Top analyst blogs
Within the analyst world the past year has been a dichotomy in the land of blogging. Whereas we have seen a surge in the number of analysts that have taken to this medium, it is contrasted with a decrease from the recognised ‘leaders’ in the frequency of which they post.
This new ranking system has fundamentally evolved since the last version to take into account the seismic shifts in the way people communicate online. The key changes relate to inbound links such as from Twitter as well as well as a combined Yahoo / Google (3-month date limited) approach.
Whenever these lists are published, there are several points that always get raised which I will address now…
- This blog is not from an analyst. The argument as to whom is an analyst or a consultant is becoming largely moot. In my opinion if someone is independent and directly influences technology procurement then they are an analyst. I know this will cause a huge amount of disagreement but as an outsider looking in this is the way I see the market. This is not to say that some analysts have different strengths over others, it is more a case that I think as an AR pro, I need to monitor the lot of you.
- The blog is written by multiple authors. Some blogs have several analysts writing them whereas others do not. The merits of a single blog author is something that I personally favour as this allows me to understand the tone of blog without having to understand the many personalities that are associated with it. Regardless, for this table, my view has not been to argue this but merely to present the data.
- It is irrelevant showing all the blogs as I am only interested in a specific topic – bingo, that is exactly right. My suggestion to all AR pros is to identify which of your analysts are on this and only look at those. This list compiled from the newly updated analyst blog directory on Tekrati does not see to micro-segment but merely to list all blogs regardless of their speciality.
- Hey – you have forgotten to include this blog. Please let me know the name and if I will include it as an edit.
- Isn’t this just like TweetLevel but for blogs? Yep, this algorithm is part of a larger project to fully understand influence and engagement on the web. This methodology is part of BlogLevel.
- Will you be producing a league table for those on Twitter? Yes, next week.
Without further ado, congrats to everyone who is included and especially those who have managed to make the top 50 – this is an outstanding achievement. Of course, a huge pat on the back to ex-Forrester and now Altimeter analyst, Jeremiah Owyang for showing everyone how to combine blogs and twitter to tremendous affect.
Edit: Since this blog was originally posted several blogs have now been added (including Denis Howlett – #2, Michael Krigsman – #6, Esteban Kolsky – #42 and Michael Gartenberg – #61). A special congrats to Denis for jumping in at second place.
Methodology
I have taken the feedback I have received from the previous research and modified the methodology.
Scores are now calculated as follows:
Google PageRank – Google PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that interprets web links and assigns a numerical weighting (0 to 10) to each page. High-quality pages receive a higher PageRank. The ranking uses the actual PageRank of the blogs homepage as part of its algorithm.
Yahoo Inbound Links [date unlimited] – Yahoo counts the total number of inbound links that go directly to a blog. Each number was assigned to a range which was then used as part of the algorithm.
Google Inbound Links [3 months date limited] – Google allows people to search the number of inbound links to a specific blog but limit this to a predefined date period. Similar to how Technorati only looks at six months of data, this method was used in combination with the Yahoo Inbound Link count to assess which blogs were considered to be important due to the number of links that came to them, but also currently relevant as measured by the limitations on the timescale. Each number was assigned to a range which was then used as part of the algorithm.
Google Reader Subscribers – Google reader lists the total number of subscribers to a blog. I believe this is a more realistic number to that which Bloglines provides. Mihai Parparita confirms that “these numbers include subscribers across all Google services”. To account for people using other readers (e.g. Newsgator) it has been suggested that this number is multiplied by 3. Subscriber ranges were determined (i.e. more than 20, more than 30, etc.) and each range was assigned a number that was used as part of the algorithm.
Frequency of Posts – Updating relevant and interesting content frequently onto a blog will naturally cause more people to find this blog important. This score is established via Google Reader to understand the precise number of posts per week that the blogger makes. Frequency numbers were determined and assigned to a range that was used as part of the algorithm.
Date Last Blog Post Published – Working in combination with ‘Frequency of Posts’, this score mitigates against blogs that were once popular but haven’t been updated for a long time. The number of days since the last blog post was calculated and assigned to a range which was used as part of the algorithm.
Comments – A simple way to judge how valuable a blog is to other people is through the number of comments (where this is enabled) that visitors make. In a similar way to linking and subscribing this user requested service shows a significant value. The number of comments made over the last five posts were calculated and assigned to a range which was used as part of the algorithm.
Twitter Inbound Links – There are various online tools available to count the number of links inbound to a blog from Twitter. Backtype was used to count the number of these occurrences over the past five blog posts. The number of times this happened was calculated and assigned a range which was used as part of the algorithm.
Weighting – Each specific variable listed above was given a standard score out of 10. Using a weighting scale I varied the importance of the each metric to establish a blogs total score.
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Filed under: analyst relations | 58 Comments
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Technobabble 2.0 
It’s wonderful to be recognized for my passions, thank you Jonny. It’s also interesting to see the lines between analyst, blogger, and media continue to blur.
I’m conducting a survey to my blog readers soon to see if the blog is influential to the buying process –and how. I’ll be happy to share the raw data with you, more on that to come soon.
