Graham from Entrecard has left a number of hints around the forum who the new mystery partner is. The announcement is supposed to be so big it will change Entrecard forever. “This partnership isn’t a money play, but damnit you are all going to love it.” Let’s examine the clues and see if we can guess.
- Clue: “Dropping” is about to have a new friend…” - This implies that the new partner has an action verb attached to it. “Drop and Vote”, “Drop and Review”, “Drop and Digg“.
- Clue: The answer is not: WordPress, PublisherSpot, Yahoo, or Google. All good guesses.
- Clue: But we need to get back to what Entrecard was intended for - discovering and READING other blogs. Suggests either a quality voting system or a review system.
- Clue: 2 clues regarding quality: 1. “Well, in terms of the quality of traffic, lets just say we have a little surprise up our entre-sleeve” 2. In terms of the quality of traffic, I have you so covered you don’t even know.”- Implies quality blogs will receive a reward of some sort.
- Clue: 3 hints regarding Bounce Rates: 1. “the next big announcement will probably fix the bounce rate issue. 2. “this is going to be such a dead issue in about two weeks. I can’t wait.” 3. “But everyone will be happy with our big announcement, and bounce rate is going to be dramatically reduced in a way that does not involve any trickery.” - suggests people will be spending more time per page or forced to click another page on the site. How this will be accomplished I’m not sure. Only thing I can think of is paying Entrecredits for a review, or having another box or widget at the end of an article to rate it.
So who could it be? Someone big enough to drive traffic, who rates blogs and favors quality over garbage. I have one main guess that fits all the facts. That would be Stumbleupon. Graham could sell stumbles for Entrecredits, pay people in credits for writing reviews, and reward people who rate positively. Furthermore, “stumble” is a verb that fits perfectly with “Drop and Stumble”. Only problem is I don’t see Stumbleupon reducing bounce rate. Only the first reviewer has to take the time to write a review, the rest just click the thumb. Perhaps Entrecard will have a special widget code to place at the end of articles where you can rate and stumble a post. That’s my best guess. Anyone else want to put all the clues together?
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30 users commented in " The Entrecard Mystery Partner? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackback **********Wow I didnt know there were so many clues lying around for us to decipher. Maybe it is the ANAGRAM of entrecard that will give the answer, eh? A-la davinci code?
I meant anagram as in “anagraham” XD
You mean “ANNA GRAHAM”, right?
Aren’t you the EC mystery partner? lol!
Seriously speaking, I am not comfortable with the fact that Graham will have a partner. What if the EC member is not or inactively member of SU?
But I like the idea of having another widget for blog reviews though. I am also afraid about the BUY CREDITS thing at EC. It may lead to monopoly of earning through EC points selling.
Thanks.
Interesting. And a pretty good guess. Makes sense. Maybe it’s PayPerPost. “Drop and Review!” LoL!
I considered pay per post as a guess, but the chance of people signing up for it are Zero. Even if it were optional, people would not be “pleased” as Graham suggested.
I’ve seen the posts where some of these hints comes from. Its definately very exciting, the plans that entrecard has for us.
Well this is surprising. I hope this will make EC even more better
I think it is Discover Card. You will be able to pay off your credit card with Entrecard credits.
“Tongue firmly implanted in cheek.”
I’m thinking Social Spark…hmmm, maybe not. To be honest with you, I love EC…I had an addiction, went to ECA (EntreCard Anonymous), and now I only drop 200/day per blog…that’s better though, because what would I do with all those credits? I tried using them at Wal-Mart, they said they didn’t take them….LOL
Digg is out of the question. Far too many blogs are marked as ’spam’ there and will get banned immediately.
A far more likely partner would be FuelmyBlog or ShoutWire. I thought maybe StumbleUpon as well, but I don’t see them making a deal like this. But I suppose we never know until it happens.
Gary: FuelmyBlog is a good guess but the cat is already out of the bag as far as spam. As you say, Digg is moving in another direction and really doesn’t like blogs. Shoutwire would work. I hadn’t thought of article submission sites. Hmm, “Drop and Shout”. would fit the clues.
