Record Entrecard Drop of 8 minutes and 13 seconds
August 6th, 2008 Posted in InternetUPDATE – Aug 7th: I have shaved over a minute off of that time – new record time 7 minutes and 11 seconds.
As an IT professional, I spend most of my time trying to identify efficiencies and determining how to take advantage of them. More often than not, I spend more time trying to figure out how to do something easier and more efficiently than it would take to just go sit down and do it. Ever since joining Entrecard and getting my first entre-credit, cupidity has come over me to earn as much as possible. I came up with a plan to drop as much as I could ever day, and hopefully in turn I would start getting reciprocal drops back. Last week I received over 300 drops, for the first and only time. I was excited!! I also made the top 65 blogs in terms of Entrecard popularity. I was living the high life; but now I wanted efficiencies. I wanted to drop 300 cards in under 10 minutes, and I did.
Finding an Edge
I will admit that I hate dropping 300 cards a day; correction, I hate dropping 250 cards a day. I do find it rewarding when I find an interesting read or a picture that makes me laugh, and when I do I try to leave a comment. On the other hand, I can’t stand going to a site that hasn’t been updated in a while, or a blog that has music playing in the background (which always seems to load at my favorite part in a song that I am listening to). In addition, I was spending close to an hour or two dropping every day; meaning that on average, Entrecard will consume 23 days of my life every year. Therefore, I used my IT frame of mind and tried to figure out how to do this business more efficiently.
A Solution
Like a typical IT project, I spent a massive amount of time upfront determining what needed to be accomplished, what my desired goals were, how would I achieve these goals until I came up with a solution. I spent hours reading, reverse engineering and jotting down notes, being meticulous about all the details; my first idea turned out to be a total failure, but my second idea turned out to be a great success: I have achieved a system that would allow me to drop 300 cards in a record time of 8 minutes and 13 seconds, giving me 20 days of my life back. I know there are sites that claim that you can drop 300 cards in 5 minutes, which is not possible as I have found. Furthermore, you may think that it is impossible to have dropped 300 cards in under 9 minutes, I used Online-Stopwatch.com to quantify my results and I was able to do just that.
Dilemma
I was thrilled to have found a solution, broken my record and developed a methodology to dropping Entrecards; however, I had to question the ethics of it all. The original aims and ideals of Entrecard were to explore other blogs and poke around their site, not to drop in record times; if my idea was to get out, would the entire Entre community become crippled? Would the Entrecard community dissappear? Would the traffic that is generated go away? Possibly; therefore, if you have decided to read this post to find a solution or an answer as to how I could achieve dropping at record time, I am sorry to disappoint you. It is unethical! As an IT professional, I face ethical challenges more often than not; and it is important that we don’t fall subject to unethical practices, hence, the reason that I will not share my solution. In addition, I feel that I will lose the true meaning of Entrecard.
In the end, I am happy to have been able to know that I could accomplish my goals; and to me that is the real reward.
30 Responses to “Record Entrecard Drop of 8 minutes and 13 seconds”
By Linda on Aug 6, 2008
And how many blogs did you comment on?
By beau71 on Aug 6, 2008
I comment on a fair share of blogs; however, in discovering a method of dropping this many cards in such a sort period of time, I commented on none. I will though, return to blogs which I have found interesting and spend time commenting and reading their material throughout the day.
By aldon @ orient lodge on Aug 6, 2008
As an IT professional myself, myself, I applaud your successful program to meet a specific goal. However, I have different goals in my efforts. Specifically, I want, not only to maximize dropping efficiency, but I also want to maximize being dropped on.
As an example, let’s imagine you run this on a regular basis with an average of 10 minutes to complete your drops. In addition, a quarter of the people that you drop on return your drops. You will receive a total of 375 credits for your ten minutes, or 37.5 credits per minute.
If, I, on the other hand, manage to get everyone whom I drop on to return and drop on me, and do it in 15 minutes, I will receive 600 credits per over 15 minutes, or 40 credits per minute.
