Take The Money & Run

So EntreCard members were greeted with both Good News/Bad News last week with the announcement that Andrew Te, CEO of ZipRunner Inc, had acquired Entrecard.com.

The good news of course was that the old guard would be changing and a new owner, presumably with both a real vision and true dedication to Entrecard, would be taking over immediately.

The bad news was that they were keeping on the old staff - the code developer and Graham, the Founder, as advisors to the business.

I personally interpreted that as bad news as EntreCard really needs to stop everything it is doing right now, take a step back and re-evaluate its goals and objectives. Keeping on the old staff with their stale ideas and questionable service ethic will serve to do nothing more then to impede the growth, vision and momentum that any new ownership may bring on.

It also will indicate to the members that the new ownership somehow condones the activities that have transpired over the past few months.

No, this is not a good idea in my opinion, unless Andrew wants to ask these individuals their advice going forward and then do the exact opposite! Then I can see there's value!

In fact, if Mr. Andrew Te decides to start looking around EntreCard to get a feel for things, he certainly does not need to search too far to see what is working and what isn't.

Of course the many dozens of previous members who have been alienated and left EntreCard will not have a voice to tell him what led up to their departure ( a lot of these 'discussions' conveniently disappeared along with the old forums) however there are still a few folks that do occasionally speak their minds.


As far as what is broken, for me personally I have really cut back on advertising since I cannot see the hit counter statistics for any advertising campaigns I purchase nor do I get emails when someone requests an advert on my site or when one of my advertising requests is declined.

I see people posting in the forums complaining about numerous other things such as the marketplace being broken, ads not rotating on their widget, payouts not coming, paid ads running on sites that have never approved by them and the laundry list goes on and on.

We have all pretty much given up opening new tickets as the queue must be enormous with existing tickets and really, nothing rarely gets looked at or even communicated about as the developers seem to be doing other things and have their own agenda.

Then to make matters even worse, last week we read in the Official EC blog that the development group is now working on even more new functionality (in this case, some bizarre secret proprietary algorithm which is meant to battle the bounce rate. A rather insignificant issue in comparison to the many other priorities that these people should be working on)

Moving on to the forums, they clearly seem to be very unfriendly to the members.

The forums are moderated with an iron fist & with an extreme bias towards management.

Members have been exiled for speaking their minds, specific English words and phrases are banned as a result of other competing websites having the same word in their name and any dissenting opinions by members are responded to by staff with ridicule or contempt.

The Moderators, with the exception of a couple of good ones, essentially all trot out the overused adage of "If you're not happy with the service you can go elsewhere' or another favourite is 'well this is a free service & I am volunteering my time' somehow trying to reconcile their extreme lack of customer service and common courtesy with a completely unrelated and illogical statement.

My advice, for what it is worth, is get rid of the entire existing staff including these 'so-called' advisors and bring in completely new people. If you need to take the site offline to bring the new staff 'up to speed' for a few days, so be it. Short-term pain for long-term gain.

The only reason I am still bothering to hang around is that I am truly hoping that things will change for the better and EntreCard can once again be about members and community instead of the sinking ship that it has morphed into today. I guess only time will tell.

As the band 'The Who' sang in one of their songs: 'Meet the new boss - Same as the old boss' to dejectedly describe that each successive new regime turns out to be very similar to the previous one.

Let's really hope that this is not the same case here.

6 comments:

Tina T said...

Your quote from The Who does look accurate so far. I'm sticking with EC because I do hope that things will change. The biggest complaints seem like they would be quite easy to fix in just a small amount of time(unless I am missing something.) I hope we'll know something more soon.

Doctor Faustroll said...

Actually, it's pretty typical to tell the rank and file that the incompetent idiots booted out the door will be be staying on as consultants. I've seen it happen at least eight times in my ludicrous working lifetime.

Nobody is supposed to mention the truth because The Emperor's New Clothes is not required reading in the NOMF™

Lying and business are interchangeable, because that's the American Way!

Unknown said...

Oh dear! I was supposed to keep silent with the new bunch?

Well, the truth always comes out, so it's OK to speak out.

Great post.

I'm waiting for more fun at entrecard.
In fact, I see it coming right today, now the paid ads are slowly disappearing.

have a great weekend!

The BoBo said...

Of all the things you mentioned - my only major complaint is the fact that paid ads run on my blog even when I reject them. Seems like something is wrong with that script there.

Anyway, I'm always open to change. Lets hope things get better with the new management.

Canucklehead said...

if you're sticking with EC you're more than slightly drunk my friend. CHEERS!

Mrs Sweetwater said...

Here Here !!
hope mistress cindy reads my post and understands that we are not the strong silent tyep; we are the strong loud type.

I can find a picture in google to describe any emotion and believe me that pic of those patent leather boots and the whip got right to the point. dont' you think ?

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