One more thing about the Contagious Media Showdown and then I'll take a break from it for a week.

I've been watching the rankings change over the last couple of days and I've noticed something curious. At first I thought it was a mistake or a bug, but it hasn't changed through many updates, so now I'm thinking it's intentional. And it's all to do with the numbers....

A few weeks back I attended the workshop that Contagious Media ran, that gave pointers to potential competitors on how to get noticed online. One of the examples was the fantastic Dog Island, a site that purported to represent a retirement home for pet dogs. The beauty of the site is that to anyone not in the know, it seems completely real, and has fooled many many people. And it has done so by staying under the radar. And I wondered at the time if any entrants to the Showdown would try a true underground hoax, and how they would manage to not be exposed.

So, looking at the current rankings, Crying While Eating is #1, Ringtone Dancer has moved up to #2, and Blogebrity is #4. But - what about #3? Well, there is no #3 listed - there's a jump in the numbers. Which makes me think there's another entrant in the competition that we don't yet know about, one that's currently getting a lot of visitors, but so far has been unidentified as a contest entry to allow it to hide it's hoax status.

So what could it be? I looked back at sites we've featured over the last couple of weeks but nothing jumped out at me. The Abercrombie & Fitch T Shirts? Days In The Life of a Nude Photographer? Elita from Multipoker? Nothing seems to fit the bill. If anyone has any theories, please post them in the comments section.

You know, if it turns out that the Virtual Stripper is a Contagious Media creation, I'm going to be very impressed.

View our continuing coverage of the Contagious Media Showdown here