Now, let’s push this a little bit further. Let’s say that my goal is to maximize the time that people read my site. Currently, I’m getting around 9000 absolute unique visitors a month with an average time on site of 52 seconds. (Using standard Google Analytics).
If you spend 10 minutes to get 300 people to come and spend 2 seconds on your site, your return rate is 600 people seconds for 600 seconds or 1 for 1. If I spend an hour dropping cards and get 300 people to spend 30 seconds on my site, that is 9000 people seconds I have gained after spending 3600 of my own time, or a 2.5 to 1 ratio for gaining people seconds.
So, we can write all our different programs, but we need to think carefully about which goals we are achieving.
By beau71 on Aug 6, 2008
My goal was to shorten the amount of time I spent dropping on the blogs that I always drop on.
How I was able to achieve this would work for your goals as well. The downside is that it would take a little more time upfront to target which blogs you are going to drop on. Thanks for stopping by.
By aldon @ orient lodge on Aug 6, 2008
The programming that I’ve been doing has been trying to optimize my targeting in a few different areas.
How do I find the blogs most desirable to drop on? I’ve written a few programs to come up with my drop list. I run it daily since the optimization changes day to day.
How do I find the blogs that are most desirable to advertise? Over time my metric for this has evolved. I haven’t written any programs to come up with a list of most desirable sites to advertise on, but I have ideas for it.
How do I find the blogs that have content I’m most interested in reading? This is fairly complicated. It relates to the other two, and the other two relate to this.
For example, one of the criteria for a blog to advertise on is that it has interesting content.
As an aside, I’m not going into the details about how I determine which blogs I want to drop or advertise on. These are part of the secret sauce that, in theory, gives me a competitive advantage.
To the extent that any programs, yours, or mine, help people spent more time reading blogs that they really want to read, then these are good things.
By beau71 on Aug 6, 2008
I would like to note that you say, “To the extent that any programs, yours, or mine, help people spent more time reading blogs that they really want to read, then these are good things.”
This is the exact reason that I will not reveal the method I have discovered. I feel that it does the opposite of this.
By Nihar on Aug 7, 2008
It is really difficult to do in 8 mnts 13 seconds. may be you ahve selected blogs that load faster and blogs that have entrecard widget on the top and a good internet speed.
By beau71 on Aug 7, 2008
I will reveal that I can drop on any 300 blogs in that time, perhaps even faster. Regardless of internet connection.
By nor on Aug 8, 2008
I would love to know how you did it.
I am spending an average of 2 hours a day going about my dropping activity.
By AgentOrange on Aug 8, 2008
Wow! That was fast! It normally takes me more than an hour to drop all 300 cards. My internet connection is not that fast and I often do it while watching TV. What I like about it is that I get to read/scan and sometimes comment on the blogs that I’m dropping on. One other factor for my slow drop speed is that I don’t discriminate blogs. I drop on blogs with widgets located below the fold and slow loading sites. Sometimes it takes me a page refresh or two on other blogs.
By o.d. on Aug 8, 2008
8 minutes and 13 seconds!!!!!!! WOW!?! it takes me anywhere from from 3 to 4 to 8 or more hours a day 🙁 wednesdays seem to go by pretty quick, with a lot of blogs participating in the wordless wednesdays… i’m finding i’m starting to spend way too much time on dropping, and not enough time updating my own blog.
By beau71 on Aug 9, 2008
8 hours!!! I must tip my hat to you. That is some serious dedication. I will give you a tip on dropping fast, if you use Firefox use multiple tabs and use the Ctrl-W hotkey to close tabs after you drop.
By Jennie on Aug 9, 2008
Wow! That’s a very effective line… and to be able to get the formula to efficiency is way commendable. I salute people like you who figure things out and it’s really an advantage. It’s just too bad for people like o.d. and myself who would have to spend hours a day just to complete the quota. I do comment despite my drop master status. I agree with you that being able to drop in the least number of minutes should not be the goal but to stumble on worthwhile sites. But why not do both while when you can. What you did is really a feat and admirable. (while we’re at it, maybe I could bribe you into sharing your system):D just kidding! (half meant though)
Happy blogging and God bless your weekend! 😀
By Leet on Aug 10, 2008
Nice post
I need almost one hour to drop 250 EC because my connection slow
Oh yea, might be you want to visit my site and see my painting… Just check it 🙂
Thanks
Leet Gallery
http://leet-gallery.blogspot.com
By The Success on Aug 10, 2008
Wowww that’s a record…
I need about 1 hour to drop 300 card.
