The recent ‘state of the blogosphere’ report from Technorati’s David Sifry has ruffled a few feathers because of the inclusion of a new semi-scientific ranking system to group bloggers into four distinct groups. Let’s call them A-D. (Aside: find out where you stand using this handy tool)
The report describes the four groups thus:
The Low Authority Group (3–9 blogs linking in the last 6 months)
The average blog age (the number of days that the blog has been in existence) is about 228 days, which shows a real commitment to blogging. However, bloggers of this type average only 12 posts per month, meaning that their posting habits are generally dedicated but infrequent.
The Middle Authority Group (10–99 blogs linking in the last 6 months)
This contrasts somewhat with the second group, which enjoys an average age not much older than the first at 260 days and which posts 50% more frequently than the first. There is a clear correlation between posting volume and Technorati authority ranking.
The High Authority Group (100–499 blogs linking in the last 6 months)
The third group represents a decided shift in blog age while not blogging much more frequently than the last. In keeping with the theme of the maturation of the blogosphere, it seems evident that many of these bloggers were previously in category two and have grown in authority organically over time. In other words, sheer dedication pays off over time.
The Very High Authority Group (500 or more blogs linking in the last 6 months)
In the final group we see what might be considered the blogging elite. This group, which represents more than 4,000 blogs, exhibits a radical shift in post frequency as well as blog age. Bloggers of this type have been at it longer – a year and a half on average – and post nearly twice a day, an increase in posting volume of over 100% from the previous group…
As Amy Gahran points out, the problem here is the word ‘authority’ when what is really being counted is the number of times these blogs are linked to. As she notes, a blog with a tiny audience and very few links might be extraordinarily influential in the niche it covers. Amy suggests that ‘popularity’ might be a better word. I’d go one further and suggest ‘linkability’ is perhaps equally apt. Drew Curtis’ Fark.com is very highly linked-to, but it couldn’t really be described as influential.
My second example was going to be Boing Boing. I’m an enormous fan: hand-carved robots and needlepoint iPod covers crack me up. But is it influential? I’m aware that they have a civil rights and anti-DRM agenda, but since I’m in favour of those things anyway, I couldn’t really say that they had influenced me on those subjects.
But then I started to think about other ways in which the boing boing gang and other A-list blogs have been influential. In part, they have shown me what it is to write a blog, or some of the ways that can be done. The same thing goes for Scoble. He is sometimes mocked for writing about what he had for breakfast and other apparent trivia. But it’s about creating a persona for his blog. He’s likened coming to his blog to coming for dinner at his house. I think that comes very naturally for Scoble but for other bloggers, the creation of a casual, welcoming blogger alter-ego might be a very carefully constructed facade. Personally, it’s not for me. For my own satisfaction, I want to produce posts that resemble articles in some senses. That’s more time-consuming and means that it takes me a long time to do, so it has disadvantages.
So going back to the idea of authority. I think the A-list bloggers have an authority, but it’s not necessarily over how I vote or what I buy. They have authority over what I understand by a blog and what a blogger does. That in turn, will affect the way others blog and the nature of the blogosphere. And that, I guess, is what ‘blogebrity’ means.
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Ditto to above. Quality over quantity. Thomas Kuhn maintains that a paradigm shift occurs when 25 or more scientists agree on a concept (i.e., they site each other)…if these scientists were using a blog to communicate, using Technorati’s perspective there wouldn’t be much “authority!”
Wither Quantum Physics!
Or there might be a whole lot of paradigm shifts and I wouldn’t be able to keep up. One a decade, please…
Did someone say, “paradigm shift?” I can feel the ground moving now! Oh, excuse me, I thought you meant Pangea Shift! :()
[…] Spotted a nice post on Twopointouch about Technorati’s attempts to measure authority — using Technorati’s link data to categorise blogs into four categories (A to D) based on authority. […]