Poetic Shutterbug

There is going to be a rant along with two questions. You'd think I would know better by now. I recently created Collectibles Mercantile which I made to help spread the word on my new eBay store of the same name. It has been quite a while that I've had to use any of these promotional sites to advertise a blog. I no longer use any of these on Poetic Shutterbug. Since my Collectibles Mercantile is so new, I thought why not try Entrecard again. I was obviously having a memory lapse and warped sense of judgment when I had that thought. I opened an account there again and started dropping. Lo and behold first 15 minutes of dropping and I get a virus - a trojan horse which closed my browser, redirected me to other sites and basically caused complete havoc on my computer. Luckily I have virus protection and was able to clean it up. Harsh memories of the EC virus infested blogs surfaced and I thought to myself, it just isn't worth the stress. I transferred the credit...

As many of you know I have been on a roll lately winning contests. So, it's time for me to give back. The Poetic Shutterbug announces it's "Music In Nature" contest. Music in Nature can be interpreted in so many ways which is the essence of this contest. When you hear the phrase "Music In Nature" what is the first thing that comes to mind? You will email me your entries at joanneolivieri@sbcglobal.net You may email anything you like as long as it reflects your feelings on this phrase. It can be poems, quotes, thoughts, essays, photos etc... All I do ask is that whatever you do send, it must be your original work. I know many of you are photographers as well so a photo reflecting your thoughts on the subject is fine. You may attach a jpg. image to the email. Many of you are artists so if you've created something which fits the theme then please send me a photo of what you have made. If you are a musician, a link to your music fitting this them...

Dropper # of drops anns snap edit scrap 30 Margie and Edna's Basement 30 Secret forest 30 BetterSpines 30 Secondary Roads 30 Photography by KML 29 My gypsygoods 29 The Every...

This is just a short tidbit. Since I removed Entrecard and stopped dropping, I noticed a huge decrease in traffic. Granted my bounce rate decreased but I did not like the decrease in traffic. So, I again went back to EC. I will be dropping on blogs that I know to be safe, without virus warnings etc... It also looks as if we have choices as to what paid ads will be shown on our blogs so I am feeling a bit better about the entire situation. I just have this love/hate relationship with EC that I cannot shake :D I also wanted to let all of you know that since adding meta tags to my blogger template that my Google traffic and other search engine traffic has slightly increased. So, you will all see me back on EC albeit with a different color widget as seen above this post.

While dropping EC's, though for the life of me I don't know why, I checked out EC's latest blog post and here is what I found posted below. A $50 fee for not accepting paid ads? Are you kidding me? As a result, I will not be accepting any more ads beginning today. Those of you who have already bought ads on my blog, your ads will be honored. I am going to take a wait and see on this and figure out what is best for Poetic Shutterbug. In the meantime, I will be going through as many blogs as I can on EC to follow the ones in which I am interested. Below is the latest on the EC blog. Implementation of sponsor ads program postponed until Oct. 5 Written on September 27th, 2009 by Cindy Hello Entrecarders, We just wanted to update everyone that the sponsor ads will be postponed for another week, until Oct. 5, 2009. When it is implemented, users will have the option to opt out of the sponsor ads program completely for a small fee. For just $50 a year , you ca...

When I began blogging over a year ago now Entrecard was the first advertising method I used. I loved the idea of having my own business card widget and being able to advertise on other blogs just by using the credits I earned from dropping on different blogs. I have never paid for credits with EC. I always just earned by dropping and I think I only once dropped the maximum 300 which at that time I said to myself I would never do again. It literally took hours. I normally drop around 100 and receive about half back. As with Adgitize there is the constant problem with receiving virus warnings, browser takeovers and all the other annoyances that go hand in hand with dropping EC. Now with their latest news that alerts all of us they will no longer be providing credits for drop backs I'm asking myself why should I stay with them? EC has said that the credits to advertise on other blogs will decrease as a result of this change and therefore we will all be able to take advantage ...

I want to thank all of my EC droppers. I very much appreciate your loyalty. Here are my top droppers for the month of June. Dropper # of drops Free Stuff in Las Vegas Baby 31 60 Were Enough 31 Photography by KML 31 Stock Recomendations 31 NARESH 31 Denford Magora's Zimbabwe Blog 31 ...

Dropper # of drops The Everyday Adventurer 31 Go Las Vegas Baby! 29 Mom's Place 27 Photography by KML 26 Free Stuff in Las Vegas Baby 25 vanillaseven.com 25 West of Mars - the Meet and Greet 23 Searching for me 22 ...