Ranking blogs

Technorati ranks blogs in terms of the number of recent incoming links (or, more accurately, the number of incoming links that they find; they seem to miss a lot of them).  A new metho has been proposed by Leskovec et al. which measures blog influence based on a mixture of incoming and outgoing links.  Using 2006 data, they found that Instapundit was the most influential blog, while Bora’s old blog Science & Politics, was number three.

So what’s it worth?  Bora thought the method must be flawed, based on the fact that it ranked his old (and defunct) blog rather than his current one, but that was before he realised that it was based on 2006 data.  As Bora points out in the comments, it also ends up valuing filters over content providers.   I suppose it’s useful if you want a short overview of what’s going on in the world.  On the other hand, if you want to read content and opinions, you’re probably better off being your own filter – just dump everything you think useful into an RSS reader, and skim that.  Sure, it doesn’t do the filtering, but it also means you can avoid people like Michelle Malkin.  Anyway, following James McGrath’s suggestion (which is where I found mention of this) I will try his infinite loop idea.

That reminds me why I don’t like the idea of filters – there’s too much stuff there.  Bora is great at posting links to all kinds of cool stuff – but he posts too many links.  When as my RSS reader gets flooded with Blog Around the Clock stuff, I start skipping things.  Other people (like PZ or James or Grrlscientist) will link to the really cool stuff on Bora’s blog that I need to read.  I should really think for myself, but who has the time? 🙂