What is your Twitter account worth?

Mine is apparently worth $103.


$103

Created by WhatsMyTwitterAccountWorth.com

What's yours worth? Find out at WhatsMyTwitterAccountWorth.com and @bobbytco me to share it with me.

Add my twitter to social network and interact with me. Looking forward to interacting with you!

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Entrecard Acquired By ZipRunner, Founder Graham Langdon stay on as advisor

The inevitable has happened. Apparently, EntreCard founder Graham Langdon has sold EntreCard Inc. to ZipRunner Inc. Googling the name ZipRunner Inc. returns zero relevant result apart from EntreCard's acquisition press release.

Read about the announcement here:
EntreCard has been acquired by ZipRunner

Here's a little about ZipRunner, as narrated by its CEO, Andrew Te:

ZipRunner is an investment company with many years of experience with Internet companies. We intend to have a smooth transition and will continue to provide essential services such as dropping cards, earning credits and allowing bloggers to network. We believe that these services are what make Entrecard special. In addition, Entrecard will continue to have Richard Clark (phirate), Entrecard’s founding developer, on its management team.

I really hope this move will further improve EntreCard. EntreCard has gone from (blogger) fans' favorite to a controversial startup, with divided opinions about Graham's plans and what he hope to achieve with EntreCard. No doubt Graham's decisions have been partly fueled by desire to break even or earn some profits from EntreCard even after serving the blogging community without any charges for a year or two.

To Graham's credit, he has implemented many changes to EntreCard in the final few months of his tenure as CEO, probably much more than he has ever done in the 2 year prior to that. Some noticeable changes in recent months:

• introduction of paid ads on EntreCard network which is wildly popular
• revamp of the old forum and setting up a new one
• offering to buy back EntreCard credits from members
• asking members to complete CPA offers in exchange for EntreCard credits to raise funds

We wish Graham Langdon best of luck. Just hearing his story, we know that he has gone through a lot, struggling and moving forward with EntreCard. He will now spend time with other projects, yet you may still hear from him about past and current challenges at his new personal blog:

http://ontrapranore.com/

Lastly I also hope for the best for EntreCard users. If there is one thing ZipRunner could do to make us believe that EntreCard is improving for the better under their management, please honour Graham's initiative to allow EntreCard users to cash out their credits! I have about $100-200 worth of credits now and I don't really know how to spend it.

I welcome response from Graham Langdon, ZipRunner Inc. and Andrew Te as well as other bloggers and people from EntreCard community network.

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Entrecard, Where to?

I guess this is a pretty stale news by now but I still would like to talk about the recent Entrecard and its economy makeover.

On 29th September, I received an email from Entrecard. Apparently it is having an overhaul of its economy and redefining the value of its credits as well as setting some rules on what is allowed and what is not when it comes to credit transfers. Here's a quote from the email I received from Entrecard management:

1. Buy credits for less: Entrecard is now selling 1,000 credits for $6.00. You can buy them here: http://entrecard.com/r/buy_credits
   
2. More pricing increments: Instead of prices doubling every time, there are now a few more steps. The new price points can be found on the Advertising page in the wiki, here: http://entrecard.com/docs/doku.php?id=advertising
   
3. Members are not allowed to sell credits: This goes for ebay sales, posts in the Marketing forum, and posts on other forums. If you have references on your site to the sale of credits, please remove them immediately, as it is now against our terms.
4. Credit transfer limits: Members are allowed to make a maximum of 14 credit transfers a week, up to a maximum of 1,000 credits, whichever comes first. This means you can still run contests where you give credits away for free, and under 1k per week. Note: This does not affect linked blogs, you can transfer unlimited credits between linked blogs.
5. Transfer tax: From now on, all transfers, including transfers made with our new payments API, will be taxed at a rate of 12.5%. The taxed credits will be sold to members (see #1).
6. Blogs cannot be unlinked: Once you link a blog, it's there for good unless you ask us to delete the blog from your account. This prevents linking/unlinking to get around the credit transfer limits, and it also stops you losing access to a blog if you unlink it in error, which happens a lot.
7. No more coupons: You are no longer allowed to send coupons.
8. Shop closed: Except for Entrecard upgrades (Featured Status, Fast Pass) the Entrecard Shop is now offline until further notice. Please do not request a seller token until the shop returns. When it comes back, it will be bigger and better. We'll communicate more details nearer the time.

I don't see eye to eye to this new rules set by Entrecard, many original Entrecard users are not happy either when many changes were made in regards to its economy several months ago. I would like to respond to each points presented above (the number corresponds to the number of the points found in the email sent by Entrecard):

1. Buy credits for less (1000 for $6)? I think the Entrecard management has been oblivious to the fact that 10,000 EC were selling as low as $1. No doubt we can buy from Entrecard but their price IS not low.
2. No comment here, just that publisher would be earning very little EC from now on.
3. Nice, so now there is total monopoly when it comes to sales of EC. However, I think some users would ignore the warning and continue to sell EC from underground.
4. I actually welcome this new rule. From now on there will be less worthless contest offering thousands of EC which does not worth much anyway!
   
