Jude’s Eclectic Resources

Today was the first day ever that I actually took a SocialSpark assignment. Someone had a friends request in so I went there to approve it and looked around. I saw a SS opportunity that was agreeable with me so I checked on it and it was actually open without having to queue for it so I did it. It was also a free service that I signed up for because it just made sense.

I have been reading so many blogs lately that claim to be SS rejects and I am very surprised at some of the rejections because I enjoy reading their blogs and all I can think is that maybe the reviewers really don’t know what they are doing. Bloggers can use SS and make posts knowing that they are totally within Goggles guidelines. Even Matt Cutts says SS is acceptable in this format.

All of the links are nofollow so Google wont penalize you for link selling. I don’t like standing in lines at grocery stores so I definitely don’t like having to stand in line for an opp at one price and have it drop to nothing when it’s available to me. So if it’s not open for me to take at the price advertised when I look I will pass until I find one that is and that I can honestly write about it.

I have noticed that I have a problem embedding videos because the code changes when I save it even if I’m using the code instead of visual part so I save everything up to the video part as I’m writing and then when I am ready to publish the post I add the embed video code and click publish and that takes care of my embed problem. As those of you that know me know I have never been very technical, but I always find a solution that works for me.

I have also rearranged this blog so all of the social programs that I use are on the left hand side and all of my blog information is on the right hand side except for the meta info which I moved to the top left just to sort of balance the sides. I hope it doesn’t look too lopsided, but it will have to do for now because I wanted my EC card to be seen right off the bat for those that don’t have time to read and for those that are featured here.

Just to make sure that my last post was understood. I don’t put anyone down for using blogger unless your a marketing expert and can’t even afford your own domain. I simply made an observation after blogger went down and realised how many bloggers actually used that platform and most are excellent bloggers. I simply wanted to know the percentage of Blogger Blogs in EC’s system.

There were a number of comments that sort of made me feel like I was inferring that they weren’t good bloggers because they choose to use that platform and that wasn’t what I meant at all. At any rate how anyone chooses to blog or no matter what platform they are using they obviously want visitors otherwise why join EC and drop your card? I simply don’t understand why they bother if they aren’t going to update and as was pointed out to me, I should simply find those that do..

Do you get offended when you try to advertise on someones blog and they decline you? When I first started with EC it bothered me at first and I would go visit their site and try to figure out why they thought their blog was so much better than mine. Of course when I first started I also declined some blogs for whatever reason and then I realized that it didn’t really matter so unless they are really offensive I pretty much accept all.

I am not a prejudiced person and I really don’t care what another persons lifestyle is and I feel bad about one blogger that I denied on my Pappy and Nana site just because of the way he had the wording on his card. I couldn’t have any of the Grandchildren seeing that and not understanding that it wasn’t a statement that I was making and that it was someone else and asking me questions that I think they are too young to understand.

I did send a message to this blogger to explain to him, but I never heard back so whether he holds it against me or not I don’t really know. I don’t let it bother me when someone declines my card any more I just figure it’s their loss of credits and find someone else that will take my credits off my hands. I really like this system and I have been advertising more. I didn’t get to drop yesterday so I’m off to make up for it.

I really like the changes that Entrecard has initiated with the program. It’s really nice that the dates segment the cards that have been dropped. Before I was going way back to make sure I hadn’t missed anyone and now I can tell which days I have to bother with. Of course on the weekends lately I haven’t been doing much dropping so now I can go to those dates and make sure I haven’t missed any new people and then go from there.

I downloaded the free pdf so I could read it later and have I done that? No, it’s still sitting in the corner where I left it and I was so anxious to read it after visiting  Turnips’ sneak peek. Since starting with Entrecard I have found a lot of good information on the above mentioned blog about the program. I’m not saying that everything posted there is the gospel, but you will find some answers if you look deep enough.

As I have mentioned before I admire people that can multitask and work a lot of programs at the same time. I have to concentrate on one project at a time. I was planning to check out Sitehoppin and Blogupp, but since I haven’t gotten Entrecard figured out yet with the best dropping method for myself that would be very silly of me. I really like the traffic I receive and it bugs me when people say that it’s low quality.

I love free programs of course and hopefully this will stay that way because many people simply do not have the budget for advertising, granted this may take up a lot of your time, but it’s effective ( I always get effect=result, noun and affect=influence, verb mixed up and no doubt always will) for lowering your Alexa and making those stats look good. I really appreciate the comments I receive and I have really tried to comment more myself on other blogs.

I also like that they have now made it possible to add your other blogs under one account, but I like mine just the way they are and now that I’m use to my separate accounts I’m just going to keep them that way, but for others just joining you can now simply switch between your blogs without having to log out and back in. I have met a lot of nice people through their blogs and I feel bad that I really haven’t had the time to participate in the forum.

As you can see above I have added a page for socialcardsters and you might be wondering what it is. It is a feed that Drew from bensparks.com has put together for members of SocialSparks and those that participate with dropping cards from entrecard.com.

Many people I’m sure have thought about that idea, but didn’t do anything about it. So the credit must go to the person that invariably follows through with an idea. I find it so funny how many people want to take credit for an idea. I’m not referring to this one of course. You hear people saying all the time that someone stole their idea and sometimes that does hold true.

However, that doesn’t mean that other people can’t use their mind to actually conceive the idea themselves and follow through. That’s why they invented the patent to protect. We have all seen the vast amount of thievery online and it’s appalling, but happens often. Sometimes just by adding a simple, all content on this blog is copyrighted will suffice, but not always.

What I find amusing are people that buy articles knowing full well that 100’s of other people are purchasing the same as theirs and then put up a caution from copyscape that they are protected from scrappers. Now how in the world are these people going to know that you didn’t purchase them also? I simply think it’s funny.

Articles that are put together and original then yes I can see that we all want to protect what we conceived, just like our children. Since many people think alike sometimes it can be pretty coincidental that similar articles may be written, but usually even though the article conveys the same ideas it is worded differently.

Okay, I totally got off the topic I started with and that was to make sure anyone visiting this blog was aware that they could be added to Drews blogroll if they are members of both programs and actually have a widget on their site.

When I’m working a program like dropping my business card on other blogs, it bothers me when people are listed and don’t even have the widget because you know you’re never going to get a reciprocating visit. I have dropped on many people that never return their card, but at least there is the off chance that maybe someday they will.

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