so as others search to find out what happened until the next online drama comes about. It’s a good thing he enjoyed sleeping on the park benches as I think he is going to be doing a lot of that in the future.
A few days ago he posted in the forums that it took him a few hours to make an “E”. What is that, a 10 minute job?
@Tom, why doesn’t that surprise me? Diaper boy needs help finding the on button on his computer let alone even knowing what the heck Photoshop is. Taking a few hours to make an E is way overkill. See Photoshop uses this thing called a keyboard and it has an E on it. Just click and adjust as desired. The average idiot should be able to do it in under 1 minute but since we are talking about diaper wonder, well he likely had to get a side kick in there to find the e key.
I haven’t dropped much either since hearing this news. Not sure about removing the EC widget though cuz that would fubar my CFM widget.
EC and it’s drama – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Grahm, ya gotta grow up. He’s all aglow in the EC Forum. I think you really rocked his boat, but he won’t admit it.
Beamer
Who is the anonymous dude?
Turnip, I’m glad to hear you’re happy now. And I have to say I’m taken aback by the mention of a wife and kids. Why did I picture you as a lonely turnip/neo type guy?
It is a shit service. It has always been a shit service and I laughed when I read the last two blog posts you put up.
All it is another crappy traffic exchange and glorified blogging pyramid scheme. Instead of investing the time in dropping cards and taking ads why not expand your social voting circles or build up social media accounts that bring real traffic like digg, reddit, and stumbleupon. Leave entercard to spammers and people that don’t understand how to get real traffic.
Thanks for sharing, perhaps it’s time for me to consider what to do with my EC now.
Well, I can agree you with on this one, I had to get out of EC because of those weird account deletions with no reasons except link to the ToS page. I think EC needs to prove themselves first before being so cocky and banning everyone who built the community in the first place.
Maybe Graham’s using drugs.
Max! I give you credit showing yourself to be the better man. Though I do question your end statement, a few people told me to look at Graham’s eyes in the hat picture and make my own conclusions.
One of these days we’ll have to talk about Korea. I lived there for 7 years and would love to have the cash to pay it another visit this summer.
It feels funny visiting your blog and not dropping a card! I like your description about being a slave to Entrecard as that is how have been feeling lately. My widget is being removed at the end of the month and I will devote more time to social networking sites. I visited the forums yesterday just to see if there was any activity over there relating to your demise. It made me laugh to see Graham out with his begging bowl offering credits to the first people to post on his threads. Wish you a happy and unshackled future as a former EC slave.
I only recently joined EC. I count finding this blog one of the few positives of the experience.
Let’s see – my bounce rate is 15% higher thanks to Entrecard and in trying to drop cards I’m finding more and more sites that are infected with various malware. Thank goodness for Kapersky.
I too am joining the crowd of those who are planning their exodus from EC.
You know what they say – “It’s been real and it’s been fun – but it hasn’t been real fun.”
Graham is too immature to run his own network. It was better off when he wasn’t around.
We were all there to support him when he was down but now I fully understand why the VC people didn’t push through with the deal.
He’s still just a kid.
Best. “Good-Bye Post”. Ever. Well done, and, as always, backed up with the facts. ;]
@Glam: “All that just to say that when Graham says that they don’t tolerate harassment of anyone on EC, he is bloody lying. He simply uses it as an excuse to ban people when he feels like it.” Absolutely true, (and I should know!)
Turnip, you were always there for us, and I figured it was about time I acknowledged that. Thank you.
I still continue to wonder about the value of Entrecard. It is good for pumping up various outside stats numbers and brings in visitors and commenters, but I am not sure about the ROI after the time spent clicking.
Blogging success will never come in the form of a widget.
I had to laugh at the bit about the wife and kids. Its the same for me but with a common law husband and no children.
Good luck in your life after Entrecard! I’m now a subscriber so you’ll see me commenting in the future
Excuse me?
The word “asshat” is offensive enough to banish its user, but this little brain tweak on a Sunday morning with children in my kitchen is acceptable?
http://www.arte.tv/fr/accueil/recherche/2321270.html
The link in my comment above is the title link to the objectionable post on the blog. Unfortunately (or deliberately) it does not link to the article, it links directly to the Japanese site. Here is the correct blog link, the post is dated 12/6
http://parispointgriset.blogspot.com/
As soon as I figure out to replace the EC traffic, I’ll leave the place. I’m open to ideas.
Tyson, CMF Network can provide the traffic. If you want a sneak preview of my post this morning, check out http://www.ec-ads.com/cmf-promote/ . That’s a list of every post in the CMF Network that was published in the last 2 days. Wouldn’t you rather visit 60 new posts every 2 days than 300 posts from splogs nightly?
When you realize that Entrecard traffic isn’t really traffic, you’ll drop it immediately.
You’ll be missed Turnip!!! All the best!!!
In the forums Graham posted a thread about selling “twitters for ec” and in it he says, “I’m of the mind that its your twitter account, you spent the time building the following, you should be able to do what you want with it, especially if you want to use it to make a couple spare credits.” Gee, how magnanimous of him! We should be able to do what we want with our own Twitter account! Wow, that is great to know. But wait – where’s the part about how he might kick us out for what we say on Twitter…?
No surprise that “Life after Entrecard” is treating you so well, Turnip!
even without the entrecard to drop on this site, i’d still visit here! i’ll miss you in my top dropper’s list.
But i know that your life after entrecard would be great, or even greater! I wish you all the best, Turnip!
Graham doesn’t have much luck with his hosting provider. Entrecard has been down for 5 hours:
“Unexpected outage. During a routine ram upgrade on the database server our hosting provider installed a bad chipset, we are scrambling to try and get them to remove it again, we’ll be back as soon as we can.”
I’m glad that life has been good for your Turnip. There may be some things that need to be improved back at EC HQ, but the system itself is still useful for many aspiring bloggers. I can’t imagine any other social network better than them for now.
Also, even without that EC badge, expect me to drop here regularly.
While I’ve been absent from EC for a few months and am now learning about what happened with or to you re Entrecard just recently, I’m still laughing about the fact that they kicked you out, plus the publicly viewable reason and behavior for doing so.
Thinking about it further, we do remember similar behavior in the past, don’t we?
Looks like Entrecard moves to the right direction — for Graham.