The Entrecarder

Most Entrecarders know that if you take the Entrecard widget off of your site you will get an error message on your dashboard that lets you know that they can't find your widget. However, did you know that you don't get that error message when you put any Entrecard widget on your site, even if it's not the one associated with that account? I tried a little experiment a few weeks ago where I replaced all of the Entrecard widgets on my 19 other Entrecard accounts with the widget for this account. And guess what happened?

Everyone who dropped on one of those widgets on my various blogs gave a credit to this blog's Entrecard account! How sinister of me! I'm sure there were a few folks who got the "1 per day" message and were a bit confused as to what was up, but that happened to me all the time when I was still dropping cards and I just figured it was another Entrecard glitch. As I wasn't dropping cards from most of those other accounts or doing any advertising, I doubt that it improved my numbers too much, but if someone was hell-bent on making the top row of the Popularity rankings, it would help to have one widget on several different blogs.

There was a time a couple of months ago when I would drop cards on each of my 20 accounts from the other 19 accounts, guaranteeing 760 credits and a 100% return drop rate. Of course, that strategy was a lot easier before Phirate changed the widget, and it was a real pain for those couple of weeks when Entrecard was mired in molasses and signing in took forever.

On another occasion there was an Entrecarder who was paying a bunch of ECs for new RSS subscribers and I signed up with my 20 different gmail accounts. (Took about an hour.) He clearly was looking to pad his feed numbers and I gave him what he wanted, but he didn't understand what had happened and complained to Phirate, who slapped my wrist and made me promise not to use multiple accounts to enter contests or earn ECs from fellow Entrecarders.

A couple of posts ago I raised the issue of generating a drop without actually going to the Entrecarder's page. As most of my accounts have been dormant, and the widgets on the sites were directed to this Entrecard account, I was surprised that I was still receiving cards in my Drops Inbox. Once or twice I could understand as another Entrecard glitch...but 15 times by the same person? I compiled a list of Entrecarders who were exploiting this minor hole in the security system and it's right here:

Just kidding...I have the list, but won't publish it. Certainly the reader can tell that I like to push the parameters and I'm not one to throw rocks at another Entrecarder for being "creative."

Maybe I've enjoyed Entrecard for the wrong reasons, but it sure has been fun to try different strategies using multiple Entrecard accounts. I'd be lying if I said I'd never gotten the dreaded "Busted" message, but you sure learn a lot more about a system by trying "stuff." And as this blog was supposed to be about tips and strategies, just how useful would it have been if I didn't tinker with Entrecard every now and then?

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