Do the people who make procurement decisions really spend their days retweeting, linking, or even subscribing to blogs? Isn’t this really a measure of influence over the blogo-tweeto-sphere? Interesting, but not quite the same thing.
Jeremiah – well done again
Anomalous – I believe that the people who make IT purchasing decisions gain advice from people who are most knowledgeable, independent and can give true value. For many analysts, how they converse, be it on twitter or a blog, is an extension of their voice and can be instrumental in helping them in the market
Nice job on a huge effort. Your blog ranking is packed full of surprises again this year!
Please let me know of any blogs missing from the Tekrati directory.
As an independent analyst covering an emerging technology market (work-related use of the Immersive Internet) I am immensely proud that ThinkBalm is in the top 100 on this list. Thanks for including us!
thanks for the recognition…I do agree with anomalous – next time may be have a factor for buyside influence…realize tough to quantify but you know my POV…without buyers none of us matter
This is an amazing piece of work. I may not qualify to be included, but it never hurts to ask. I’ve launched my own blog at http://InFullBloom.us 11/8/09 which covers my primary focus, the intersection of human resource management and information technology. And I’ve been quite active on Twitter as @InFullBloomUS. There’s a lot of background on me at the blog site, and I’d be happy to provide more information. Folks that know my work include Ray Wang (Altimeter Group), Jim Holincheck (Gartner), and several of the Enterprise Irregulars who have just last week “inducted” me. Thank you for your consideration. Naomi
Thank-you so much. GoMo News is number 22 and its a great list.
thanks for your comments everyone
I’ll be making a few edits with some of the blogs that have been missed out shortly
“Google PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that interprets web links and assigns a numerical weighting (0 to 10) to each site. High-quality sites receive a higher PageRank.”
Er, it’s called PAGE rank not SITE rank – methinks you’ll find that the blog home page of these folk have a high page rank – but individual pages will not. Or that certain posts will have a high page rank – but the majority won’t. You’d have to analyse the Page Rank of every page on their sites to arrive at an aggregate figure – or is that what you have done?
If I take Dennis (Howlett) as an example, his AccMan Pro blog home page has Page Rank 6. His “About” Page is Page Rank 5 – however, a random sample of individual posts show mainly Page Rank 0. Of course, his ZDNet blog home page has Page Rank 7. But again, individual posts have mainly Page Rank 0. And clearly his Page Rank is helped by being under the ZDNet domain.
So what’s my point? Be careful about how Page Rank is used to try and determine influence.
I just heard that I’ve been included on your update, and I can’t thank you enough for considering my blog. It means a lot to be in such company. Naomi
Andrew – this is purely a case of using the wrong word in describing what GooglePage rank does. You are absolutely right as different pages within a blog have multiple ranks. The only page that I have used to determine rank is the blogs home page and no other. I will amend the description within the methodology to correct this error. My thanks to you for being on-the-ball.
Would be interested to see what I (diversity.net.nz) and we (cloudave.com) garner in terms of ranking on your list….
Wow! An incredible amount of information. Obviously a great deal of work has gone into developing the results. Will be back to review, and visit many of the blogs, but wanted to take a moment to thank you for all the efforts and info you shared so willingly.
The reality of the lines being blurred, is they were blurry before and both the recession and the latest technowaves have accelerated that blur. Some won’t like that as it may erode their ability to charge large fees for info others provide at a modest cost or even free.
Thanks so much for including Health Content Advisors in your listing (at #136). To add to your point 1. about consultants’ being included with analysts and Jeremiah’s comment about the blurring of media, analyst firms, and bloggers, it’s interesting to see how consultants who blog and Tweet to promote their services match up with full-time analysts. I’m honored to be in the company of analysts from top firms and greatly appreciate the recognition. In fact, I may blog about the convergence theme!
Thanks,
Janice
Very interesting, and thank you!
My blog at Gartner (http://blogs.gartner.com/lydia_leong/ – #109 on your list) is a mirrored subset of my own blog site, Cloudpundit (http://cloudpundit.com). The stats for those two sites should probably be combined, if you can.
Thanks for including the Supply Chain Matters blog as #79 in your ranking. It is great to see that you have reached out and included independant analysts in these rankings.
Keep up the great work.
Bob Ferrari
Kudos on a job well done! Now I need to find the time to actually read, let alone follow these blogs. Not sure you would want to include me, but I do consider myself an analyst and I am read by Bob Ferrari above me here, so you may want to take a look 🙂 One thing puzzles me though: If Google PR is on a 1-10 scale, how come some in your have scores of 12, 14 or 17?
Hi Jan
The scores for Google are different to reflect the weighting that this metric has been given in the overall algorithm.
Jonny
Just found your site – great list. I also noticed that you included in your Point #4 that you would consider missed blogs. I think mine should be included. You can see for yourself, it contains regularly updated, high quality analysis and insight for the IT world.
I’d just like it considered (even if you decide it doesn’t make the cut):
http://www.r3now.com
Dedicated to showing IT Decision Makers how to deliver value.
I’m a blogger in supply chain management area but I don’t expect supply chain related blog to be in top 100. This implies that supply chain management gains attention over the years. I hope I’ll be in the list some day.