No bullshit social publishing news and opinions. Follow Brandon.
Part 1
Some Disclaimers:
1) Some folks might not have the same opinion of what a successful blog is as I do, and although Technorati is far from perfect, I thought their Top 100 Blogs was a fair barometer to use. Alexa sucks, and you need a membership with Compete.com for it to be effective, so unless there is a better indicator out there, I’m using Technorati’s.
2) I realize some of these folks below were not authors for the entire length of their time on the Top 100, but I am taking a snap shot of what it looks like today.
As Google Bomb author John Dozier said to me recently, the threshold for what constitutes a public figure in libel cases starts with published author status. So if you’re treated as a celebrity in the eyes of the law, I’m counting that person as a celebrity in my analysis.
3) In Darren Rowse’s first book, ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income, there is a chapter where they go through the Technorati Top 100 to point out trends they’ve noticed.
The Top 100 has changed since the book was published in May of 2008, so I wanted to present a revised snapshot of what the Top 50 looks like as of September 29th, 2009.
The Technorati Top 100*
*As ranked by authority.
What is Technorati Top 100?
“The Technorati Top 100 shows the most popular 100 blogs based on Technorati Authority. The #1 ranked blog is the blog with the most other distinct blogs linking to it in the last 6 months. If your blog’s rank is, say 305,316, this indicates that there are 305,315 blog ranks separating your blog from the #1 position.” Source: What Is Authority (Technorati Support FAQ)
Definitions:
PO - Posts Often (More than three posts on any given weekday)
AU – Published author or authors of books available on Amazon.com
SO – This blog is owned by the same company or organization as another blog on the list. This is similar to …
CO – Corporate ownership of the blog (Time Warner, AOL, Gawker Media, ect.)
CC - Celebrity (pro-athletes, movie star, politicians, ect.) involvement as bloggers or guest bloggers, about a celebrity, and / or celebrity coverage.
LB - Uses linkbait to draw in traffic. For example, a meme is starting to spread and the blog almost immediately posts about it.
GB – Considered a “group blog” or “web magazine”. It’s just a fancy way of saying “this blog has multiple authors.”
PL - Politics, mostly American politics discussed as the focal point of the blog.
OBP - Only blogger posting.
UGP – User Generated (Or Submitted) Posts
The First 50 Blogs
1. The Huffington Post Established 2005. PO, AU, CC, LB, GB, PL
2. TechCrunch. Established 2005. PO, LB, GB, SO (TechCrunch Network), CO (TechCrunch Network)
3. Mashable. Established 2005. PO, CC, LB, AU, GB
4. Gizmodo. Established 2002. SO (Gawker Media), PO, LB, CO, GB
5. Engadget. Established 2004. CO (AOL), SO (AOL), LB, PO, GB
6. The Google Blog. Established 2004. CO (Google), SO (Google)
7. Boing Boing. Established 2000. (as a blog). GB, LB, SO (Boing Boing, AU, CO (Happy Mutants, LLC)
8. Lifehacker. Established 2005. GB, CO (Gawker Media), SO (Gawker Media), PO, AU
9. Ars Technica. Established 1998. CO (Condé Nast Publications), SO (Condé Nast Publications), PO, GB
10. TMZ. Established 2005. CO (Time Warner) SO (Time Warner) CC, PO, GB, LB
11. ReadWriteWeb. Established 2003. GB, PO
12. Gawker. Established 2002. GB, PO, LB, CC, SO (Gawker Media), CO (Gawker Media)
13. The White House. Established 2009(?). GB, CC, PL
14. Smashing Magazine. Established 2006. GB, AU
15. Daily Kos. Established 2002. CC, GB, AU, PO. PL
16. Seth’s Blog. Established 2002. AU, CC, OBP
17. The Daily Dish. Established 2000. GB, PL, PO, CC, CO (National Journal Group)
