The top Virginia political blogs: 1-10
Well, it's been an interesting journey, hasn't it? There have been a few surprises along the way, hopefully not all of them unpleasant. But now we've reached the end of the road. It's time to announce the top 10 and let the chips fall where they may, don't you think? Ah, but it's here in the top ten that we'll find the real surprise.
Well, let's get on with it then. The top 10 political blogs in Virginia are:
10. Bearing DriftNo, that's not a typo you see: QandO is the top three political blogs in Virginia. I couldn't think of a more straightforward way of communicating the tremendous amount of "blog mojo" this site has acquired. I found that even after I had divided QandO's "blog mojo" by three, each third still had more than its nearest competitor.
9. Waldo Jaquith
8. NOVA Townhall Blog
7. Below The Beltway
6. Not Larry Sabato
5. Extreme Mortman
4. Raising Kaine
3. QandO
2. QandO
1. QandO
Apparently Jon Henke's position as the New Media Director for the Republican Communications Office has transformed his old blog from a thoroughly respectable first-tier state blog into a rising national blog. While Henke no longer blogs at QandO it must be acknowledged that his partners--Bryan Pick and Billy Hollis--have carried QandO forward, building it into a powerhouse blog.
Updated:
Congratulations Mssrs. Henke, Pick, Hollis, McQ, and Franks!
7 Comments:
Of your real top 10, only counting Q&O once, three are too national for me to include in BNN. One our systems disagree on (Nova Town Hall) -- at least this week.
Of your other seven, all are in my top 20. A remarkable amount of agreement.
Well David, I suspect that if you removed that portion of your rating formula that related to the blog's level of activity on BNN we'd probably be nearly identical.
My ratings are based on third parties that are much harder to game, not least of all because, like you, I'm not going to reveal them. I think the wild card that trips you up is that a blogger, or a group of bloggers, can dramatically alter their rating simply by interacting with BNN more: self-rating, rating others, recruiting others to reciprocate.
Regards,
--J.C.
As a blog that writes almost exclusively about issues that affect Hampton Roads, I can say that I'm content to be rated with national blogs.
JC -- can you give us a snapshot, not a detailed formula, of how you came up with your numbers? I think it might help all of us improve our content.
Jim:
The biggest factors by far are traffic and links.
My goal was to try and eliminate the subjective as much as possible and focus on objective criteria that can be measured. The more widely read and cited a blog was, the higher it was ranked.
If I had injected my own opinion into the rankings then some blogs might have been ranked higher or lower, but then I would open myself up to charges of bias.
I did this ranking to satisfy my own curiousity and having done it I realized I had something that I could use to generate some hits and maybe some discussion.
I'm not sure I'll do it again since it represented a lot of effort and the net gain in hits wasn't that great, since I posted less while conducting the study. If I do try it again I'll probably wait until October when the election is in full swing. Right now a lot of blogs are still half-asleep, and that probably affected ratings.
I should have done this back in October of 2006, but we had other things on our minds back then.
--J.C.
All this stuff about who is the best...who's in the top ten, etc. is such a waste of time. I don't care who does it, BNN or anyone else, it just doesn't matter. Some bloggers, not most of us, take themselves too seriously anyway. They're the only ones who care about these "ratings." The fact is: Most Americans still don't read blogs, anyway. They don't, folks.
Right or wrong, a lot of people do care. I think there's something quintessentially American about the drive to compete.
All the same, if you love blogging you should blog even if no one reads your stuff.
For the most part I think people took this list as they should have: with a grain of salt.
I wonder which ones Mr. Mastio say are "too national" to include on BNN -- because in looking at the list of blogs on his site, ALL of the top ten are part of BNN.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home