Jude’s Eclectic Resources

I told you that I bought an ad on the Entrecard sponsor thingy on the 14th for 8,300 credits and when I didn’t hear anything I sent an e-mail just to make sure they got it, but I knew they did because I checked transactions. I hadn’t received anything letting me know if it was in a queue or what. If they were going to reject then they should have already done it or not even accepted the credits to start with.

So they did reply to the feedback form I had used to send the message and this is the response I received:

“We regret to inform you that your ad has been declined due to the fact that we are increasing prices for our advertising slot. We have expanded our ads to also run on our homepage, in addition to our forum and blog, and we have reduced the per-spot rotation from 4 to just 2. The new price is $250 per month, if you are interested.”

Holy crap I’d have to be selling diamonds to afford to advertise with them. It’s one thing to use credits that equal 50 bucks, but to use somewhere around 42,000 credits and no one would probably click anyhow is ludicrous. They also told me I could expect my EC-credits back within 24 hours, but they would deduct a transfer cost.  Wait a minute they are rejecting me after accepting my credits and I still have to pay a frickin transfer charge.

Okay, this will be the last time I try to help support Entrecard even though it still tells me to spend 50 dollars or equivalent credits to support them on my dashboard. I joined SezWho, but soon realized that wasn’t for me same as that other thing before that which also was a bust. I purchased OIOpublisher to help support and I can’t say that it’s very good either so this was my last effort to help.

From now on I will simply drop cards and that’s it.

It’s cold outside and we even had a few snow flurries yesterday, all the leaves are falling from the trees and blowing all over the place. I don’t look forward to this Winter at all because I think we’re headed for a rough one. The only bright spot I see is not having a 9-5 job that I have to worry about driving in all of the mess that I’m anticipating. However that doesn’t mean that I might not be looking for one soon if things continue the way they are.

I have noticed so many businesses closing around town and it’s very scary with the economy the way it is. Even though my partner has a really good job right now he works for a small business none the less. We’re concerned about the taxes the Obama administration is planning for companies that make over 250,000 a year. When that actually goes into effect I have a feeling they might just close the door because of some past difficulty and then we’ll really feel the recession crunch.

Americans everywhere are anticipating some miracles in the near future with our economy, but I don’t share that optimism I’m sorry to say. I would love to feel positive, but it just hasn’t happened for me yet, but we shall see. At least we’ll be rid of the Bush admin and as far as I’m concerned the worse 8 years our country has endured. At least gas prices have come down some so that’s at least one bright spot, but food prices have increased along with many other things.

People are doing their best to survive and cutting down on unnecessary purchases, but with Christmas coming parents do like to make their children happy and splurge on them, but not everyone will be able to do as much as in past years. At least we know from past recessions that they don’t last forever and it’s a cycle so the goal during these trying times is to ride the wave and survive and conserve as much as possible, even with tax cuts it’s still going to be rough.

Remember when I told you about the website where you should check out and compare different web hosts before you decide which might be better for you? If not then I’ll give you the link again, it’s called Web Hosting Geeks and you can read about the top ten hosts and see what other clients have to say about their hosting services before you make a decision because it’s very important to know what you’re getting before you jump into anything.

Before I purchase anything I like to read the reviews because the feedback is very important. I just saved my grandbaby a lot of headaches by not purchasing an Eddie Bauer highchair because I read what the mothers had to say that had experience with them and the majority gave it a thumbs down. If your working online you should do the same thing doesn’t matter what product it is always read the experience that other people have had.

If you need more information then I would suggest reading their web hosting blog. It’s a frequently updated blog that gives information on many different subjects like  content management systems, control panels, domain names and registration, e-commerce issues, security Issues and protection, search engine optimization and marketing and of course the latest web hosting news and types.

“Monkey Fables And Tale” Now this is a sad situation where a blog that everyone likes to read has been found guilty of plagiarism. You come back from the weekend or you don’t check in with the forum for a few days and see if anything new has happened, then all of a sudden someone has noticed another blog has disappeared that they normally drop on and makes an inquiry and all of a sudden all hell breaks lose and Monkey’s blogs disappear because someone else asks them to remove their material. I actually don’t know what to think at this point because I enjoyed reading his blog. Maybe we are in for a more dramatic tale in the weeks to come.

I also bought an Oio ad from Entrecard for 8,300 credits on the 14th and it’s yet to appear. It didn’t tell me that I was in a queue so I’m not sure what is going on there. When I bought it I’m quite sure it said 166x whatever the days were, but then it came up 8,300 credits so now I’m not quite sure of anything. I guess I’ll wait and see for awhile before I send an e-mail, but there was a slot open and that was the only reason I decided to advertise. I actually don’t think many people choose to click on those ads just like anyone else’s blog.

People do click on the EC ads because they want a credit, but unless they are very curious about other ads then I really don’t think they click so much. I know when entrecard is down and I am dropping then I am more inclined to click ads from project wonderful that I recognize as being entrecard droppers when I don’t have those sites bookmarked and that’s the only way I can view anyone, but they haven’t been really slow and horrible of late. I have noticed people simply aren’t dropping as much as before.

I know everyone is extra busy with all the holidays and maybe working extra hours for Christmas because of the bad economy and people simply aren’t dropping right now as much as before. I know I haven’t been and for some people they feel very guilty for not returning drops, but there’s no reason to because life happens and there are usually more important things to take care of like your real world and not the virtual one. I have 3 blogs and for this one and the beauty blog I’m  going to start posting twice a week because it’s getting overwhelming.

Many things are going on in our lives and still we try to maintain our online persona and either we are amateur bloggers or we are amateur marketers just trying to get by and make a difference and extra money in our life. We join all of the social sites and try to gain traffic, but it isn’t always what we think it’s going to be. We create a blog and think people are just going to click on whatever we have to offer, but that’s not reality and it just doesn’t happen no matter what we do.

You then start to think one of two things, is it worth it or how can I do this better? The majority throws in the towel, but those that have a desire to make something happen persevere. Regardless of whatever you have heard about making your fortune online it just doesn’t happen for everyone and it does not ever happen over night. I can not think anymore because as I mentioned before I am burnt out, I have tried so many different things and even though I was optimistic they never seemed to pan out.

I haven’t given up yet, but I do need to regroup and get a better perspective and I certainly appreciate all the support that has been given to me. I will have to make a list and give them link love, but right now the one that comes to mind that I will list right now is Lea of Ocean Of Perspectives she is a very supportive person even if she is going through a hard time herself and she always has something constructive to say on her blog so I encourage you to visit her and see if there is something you can use.