Over at Shoemoney, you might have heard about EntreCard.  EntreCard is kind of like a virtual way to drop your “business card” on other sites that carry the EntreCard javascript code.

I figured I’d give it a whirl, because I saw this as a way for free advertising.  So I signed up and put the code on my site.  I was a little confused going through the site at first, because I was looking for what I needed to do to build up my points.   The more points you have the more places you can advertise on.  It didn’t take me too long to realize that to earn points you had to visit other sites that had signed up and “drop your card” on their site - and voila you get a point.

Handy thing is that this costs you nothing.

The business cards are 125×125 images.  This doesn’t seem so bad, since most sites I’ve come across lately have this as a method of advertising as well.  This also gets your site out there and on other sites that would probably cost a bit of money.

You get 1 day of advertising - and then they’re rotated through per day - all automatic.  All we have to do is approve the ad to be put on the site.  The approval system is easy and once you’ve kind of floated through the site, it’s not hard at all to get things going.

So far my only frustration is that some of the sites that are signed up do not have the javascript on their site.  So when I want to stop by and drop my card and earn a few points - I can’t because there isn’t anything there.  A bit of a time waster.   On the other hand this doesn’t happen … all that often.  But it is a pain in the butt.

Other than that, it’s a free way to market your site and get it on sites that you might never have heard of or figured was way out of your price range for advertising.

So far I’ve got it on two sites and I’ve managed to find quite a few cool blogs that I would never have heard of before.  Bonus for me

Popularity: 7% [?]

If you have visited the site in the past day you might have seen what I’ve added to the sidebar of the site.

“Are you in my Top Spots” is a way to advertise on sites with this widget - it’s called Scratchback and it’s super easy to add to your site and to customize (it’s from Jim Kukral) . They give you the ability to add your own images and colours to the widget - you send it in to them - they approve it and it’s yours - just yours and not shared on the Scratchback network of sites. Very handy if I do say so myself. I’m going to see what I can come up with this weekend and send it into them - make the widget look a bit more like my site.

Here’s how they’ve listed this system on their site:

Have some fun with your readers. Accept tips & “give back” with a free TopSpot widget. Get yours now.

The scratchback system, from what I’ve seen is a super cheap way to advertise. The person hosting their widget - sets the price. Some I’ve come across are just $1 per link - some are up to $5. I decided to give it a $5 whirl on this site and we’ll see how it goes.

If you’re looking to do a bit of promoting of your sites, I’d give them a try

Popularity: 5% [?]

When I had heard that Radiohead was coming out with a new album called “In Rainbows” I was excited (because I’m a fan), and I was also intrigued by how they were marketing the music.  I’d head that they were giving it away for nothing… which almost made my heart stop.  Why?  Ummm… how were they going to make any money?  Isn’t that usually the major bitch of record labels when they’re selling songs for .99 cents at iTunes… too little, want people to pay more… sort of thing.  But this is crazy - FREE.  Yup, they’d lost their minds.

Now it seems that you pay what you think is a fair price for Radiohead’s music.  Over at NME it looks that it’s about £5 (or approximately $10.26 US or  $9.87 CAD) for their album.    Which to me seems cheap.  I’m not quite sure that this sort of system would hold up normally - I mean, wouldn’t we instinctively low-ball the price to get the best deal.

The interesting thing about the way Radiohead has marketed their latest album is that I’m now seeing variations of this trend on the Internet.  Today I got an email from Travis and his BumMarketingMethod.com site which I’d signed up for his newsletter.  Today I recived one where he was offering information on how to place PayPal on your site with minimal hassle.  You pick the price you’d like to pay for the info and then you get the download.   I didn’t realize that PayPal was such a pain to put on a site (apart from WordPress and it’s loop).  But some might be looking for an easier way to do it - and Travis has info that could help.  But here he’s place the payment in your hands.  You pick how much you’re wanting to pay for it.

I wonder how that will go over for him.

Another site that’s taken a bit of a twist to the “pay what you think is fair” is 1 Month.  This is the brainchild of Gary over at OSWorld, where he’s offering digital products starting at $1 and it goes up over time.  The sooner you get in to buy it - the cheaper it is.  Super marketing idea - you can sign up for announcements before the site launches at the beginning of November.   That sort of idea has me interested - and I signed up to see what’s going to be happening on the site.  Who knows what you’ll be able to find there, for a cheap (decent) price.

I’m wondering if this will become more than a trend?  Will we as marketers of digital products give this sort of payment method a try?  I’m not sure we’d make a profit, but who knows there seems to be quite a few honest people out there.  With Radioheads latest music, we all have an idea of what a CD is worth… so we’d price it out accordingly (I suppose if we’re honest).  But when it comes to digital products, how can we base a fair price since pricing varies from product to product.   Hmmmm….

With the new arrival of this sort of way to pay for products online - where we set the price - do you think it’s a viable way to sell a product?

Popularity: 6% [?]

In case you’re wondering Ms. Danielle won this Microsoft Zune from John Chow a while back and is now offering it as a way to virally market her site.  Ahhhh… truely evil - in such a good way… in a I would never have thought of that!  sort of way.

So here I go - attempting to enter the draw for the Microsoft Zune 30GB.

Ms. Danielle is giving away a 30GB Microsoft Zune that she won from John Chow. I really love her new blog site — she talks about everything from online marketing to golf! I hope I win!

… on a sidenote, I like Ms. Danielle’s writing style and it might be worth checking out - just for something else to add to your RSS feedreader

Popularity: 10% [?]

… hardcore.

I can’t say that I’m totally surprised - I mean, I was rolling with my homies on this one. Thinking wow, that didn’t take any time at all to rank for some of those shiny keywords. I also knew, in the back of my mind that I would eventually hit the sandbox. Now, it’s been a long time since I’d bought a new domain and start working on it right away - but this fan site got me excited.

I was rolling with the excitment - hoping that it wouldnt’ end. Well, it ended… with a thud. I’m going to assume that DigitalPoint is connecting with Google now - since this is day two and these are my results:

I’ve fallen off the board.

Not too worry… I’ve got a few that are hanging on to the top 100. Not the best by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m hoping that I’m not left in the sandbox for too long. What’s the usual wait… six months?

Maybe it’s because I’ve not picked up a new domain for quite some time to work on, but man, this site seems to have it the sandbox pretty quickly. I’d say it’s been a bit over 3 weeks since I started the site and now I’m in the box. Did I mention I’m claustrophobic! LOL. Damn. I was hoping for a few months before it hit. I was floating the idea that I may have ended up in the suplimental listings. Would that be another term for “sandbox”?

I checked with my SEO tool and I’ve got 2 pages in the supplimental results. On a good note Yahoo has picked up 22 pages! Better than the one I saw yesterday…

I’ve also added the site to 4 directories using that cool tool that SarahG recommended. Doesn’t seem too bad from what I’ve tried so far. Thanks Sarah!

I get confused sometimes with the SEO-talk.

The fan site still has no listings through Alexa and the PR bar is still greyed out. I registered for BlogTopList and I don’t rank at all there either.

It feels like a curse.

I know it’s just a waiting game. But I’m NOT patient!

LOL.

Popularity: 4% [?]