There’s a new Clicky program called Contenture which you can join for a small fee and visit sites that will hide ads so you aren’t inundated and assaulted by seeing so many. I of course wasn’t sure what it was an thought it was a way to monetize my blog, but it wasn’t what I thought it was so I removed the badge below from the sidebar because I really don’t expect anyone to support my blog but me unless of course I was offering some wonderful services or something useful which I do not.

This program would be better suited for large business sites that use a lot of paid advertising to block those ads for those subscribers that pay for the service and benefit themselves. I’m not sure I actually understand the program entirely, but if you want to read about it yourself and see if your blog or website could benefit from the program this help section explaining Contenture might be something you would want to check out. Apparently the fees are put into a pool and distributed among all Concenture users.

I realized after signing up and adding the plugin and the badge that it wouldn’t really benefit a blog like mine sometimes I jump the gun before I have all the facts, aah the joys of aging. The following quote is from Techgeist “Contenture is an anti-ad service that provides website owners and users the option of actual payments instead of seeing ugly advertisements all over the place.” I’m sure those of you that use Clicky got the same e-mails I did and were probably curious so I decided to add this small post for those people like myself that weren’t sure how it works.

I’ve tried many things online to make extra money, but viewing e-mails for two cents each hasn’t been one of them until last week. I thought why not try it when I saw the above ad on someones blog. Since they were giving me 10 dollars to sign up and get me started in the right direction to the 25 dollar pay out. Don’t laugh too hard because you’re smarter than me.

I’m laughing at myself now because at the rate they are giving me e-mails to read I’ll probably be 90 years old before I reach that 25 dollar payout. Of course if I had hundreds of people sign up under me and they read e-mails I would get a penny more while they still get their two cents, but it’s hard to get sign ups so I don’t see this program lasting very long for me or anyone else.

I have never been good at marketing although I have tried many things over the years I’ve been online. I’m not good at selling, but I was always a sucker for buying until I got burned too many times. It now takes a stick of dynamite to make me part with my money, but I will try a program if it’s free and I can possibly make a few bucks, but I’d like to see those few bucks before I die.

I have come to the conclusion that people shouldn’t sign up for reading e-mails it’s just not worth the time or effort, not that it really takes either, you just don’t get enough e-mails to read to make it worth while. I’m sure someone will tell me that they have made good money doing this, but I don’t think I’ll believe them. I hope everyone that celebrates Easter will have a great one.

This is my widget, if you saw it what in the world would you think my blog was about? I never really thought about it until I started clicking on other widgets and ended up on blogs that had nothing to do with what the widget implied. Lately when I have been dropping from my inbox I’ve really started watching closer because I try to reciprocate drops and the ones that really get me are the ones that have an attractive woman which lead to a marketing blog. I noticed this a lot more since the new changes at Entrecard and when I would check the blogs to approve or reject.

What in the world does having a picture of a young woman on a widget have to do with a marketing blog? I ran into a few widgets that one would assume belonged to a man trying to lure men to the blog, but the photos on those widgets belong not to a man and his blog, but to a woman that runs the blog. We are all use to men and advertising agencies being sexist and trying to get the attention of perverted men, but for a woman to stoop as low as men and use her own sex to lure simply boggles my mind.

Actually it doesn’t boggle my mind I just said that why shouldn’t that poor woman use the same tactics as her male marketing counterpart, most do have words that let you know it’s actually something to do with marketing, but why use a woman to get someone to click? Because she knows it works so why bother and be original and come up with something else that actually sells other than using a woman’s sexuality to stir a mans senses? Usually when I see an animal I think it’s a blog about animals or a baby leads me to believe it is a blog about babies.

I’ve been thinking about changing my widget, but by now it is recognized and people already associate it with a baby boomer that likes to ride a scooter and may or may not be senile depending on the post they might read on any particular day. I write about the things that concern me and lately that has been Entrecard because it seems to be on everyones mind right now. This will be my last post about Entrecard I may mention the program from time to time, but I wont devote another post to it. I’m sure people that don’t use the program have heard enough, sorry to those that don’t know what I’m typing about.

Everyone that gets involved in a program has their own way of looking at things and some are very volatile and vocal in the way they think that program should be used and even go so far as to tell others the right and wrong way that they should be using it. Unless you are violating TOS it’s really none of their business how you choose to use any program. Not everyone has the same objective as them so they really don’t have the right to tell anyone what to do unless they are asked for advice, just thought I’d get that off my chest.

My Entrecard 10 dollar experiment is over and the results are below even though the click through was at 514 for 3 days I received more than that probably because so many were checking to see if they wanted my ad to run on their blog and decided since they were there they might as well click on my widget which was fine with me and made my traffic spike. I have no clue who might have rejected my ad and it really doesn’t matter to me. I cant do those campaigns very often, but it was an interesting experiment.

impressions 43507
cpm $0.2298
clicks 514
cpc $0.0195
ctr 0.0118

I really don’t think regular people other than Entrecard people even bother to click ads unless they see something that interests them. I would hate to see a get rich quick scheme catch someones attention on my widget though because I was a sucker many years ago before I got seasoned with what was going on. I made many mistakes and spent a lot of money I didn’t have because it sounded so good, but we all know if it sounds to good to be true then it usually is.

Almost everyone knew this was coming with the ads, but most didn’t really read up on the whys and why-nots and just assumed they would benefit from the new changes and they will if they decide to sell their ec’s back, I understood this from the start. I am concerned though because no mention has been made about filling out tax forms because they will have to issue 1099 misc forms if people get paid over 400 dollars a year.Perhaps they really haven’t delved that far yet and will make a cut off limit before anyone cashes out after a certain amount.

Who knows what the plan is maybe they really don’t know themselves yet and will change it as they go, but I really think they need to get a CPA and lawyer on board that will advise them of all the legal ramifications if they don’t follow the law. I’d hate to see them shut down before they even get started. I use my credits to back some contests because it gives me backlinks, but no one says they have to keep them after the contest.

I don’t advertise a lot with ec’s, but I do drop for credits and I’m not a speed dropper or whatever they call them. I leave comments, but not on every blog, but I try to read the post of the people I drop on some are of interest to me and some I just skim over especially if it’s long. If it’s just an advertisement I drop and skip right on pass unless it’s a blogger that I like then I’ll type a few words. I had accrued a few credits before I knew that Entrecard was going to buy them back.

I will sell some back, but it wont be a lot especially if the price is really low. I will use them further down the line for more contests and the market place. It really bothers me when people are spewing a lot of sour grapes because they don’t have any ec’s to sell and they think everyone else is evil because they have some and might make a couple of bucks. It is very sad how greedy money makes us and brings out the ugly that the ego tries to hide and cover with a smiley face, but we can see beyond that. I wish the best for us all.