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.