Hey Turnip, great article. About time somebody wrote about the Mystery Partner. However, I don’t agree with your opinion at all, cuz I already know who it is. Great site BTW, I need to stop by more often. Kent
That damn magicmoney pyramid scam I fell for or Ric Flair.
Hey Turnip, hate to rain on your parade, but you’re completely WRONG. Let’s just say there are a few more clues you aren’t interpreting, but they’re staring you in the face. There I go saying too much again.
Well, the clues are interpreted as they are printed. Facebook would be fine partner btw even though I don’t use it. I’m not the one who instituted these guessing games. I just play along like everyone else.
Interesting theories. I can’t wait to see what the new changes will bring.
Re your #5 - bounce rates - My guess is they will let you drop only one card per minute or so. That would force folks to read and eventually comment on the blog they dropped their card on.
So, when you drop on the next blog within two seconds it could display a “only 1/minute” message at the Entrecard widget of that other blog.
~Marcus
Marcus’ comment re the bounce rates is off-putting. Only 1 card per minute? That’s like punishment!
Let’s not forget that another way to improve traffic is by defining quality down.
Thus, if some player that rates the quality of traffic a site receives were to upgrade EntreCard traffic, we would have the same effect as if we added ways that EntreCard users could generate “higher quality” forms of traffic.
I am not well informed about how entities like Google and Alexa rate EC traffic compared to other types, but the mystery company could be one willing to trade a traffic analysis upgrade for some unknown favor.
Moving from theoretical speculation to opinion, I would be surprised if it is a social networking site. With the exception of MySpace and Facebook and possibly Flickr, they all seem to be struggling to refine their visions and systems, and therefore would seem unlikely to accept the distraction created by partnering with a relatively small firm.
Suddenly, I want to withdraw my initial nomination in favor of MySpace, assuming no one has said it. Imagine millions of MySpace users making EC-style cards for their MySpace sites and the traffic mingling with EntreCard’s. I may be showing my ignorance of MySpace’s existing publicity tools, but I don’t care for the site and only have a membership because occasionally it is the only way I can find to contact someone. It’s also out of my demographic.
Ben
http://scratchinpost.synthasite.com/
http://redmenace.synthasite.com/
Myspace and other page based social networks are a good guess. I’m not sure how their integration would lower bounce rates though. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a “fill out something for credits”, whether it be comments, reviews, a ranking/rating system.
MySpace traffic isn’t considered quality by any means. So I highly doubt they are it. Facebook on the other hand is better traffic… so who knows? I don’t see it being them though either.
All I can say is that an Izea/Social Spark partnership will see me leave EntreCard and I don’t think I’m alone in that opinion. Also, that’s where so many of the splogs are coming from that everyone so despises, so I’m hoping that isn’t the new partner.
Since I suck at trying to figure out stuff from clues, I’ll just have to wait for the big announcement and pray I can live with it.
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Not sure about stumbleupon, I would think entrecard would contradict there rules. Must be a network of some sort, my guess was blogcatalog or mybloglog. Not sure who would mutually benefit from partnering with entrecard?
A new clue appeared, which is either the result of planned upgrades or the partner: the question of a segment of members having their own forum category was posted. Discussion was abandoned after P. announced that pending changes were made that moot. A link up with a partner that allowed micro-communities seems likely if the change is due to the partnering, I don’t participate in Facebook or MySpace and I don’t know what is offered by the various social networking sites in this regard, except for Digg. I leave it for others to ponder.
Phirate mentioned a tag based system once I thought because there were too many categories. I think that is what was being hinted at there.
Alright… so I’m pretty convinced it is mybloglog. If I’m right… that is a pretty big let down.
and the guessing games continue…
They said will done with integration on their side today. Phirate and myself will be integrating and testing through the weekend. Should have an announcement next week.
Thanks for the update Graham. I can’t wait to see what it is.
Its going to be a plugin for Firefox.
A direct competitor to Stumble upon.
That is why it is staring you in the face.
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