Recently, Entrecard changed its advert pricing algorithm in order to base it on the demand of EntreCard ad-space at a blog rather than the number of cards dropped on one’s widget. This has been done, basically, to curb the unfair practice of chain-dropping on entrecard widgets that made some of the not-so-popular get priced higher than probloggers like John Chow or Darren Rowse in terms of EC credits.
The new pricing algorithm calculates the price in this way: For every EC spot there are a number of adverts waiting to show (Of course, if they have chosen to advertise their EntreCard at your blog).2 EntreCard Credits is taken as the base price for any spot, & then for each of the adverts waiting in your queue to be displayed, the price for EntreCard spot is doubled.
Well, I must say that this is fairer than the previous pricing system in which the price of a widget was calculated on the basis of number of drops on it. But, I am not sure if this radical change will perform well in the long run.
The major drawback of the new system is that even if a more popular blog and a lesser known blog have the same number of adverts waiting to be displayed then the price for entrecard widgets at both the blogs will be same! Also, using 2 credits as the base price is not a very good idea either. As the price of popular entrecard widgets increase by powers of 2 it’ll become a lot harder for a normal fair-surfer (that is, who doesn’t chain surf, like me!) to advertise at such blogs because the credits you get for dropping your card or getting drops on your widget is just one credit. Earlier, many bloggers resorted to chain dropping in order to increase the credits as well as the popularity of their entrecard widget. Now they’ll resort to chain dropping to earn more and more credits to be able to advertise at high-priced blogs.
I’d have liked it if the price for dropping or receiving our card was also manipulated in some way according to our widget’s popularity. That would have also been quite fair and very justifiable. You earn credits using your card depending on your popularity! To me, this sounds just better than the way it presently is.
Anyways, we can just wait and watch. Lets see how it turns out. I’ll be posting more about it as soon as I gather some experience.