Although I have 150 top visit, but still need long time to drop.
Might be because the connection is not good
The Success
http://the-success.blogspot.com
By Greener Pastures on Aug 12, 2008
I waste way too much time dropping cards, but the advertising has proved fruitful to my blog. I wish I had a trick! I also try to leave a fair number of comments, favorite recommendations, etc. Unfortunately, my drop time cuts into my comments time. I think Entrecard understand’s that, and have made it a little easier with the tool bar.
Anyway, congratulations on your technique!
Lisa
By Enfotainer on Aug 13, 2008
I think I know how you did it 🙂
But my main concern is drop back. Even when I return drops to my regular droppers, I end up with only 200 returned drops.
By BioTecK on Aug 13, 2008
Wow, that’s really fast!
I’m curioused.. HOW did you do it?! 😀
By Krystyl on Aug 13, 2008
Im curious how you did it.
I am also curious, wouldn’t this completely defeate the purpose of entrecard? Which is to bring visitors/viewers/commentors to your blog?
If you visit that many blogs in such a short amount of time, where do you fit in the time to read blog entry’s such as the one I am commenting on right now?
By Ahem on Aug 15, 2008
you will get banned by entrecard very soon.
By beau71 on Aug 15, 2008
Well that is what I didn’t want to happen, hence not divulging how I was able to do it. Additionally, after learning how to do that, I have since then seized doing so. Thus I am back to my old ways.
By heidityann on Aug 17, 2008
I take at least a couple hours a day to do my drops. Of course I am one of those that likes to peruse the blogs and comment and such but on a busy day that could come in handy.
By Amy Grindhouse on Aug 24, 2008
Great stuff. Also working harder on my drops and trying to do several per day. You are right, withougt some kind of system you will be spending maybe a few hours dropping per day. Too long!
By race on Aug 27, 2008
you really are good exploring things and realizing also the real purpose of what this thing is all about. many people wouldn’t realized it. you’ve caught my attention making me read your post all throughout. nice read, regards!
By DnDCorner on Sep 5, 2008
I am glad that you achieved your goal. I agree that it is totally unethical to bypass the point of the system in this manner.
Personally I do like to take the time to visit new blogs each day, though there are some that I arrive at and see are totally pointless for me to stay and would like to just drop my card and be on my way.
Thanks for the post. You are an inspiration to goal minded developers everywhere.
By Wade on Sep 8, 2008
It is possible to get 300 drops in about 300 seconds. I am gathering my list of 300 fast loading entrecard sites right now. Once I have the list complete, my script will prompt you to login to ec. Once logged in, you will basically just push a button and it will autodrop on all the sites, 1 per second.
The problem is that you can’t stop the site owner from removing entrecard from their site. So if I throw up a list of 300, you could run it a month later and only get 240 drops or so. Also with the new ec update, you can get 600 credits a day if you have multiple blogs added to your account.
The solution is to gather 2 lists for both. I will have 4 lists. A list of 300 for account 1, and a backup list for account 1. Then the same with the second set. So I am in search for about 1200 entrecard sites for my list. Once I get a first set of my list, I will publish a beta version of my script on my site. I will then release it and rank well when it is out of beta, and I get 1200 + sites.
By Mark on Sep 18, 2008
I found your blog through Entrecard with the goal of dropping my card. Your post subjects immediately attracted me to read more and now I’ve subscribed to your RSS feed and will definitely be back. Goes to show you not everyone is just dropping and running — even when they have the goal of maximizing the number of sites they drop their card on.
By Kat@MotherFonker on Oct 6, 2008
Wow, what a nice blog. It’s a miracle for me to be here, since I don’t follow tech blogs. You’re writing is great, easy to understand.