18. The Daily Beast. Established 2008. CO (IAC), AU, CC, GB, PO
19. Autoblog. Established 2003. GB, PO, CO (AOL), SO (AOL),
20. The Corner . Established 2005 . PL, AU, PO, CC, CO (National Review, Inc.), GB
21. TreeHugger. Established 2000. CO (Discovery Communications), PO, GB
22. Kotaku. Established 2003. CO (Gawker Media), SO (Gawker Media), PO, LB, GB
23. Bits. Established 2007. CO (New York Times), SO (New York Times), LB, PO, GB,
24. Crunch Gear. Established 2006. SO (Tech Crunch Network), CO (Tech Crunch Network), PO, GB, LB
25. Think Progress. Established 2005. GB, PO, PL, CC,
26. Perez Hilton. Established 2000. PO, CC, PU, LB, OBP
27. Joystiq. Established 2004. PO, LB, GB, CO (AOL), SO (AOL),
28. icanhascheezburger. Established 2007. CO (Pet Holdings) SO (Pet Holdings), LB, UGP, PO, AU, GB
29. CNN Political Ticker. Established 2007. PL, PO, CC, CO (CNN), GB
30. Consumerist. Established 2005. CO (Consumer Union), GB, PO, LB,
31. Hot Air. Established 2006. PL, AU, CC, GB, PO
32. Pajamas Media. Established 2002. CO (OSM Media), PL, CC, GB, AU *Note: This blog is closing.
33. Fail Blog. Established 2008. CO (Pet Holdings) SO (Pet Holdings), AU, UGP, PO, GB
34. Michelle Malkin. Established 2004. OBP, AU, PL, CC
35. Problogger. Established 2005. OBP, AU
36. L.A. Now. Established 2008. PO, CO (Tribune Company), CC, GB
37. WoW Insider. Established 2005. PO, GB, CO (AOL), SO (AOL),
38. Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch. Established 2005. PO, LB, CO (Timer Warner), SO (Time Warner), GB, CC
39. Political Punch. Established 2008. CO (Disney), PO, PL, GB
40. SeekingAlpha. Established 2004. PO, GB,
41. Talking Points Memo. Established 2000. PL, CC, AU, CO (TPM Media, LLC), SO (TPM Media, LLC)
42./Film. Established 2005. PO, CC, GB, CO (AOL?), SO (AOL?)
43. Salon: Glenn Greenwald. Established 2005. AU, OBP, PL, CC,
44. The Caucus. Established 2006. SO (New York Times), CO (New York Times), GB, PO, PL, CC,
45. The UnOfficial Apple Weblog. Established 2004. SO (AOL) CO (AOL), PO, GB
46. Ben Smith’s Blog. Established 2007. PL, CC, OBP, PO, CO (The Politico)
47. Venture Beat. Established 2006. PO, GB,
48. Neatorama. Established 2005. CC, LB, PO, GB,
49. Gmail Blog. Established 2007. CO (Google), SO (Google), GB,
50. Geekologie.Established 2002. CO (Anticlown Media), GB, PO, LB
What Trends Do You See?
-I think the number of group blogs speaks for itself.
The only successful individual bloggers that appear on this list ( forget financial success, we’re talking traffic, links, comments, media attention, ect.), are all published authors and celebrities.
(Note: If I’m not mistaken, Darren Rowse was on this list before his book was published, but he can no longer be counted as a non-celebrity under the definition here.)
-Ars Technica has the oldest blog while The White House has the newest on the list. In fact, only four other blogs on this list debuted in 2008.
Of those four? Three are backed by huge corporations (IAC, Tribune, and Disney), while FailBlog is riding a popular (but quickly fading) meme.
This time next year, I doubt you’ll see FailBlog or ICanHasCheezburger on the list.
-15 of the 50 blogs started in 2005.
-33 of the 50 are corporate-owned or operated by a large organization with (one would assume) more resources than an individual blogger.
-39 of the 50 blogs post more than three times a day.
-15 of the blogs had American politics as their focal point.
-24 of the blogs featured celebrity-based content.
In part two tomorrow we’ll look at the second half of the list and how, I think, a social publisher can crack the Technorati Top 100. Jesse Stay has some thoughts on how you could do it here.
