Rating NZ blogs

I have had a go at rating New Zealand blogs along the lines used by Tumeke and Halfdone. It’s an interesting exercise because it raises the questions of what one is measuring – and why.

Obviously we want to get some idea of a blog’s influence or “reach.” But really that would take complex sociological surveys and would produce only vague results. So, inevitably, the blog rank must be defined by the methodology used. So it’s no surprise that Tumeke’s and Halfdome’s surveys do produce different rankings for most blogs. Especially when we get below the top 20.

One can resort to the rankings provided by sites like Alexa and Technorati– but then all the available rankings have there own quirks which can radically influence individual results. Applying them to New Zealand blogs also requires a bit of work so one may as well include more information.

So my solution is to diminish the “quirk effect” of individual methods by using several and aggregating these to produce a final rating. I have used two web activity rates (Alexa and Technorati), four measures of linking (Alexa, Technorati, Google links from blogs and Google links from the web) and two “subscription” numbers (Technorati Authority and Google Reader subscriptions).

The resulting New Zealand Blog Popularity List is available as a pdf download. I have summarised the results for the top 60 in the table below and compared these with the most recent ratings from Tumeke and Tumeke .

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	Aggregate Ranking
Blog Name	Open Parachute	Half Dome	Tumeke
Kiwiblog	1	1	1
Public Address	2	4	3
No Right Turn	3	11	9
The Standard	4	2	2
Not PC	5	5	4
Whale Oil Beef Hooked	6	3	6
New Zeal	7	14	13
TUMEKE!	8	8	10
frogblog	9	x	7
No Minister	10	6	5
Poneke’s Weblog	11	15	11
The Inquiring Mind	12	16	18
Cactus Kate	13	12	17
roarprawn	14	19	16
New Zealand Conservative	15	9	27
The Wellingtonista	16	22	x
Half Dome	17	13	23
The Dim-Post	18	7	8
Capitalism is bad	19	65	36
Just Left	20	30	43
Radical Cross Stitch	20	42	21
The Hand Mirror	22	17	15
Homepaddock	23	10	12
Jack Yan: The Persuader	24	25	33
Kotare	25	66	45
The Fundy Post	26	45	26
Keeping Stock	27	24	35
Barnsley Bill	27	20	24
Big News	29	21	37
The Hive	30	58	x
The visible hand in economics	31	18	22
Open Parachute	32	x	19
Clint Heine and Friends	33	34	44
Aotearoa: a wider perspective	33	60	50
Kiwipolitico	35	26	14
Oswald Bastable’s Ranting	36	31	39
Anti-Dismal	37	28	30
Lindsay Mitchell	38	32	42
MandM	39	27	54
Hot Topic	40	63	20
Liberty Scott	41	35	53
Hitting Metal With A Hammer	42	41	38
Reading the Maps	43	59	25
Policy Blog	44	33	46
TBR.cc	45	29	32
Put ’em all on an island	46	81	28
Alliance Party of New Zealand	47	49	62
Mulholland Drive	48	44	56
MonkeyWithTypewriter	49	37	48
Liberation	50	56	80
John Key	51	40	52
g.blog	52	43	49
Socialist Aotearoa	52	50	60
MacDoctor Moments	54	39	31
goNZo Freakpower	55	46	89
RobiNZ Personal Blog	56	61	41
Bioblog	57	x	x
Pundit	58	142	57
Henry	59	x	x
Workers Party	60	77	40
Physics Stop	61	x	x