How To Be a Real Smart Carder - Clean Up and Use That "Friends Feed"

Lets Finally Get Over the Temptation.. and Become SmartCarders

Some favorites of the author

today we offer our weekly PSA in a post to help you get more use out of your Entrecard.

This is our All Powerful Friends Feed. you get in in the Newsfeeds Tab on your dashboard.

http://entrecard.com/feeds/news/TG2KYY929M/rss2.0


Going Here Means basically You take your time and look at the posts.
no toolbar and no bs - just the posts that have been Recently Updated, VOILA ! 


We read on a certain blog recently in the comments that if we
didn't bitch we'd have nothing to say. wow - powerful words indeed.

But we're not Thirsty, or Hongry. we're phat enough that we
don't need to go Buyin Hits and PR; Begging for comments 
or drops; let alone Donations.   so what we planned for our response
post is this - A PSA On Being a SmartCarder

Lets Learn How To Use Entrecard Like SmartCarders.
Uh Huh - that's not bitching or complaining - or pointing
the finger at anyone else, as we've been accused of doing.

First off the reason you want to consider this approach is
"Entrecard is supposed to be a Bloggers Social Network" - Not A Job.

Uh Huh - sorry we can't help but toss stones at them thirsty teams out there; who boast such high drop figures daily, but rarely make a Real substantive post. Sorry but IN My Opinion - posting pics of your kid,
your house and your car are not only dangerous, but outright asking for trouble. 

Recently those of us who read, saw the headlines about the break-ins that happened because folks twitted about being away from home. Please, think about your personal security and the crime rate; if not how many fools are out there waiting to kidnap your adorable blogging star subject. common sense ain't common, mom always said. today we are seconding that as fact.

Sorry - but there should be a link that connects when a blog appears in front of you - if you see politics, or
adult subject matter, that's not your thing ? why not move on -

We Are Here for The Reality of Politics and Entertainment. 

many of these blogs are serial droppers (clickfiends).
We've learned from watching them come up in our Inbox Day
After Day. We've stopped JUST dropping back on them;
but they still continue to drop on us for some reason...

Here's An Open Question to the Click Fiends -  
(you know who you are)

Why is One EC So Important when there is obviously nothing of interest to you here ? my bouncerate is the real issue to me, but not to you. hmph...  

please read this clickfiends, and those who want to make
themselves contributors to our daily gift ec pot -
"We see it as a gift, And We Say A "Hearty Thanks" for supporting our entrecard advertising fundage.

fyi - you too may have an EC Gift Pot - it works like this, if you get drops that you do not return, they are still counted remember. the dropper gets a point and the droppee gets a point. Niiiiccceee..

Ahhhhh That Dirty Inbox and Temptress Toolbar..

yeah. those are the two real culprits. If you want to have a better focus on
who you really visit on Entrecard, take a trip to your own profile.

Being Good Carders - We went to the Entrecard book last nite to see if there was a page on it; Only to be shown NO Entrebook ANYLONGER.   uhhhh yeah..click and see for yourself.

So we decided that the easiest route is to go to Your Blogs Profile Page. Just click on the Entrecard E on your widget on your page. 

It will Instantly Transport You to Your Profile page.

on that page is the most important tool you have access to - 
Your Favorites.

Your Favorites are hand selected by you; as you are dropping.
First thing you should do is to take a look at how many Favorites
you have saved over your months on Entrecard. count them.

Early this morning I went through mine, and was totally amazed at the blogs
that I like and favorited. some of them, I've visited once or twice - and I've
never seen them again. could there be some housekeeping needed ? oh yes indeed..

First I clicked the link at the end of my favorites column 

I was magically transported to the page which shows my Favorite Carders.
a huge list of approximately 400 cards opened. yes 400 - far too many to viist regularly.

upon closer inspection, I found that many of them were removed from entrecard
or even dead. I also noticed many marked clearly no widget; or ads disabled.
Our sister blog Recycled Frockery disabled ads for a few months during our redesign

deliberations; only to finally return and take ads again a few weeks ago.

the blogs which I wanted to take a peek at that - were mostly blogs that
I hadn't seen in a long time.  I clicked on the cards and loaded them in multiple tabs; exactly as the tool bar would. -
This is done by using the control key while I clicked the card.

As they loaded I got to see their profiles and to see our relationship played out..

many had no feed - so hence no blog

If i liked it, I clicked the url to visit to verify if the blog
was a keeper or a tosser. when the blog loaded I could
almost make an immediate decision. many were dead,
moved or just so old that there was no point in keeping
them on my favs any longer. I clicked that remove from favs
link on their profile page, instantly removing the card and the
feed from my friends list - poof. easy instant housekeeping.

How Did It Feel - Ooooohhhhhh let me tell you..

many of the blogs I visited this morning actually were just no widget,
but still great blogs. some of them like Junk Drawer were still listed - even without a widget. I let them stay because they are locked into that feed;
and I can still read them, regardless of if they are Active in Entrecard
or Have A Widget - get it now ?

the blogs who have no widget, may have left entrecard,
but their feeds are still available to me on my friends feed.
that makes it oh so great.

so I did the housekeeping judiciously - removing dead blogs,
and others that I know I have no real interest in. somehow I
felt bad removing some which still drop on me; even though I rarely drop back.

that's the beauty of this housekeeping. you make the choices based on what you want.

Keep that friends feed clean. use it to drop from, instead of that volitile clickfarm called the Inbox.

we're stepping back into our respectable position of avoiding the Inbox Totally.

we're going to keep our friends feed as our primary point of drop origin;
knowing that we're keeping it clean and useful. that's what we need entrecard
to do for us. keep it clean and useful.

this is our PSA for the Week of August 5-12th, 2009.

Please feel free to post comments, and to discuss the methods I've outlined
to help keep dropping interesting; and be a smart carder.
this post was inspired by a question asked by My Friend Cher on AskCherlock.

Hope You All Put This To Good Use and Start Enjoying Being a Smart(entre)Carder Again,

Cheers,