It’s all too-easy to confuse yourself and think that TechMeme’s latest feature is a top 100 list of authoritative blogs, based on the number of citations they receive per month on the venerable meme tracker. Even Michael Arrington announces it as:
“…tomorrow bloggers will have a new top 100 list to aim for – the Techmeme Leaderboard.
The list will be created based on the blogs that created the most headlines on Techmeme over the previous thirty days (so it will change frequently).”
(emphasis mine)
However, when you take a careful look at the list (+ screenshot), you realize that actually it’s not a hot list of blogs at all.
33% of the ‘blogs’ are actually not blogs at all. Below are the Top 100 for launch, with non-blogs listed in bold:
- TechCrunch
- Engadget
- New York Times
- Ars Technica
- CNET News
- Read/WriteWeb
- GigaOM
- BBC
- InfoWorld
- Wall Street Journal
- The Register
- Reuters
- Silicon Alley Insider
- paidContent
- Between the Lines
- Gizmodo
- Google Operating System
- eWEEK
- Search Engine Land
- Computerworld
- Crave: The gadget blog
- Associated Press
- TorrentFreak
- Webware
- VentureBeat
- The Unofficial Apple Weblog
- Business Week
- CrunchGear
- Business Wire
- Google Blogoscoped
- Techdirt
- Microsoft
- Bits
- Rough Type
- DailyTech
- Scripting News
- mathewingram
- PR Newswire
- CenterNetworks
- The Boy Genius Report
- ZDNet
- Guardian
- All about Microsoft
- PC World
- Wired News
- Inquirer
- AppleInsider
- Epicenter
- Tech Trader Daily
- Washington Post
- Forbes
- Bloomberg
- Times of London
- Apple
- BoomTown
- InformationWeek
- Publishing 2
- Scobleizer
- A VC
- iLounge
- Download Squad
- All Facebook
- Financial Times
- Boston Globe
- Electronista
- Yodel Anecdotal
- apophenia
- Official Google Blog
- Google Public Policy Blog
- USA Today
- Compete Blog
- AdAge
- Apple 2
- WebProNews
- Mashable!
- New York Post
- Googling Google
- iPhone Central
- Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog
- NEWS (Ben: not sure what this is)
- DigiTimes
- Digital Daily
- BuzzMachine
- comScore
- Security Fix
- CNN
- Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim
- NewTeeVee
- startedsomething
- Think Secret
- ProBlogger Blog Tips
- Reflections of a Newsosaur
- GNUCITIZEN
- O’Reilly Radar
- MediaShift
- ipodminusitunes
- Doc Searls Weblog
- Kotaku
- Valleywag
- Los Angeles Times
With the list above, I have not highlighted blogs by mainstream media. But if you go conservative and also discount ‘fringe blogs’ such as Official Google Blog (no comments, practically a press release repository) and Engadget (is it really a blog anymore?) you’re left with about 50% ‘blog’ sources.
I therefore wonder what value this list really is, other than “Top 100 sources bloggers link to” – which seems somewhat navel gazing at best (and maybe not even ‘what bloggers link to’). The only thing this exercise has done for TechMeme is to demonstrate how skewed (esp at the top end) it is these days towards non-blogs.
I’m a big user of TechMeme, and hold a lot of respect for it’s inventor Gabe Rivera. Assuming innovation is a continuing and never-ending process, it’s good that he’s rolled out new features – however I don’t think this was the best feature he could have bought to the table.
It’s value for others to latch upon is limited and I fear many will tout it as a new ‘top 100 for blogs’ when clearly it isn’t. Technorati’s Top 100 Blogs may have it’s flaws, but at least it’s made up of, er, blogs.
I was going to make the same list but you saved me the time! I always wonder what exactly is a blog – some just hold on to the blog title so they can be ranked in the services you discuss – and because “being a blog” is still hot.
Great job Ben!
I pointed this out in my write up too. And in what sense are Engadget, TechCrunch, GigaOm and ReadWriteWeb blogs? Because they use WordPress? As if that mattered somehow. I think if it’s not the “unedited voice of a person” it really isn’t a blog.
Without wishing to sound snarky – isn’t the reality this list is really Gabe’s Faves rather than a meaningful listing? That’s speaking as a ZDNet blogger (and yes they ARE blogs under Dave Winer’s definition albeit with a rotten comment wall we all know sux.)
Bravo. Totally agree.
I don’t really think it is supposed to be a list of hot “blogs”. I think it’s supposed to be a list of hot “news sources”, which are quite a bit different.
Oh, and thanks for generating this list: I just compared this with Top 100 in Technorati and Top 100 sites to make it to the Digg frontpage.(http://blog.yuvisense.net/2007/10/01/mini-statbot-leaderboard-vs-technorati-top-100-and-digg-top-100/) This list has more in common with the Digg Frontpage than Technorati, so I think this is not competition to Technorati. Technorati measures popularity, this one doesn’t.
I am a big fan of Gabe and his work on Techmeme too. I think you hit the nail on the head with your analysis Ben. It also brings to question, when is a blog no longer a blog? But we can save that conversation for another day over a drink or something. 🙂
Well dammit, I’m a “real” blogger — I just wish I didn’t come in below both Dave Winer and Nick Carr 🙂
Is the shoe on the other foot now with regards to Big Media and do I detect a sniff of contempt for the “non-blogs”, and how dare these lesser entities be breathing the same rarefied air as us Bloggers on this list?
As Yuvi pointed out, these are “news sources” – with a focus on technology.
More significantly, Big Media will probably be looking at the TechMeme Top 100 with worry as their audience is now being diluted by the preponderance of influential blogs and “blogs”. And with the eyeball drain, the ad dollars go too.
So Ben, this list is more significant than you imagined. We can be pedantic about the nature of the beast – blog or non-blog, but to the average reader, it is all just a news source that they spend time on, and that is where the value is.
Whether the list is authorative or not is open to debate and it’s a recognition that market adoption, especially by the influential ones the list is favorable to, can bestow. That’s how all lists eventually get their authority.
It’s really a list of the top 100 RSS news feeds, some of which are blogs, others are not.
[…] lead, the list, you have to wonder…what does the list represent and who does it really serve? Ben Metcalfe suggests that since Techmeme is, essentially, built up just from bloggers linking to each other […]
Interesting…