The List to end all lists…for today

 

Finding a reliable way to locate top blogs can have its issues. Today PC magazine released its Top 100 blogs. For those interested, they have also provided a program that will load its Top 100 list into your browser’s favorites. The list has many repeats from the Technorati 100, but there are quite a few differences. At first glance, since the list is based on preference (and not questionably useful measuring metrics) it provides a much broader view of top blogs than Technorati…

Technorati going the way of Friendster?

The CEO of Technorati stepped down today after an unsuccessful search for his replacement. Why does this matter you ask? Technorati as of late has been falling behind Ask.com and Google Blog Search in providing quality search results. If it does die off…I think it would be just fine, since its redesign is very user unfriendly.

The problem is Technorati provides the Blog ranking standard that is generally excepted industry wide. Will anybody step up with a better ranking system…perhaps one built off of traffic and not links? Time will tell, but until then…online measurement continues the course of crudtastic fun.

Beyond the quantitative measuring sticks for online that have varying degrees of success (Technorati, Alexa and Compete)…here are some qualitative considerations I developed a few months ago for client work to determine relevance of blogs:

1) Subject matter – some topics are not of interest to large groups, so it will not have high traffic. It may be read by a large portion of the target group though. An example would be a blog specifically discussing Alaska National Parks.
2) Comments – Below each post in a blog is a comments section; the number of comments a blog gets is another way to determine popularity(this would not show up in the link results)
3) Visual presentation – How professional looking a site is also a determining factor; low traffic blogs often have poor or generic web development; high read blogs often have a clean professional look; shows the time and dedication blogger took to developing site
4) How often a blogger posts – If it has been over a month since the last post, the blog likely has a low relevancy; blogs need to be constantly updated to retain readership
5) Blogroll – Blogs list out other blogs it reads in its blogroll. If a site is listed in many top blogs blogroll it has more exposure

Any thoughts out there for additional qualitative or quantitative measurements?

Bloggers want to Strike…readers go elsewhere

Did you ever wonder if you favorite blogger was being fairly compensated?

Confused…I definitely did a double take this morning when TechCrunch provide a post discussing a recent WSJ article about “a coalition of left-wing bloggers trying to form a labor union that they hope will help them receive health insurance, conduct collective bargaining and set professional standards.”

This seems a bit absurd to me, especially since I’m in the South(general sentiment would be the concept of unions is a bit outdated). It does highlight the many different ways a blog is put together. Some are owned by an individual, generating revenue through online ads. However, some of the more top tier blogs/blog networks pay individuals to provide content, while the owner collects on the advertising and possible VC money.

Personally, I think if a union is created and bloggers strike…readers will just go to a different blog. Blogs need daily/weekly content. Without the content, the blog will soon be considered dead and readers will disperse…which I guess could be an argument for the power of a blogger union. New inovative products/ideas emerge from entrepreneurs (particularly in world of Tech) not unions. Thoughts…

Blog Comments: Productive or Just Adding Noise?

If something is a blog does that necessitate that it allows comments? Knee jerk reaction would be yes. However, today I came across an interesting quote that made me ponder the whole commenting paradigm:

The important thing to notice here is that Dave does not see blog comments as productive to the free exchange of ideas. They are a part of the problem, not the solution. You don’t have a right to post your thoughts at the bottom of someone else’s thoughts. That’s not freedom of expression, that’s an infringement on their freedom of expression. Get your own space, write compelling things, and if your ideas are smart, they’ll be linked to, and Google will notice, and you’ll move up in PageRank, and you’ll have influence and your ideas will have power.” – Joel Spolsky endorses the Dave Winer approach to reader comments.

The quote is from this post, which highlights several blog posts that are littered with comments of no consequence, so…Does the potential value of comments in the free exchange of ideas outweigh the possible noise of unproductive comments? Does this give more credence for bloggers to remove comments on a post(only keeping those they feel useful-normally this is a big no,no)? Should commenting be limited to pure links to posts on other blogs as the quote suggests?

Thoughts…