Comments on: Finding Prominent Blogs

By: Steve Petersen

Steve Petersen — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:43:03 +0000

Amy, David, and Rob,

Thanks for the comments.

Amy, I wrote a sentence or two explaining that Technorati and Google are imperfect resources for this purpose but help give a general idea, but that didn’t make the final edit.

David, your site — BNN — is also another great example of a blog aggregator.

Rob, I enjoyed the workshop.

By: contentious.com - links for 2007-08-31

contentious.com - links for 2007-08-31 — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:29:27 +0000

[...] Finding Prominent Blogs » The Bivings Report “Many people from political orgs and congressional staffers asked about how one can find prominent blogs. Panelists suggested Google Blog Search and Technorati, among other blog search engines, as places to get a general idea about different blogs.” (tags: mycomments politics organizations blogs authority influence popularity resources tips) [...]

By: Rob Bluey

Rob Bluey — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:25:56 +0000

I wish you could have been there, David. I did a short 10-minute presentation about tracking the conversation. In addition to highlighting Google Blog Search and Technorati, I also showed off BNN and mentioned the forthcoming RightyBlogs.com.

By: David Mastio

David Mastio — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:06:45 +0000

Here’s what Tish Grier had to say about us back when we only covered 21 states.

http://www.poynter.org/column......aid=116321

By: David Mastio

David Mastio — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:05:12 +0000

You might check out http://www.blognetnews.com

We’ve completed databases of the most influential political blogs from across the spectrum in the majority of states, the rest shortly. (Alabama will be up next week.) BNN is a lot more than an aggregator. We have super targeted search, tools for bloggers to promote each other, a weekly influence ranking and all kinds of stats tracking for comments, links etc.

Building these sites myself over the last year has been really interesting, particularly in getting to know the personality of the blogospheres. Each one really has a character and tone all of its own.

For those states where BNN doesn’t offer a full spectrum of blogs, you can try leftyblogs.com for at least that side of the aisle

By: Amy Gahran

Amy Gahran — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:10:59 +0000

A couple of other tips:

1. Don’t rely on Technorati’s “authority” ranking — it conflates authority with popularity. (Although if you conflate authority with popularity, then go for it!)

2. Take the time to start reading blogs (subscribing in a feed reader makes it less of a time sink). Pay attention to blogs over time. What communities do they attract? Are the comment threads useful? who do the link to, and who links to them?

3. Hang out in online discussion forums (web-based and e-mail lists) for relevant communities. Which blogs are getting discussed there?

- Amy Gahran