5. Entrecard gets EC each time an advertiser buys ad from a publisher, they also impose tax on EC transfer. The EC will go directly into their account to be resold for $6 every 1000EC. Perhaps this is enough to pay for server fee?
6. No comment, maybe it is the logical rule to impose?
7. Many people will be affected when coupons are no longer allowed, people who run contests and other people who offer EC for visitors who participate in their events.
8. Shops are closed, many interesting items will also be pulled. Gone are the days when 1000EC can be sold for $10 and when 7000EC could buy you a year of Linux hosting. Wonder when the shops are opened again, will it be as good as it were.

Entrecard has been on the decline for quite some time now (I hope I don't get into trouble with the management for saying this) but I guess necessary steps are undertaken to help revive its glory. However, with the gigantic amount of EC still floating in the market, I think it will take quite a long time before the economy is steadied and Entrecard Credits will be a valuable commodity again.

Don't worry Entrecard, I have been with you for 9 months now. I hope to still be around to see you regain your glory, hopefully sooner rather than later :)

What do you think about the recent Entrecard makeover? Has it affected you? How? What is the ideal way to run Entrecard and regulate the use and value of its credits?

Coming up next: BobbyT will be discussing about Entrecard's partnership with OIO Publisher :)

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PostOnFire Mini Review

Beware people! There is a new up and coming social bookmarking/networking site. It is blazingly hot too. With an attractive name and cool voting graphic, PostOnFire has been quietly converting some experienced users of other established social media sites to its service while at the same time gaining a loyal followings of its own. PostOnFire is only 2 months old, and although there are not too many users there now, submissions there are highly organized into neat categories and are quickly noticed by all other users once they are submitted, which is just the right formula for major success in the future.

Submissions will be viewed by users and once they received enough vote, they become "hot" and are moved to "hot posts" section and get "published" (another word for being featured as hot posts in certain categories, I think). Personally I see many active new bloggers participating in PostOnFire, and if you are a blogger, I highly recommend you to test out this service. On the other hand, if you are a regular web surfer who doesn't blog, you should also check out this site, you might just get your regular fix of quality blog posts in a clean new environment with the possibility of knowing new friends too! If you decide to try out PostOnFire, don't forget to add me as a friend, my ID is bobbytoat. Enjoy :)

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Have you tried Mixx?

Have you tried Mixx? Mixx is a user-driven social networking and bookmarking site, user-driven meaning that users can submit or find content by peers based on interest and location. Like all social media site, you can share good story, photo and video here.

I know that there are numerous other social networking sites, like StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit, just to name a few main players. You probably won't even visit Mixx if you are highly contented with your favorite social networking sites or if I do not list any of the good points about Mixx, right? So, guess what, I'm going to do just that. Here are a few reasons why I recommend using Mixx:

1. It is new (started in late 2007)

I think the its interface is cleaner than other established social networking sites and it is less cluttered. I am comfortable using it frequently. Seriously, I feel intimidated by Digg's environment.

2. You can be a powerful authority

This being a new site, you have a much better chance to establish yourself as a good reader, reviewer and bookmarker. People will look up to your lead if you submitted a lot of good stuffs here. If you make a lot of new friends, you can share the media you submitted and probably influence them to cast a vote if you have a good reputation. This will give you certain power to influence whether an item submitted will make it big or not on that site. This will come in handy if you plan to submit your own articles or that of your friends. Surely your friends will appreciate having you as a worthy affiliate in this case.

3. You can create your personalized group here

Want to feel more attached to a social networking site? Create your own group, based on location, interest, topic, occupation, etc. so that you can interact with people who share common traits with you. Each group created have its own messageboard, announcements and shout outs can be posted here. Articles can also be submitted to be shared only among members of a personal group, pretty cool feature!

4. It has diverse categories and flexible tagging system

Mixx offers plenty of categories for item submitted and you can also tag them with your own words. This not only makes it easier for you to submit items, it is also easier for users to search for items of interest based on categories.

5. Mixx has a good karma system

I like the karma system here. You get points for every submission and comments that you made and the points are clearly indicated. For example, I don't really know yet how the Made Popular stat in Digg is calculated and the requirements for a submission to be made popular. Likewise I could hardly assess whether I have been a good contributor on StumbleUpon. The karma system in Mixx makes it easier for other users to rate you, see your contributions and probably make you a friend or leader in submitting and reviewing stuffs.

That's about all for now. If you have the slightest dislike for the social networking platform that you are currently using, you can try Mixxing now and see for yourself if it's better, after all there is no harm in trying and it is free! You can also add me as a friend on Mixx, my ID is bobbytoat. If indeed you are joining, consider submitting this article or vote for it, just to test out or to show some love :)

Do tell me what is your experience with Mixx, new and old users alike. What are the most significant features that you look for in a social networking site? Anyone who would like to educate me on the finer details about Digg and StumbleUpon can kindly leave their comments or point me to the right article. Thank you!

Recommended articles:
Allen Harkleroad's Mixx testimonial
Mixx Democratizes Categories: Something Digg Should Have
Digg Refugees May Be Heading To Mixx
Digg.com vs Mixx.com

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