Top edublogs?

Okay, let me begin by stating that I know several things about this blog post:

1. It's probably going to make some people angry,
2. It's probably going to discourage some people, and
3. I know I've missed some people.

Now that my disclaimers are out of the way, here's what I've got: Will Richardson is more popular than eSchoolNews. Stephen Downes, David Warlick, and Vicki Davis are more popular than Education Week. Wesley Fryer is more popular than the feed from the main TechLEARNING web site. How do I know? Here is my Excel file. Feel free to play around with the data as desired.

Below is a chart of what I think are the top 30 edublogs as measured by Technorati rankings (click on the chart to see a full-size version). I've defined an edublog as any web site or blog having to do with education that has a RSS feed. Web sites like eSchoolNews and TechLEARNING thus are included. If you don't agree with my definition, exclude whom you want and go a little farther down the list in the Excel file.

Did I forget someone? Highly likely. Let me know and I'll add them for next quarter (April 2007). I only joined the blogosphere last August and still am learning my way around. Plus, in case you haven't noticed, the blogosphere is a big place and it doesn't come with an index. With your help I can keep adding to and expanding this list and start tracking the educational blogosphere a little better. For example, there are a bunch of blogs from the education blogosphere survey that aren't in the Excel file. I simply ran out of time and will apologize now for anyone on that list that isn't included. I'll make sure you're in the April report.

Below is another chart showing the movement of a few blogs that I looked at back in October (again, click on the chart to see a full-size version). This list simply represents some of the blogs that had crossed my radar after a mere 45 days of blogging and is not intended to be exclusionary. I include this chart to hopefully give some new bloggers some encouragement. The dark blue line swooping down from the top left is my blog. The orange line with a similar slope is Tuttle SVC. What's the lesson for those who want more readers? If Tom Hoffman and I can move that dramatically in just a few months, so can you. [Note: interpret any declines with some caution: for example, The Thinking Stick dropped dramatically when Jeff Scofer changed its URL in Technorati; it still hasn't caught up to where it was before.]

I'm a professor at a big research university, but this is not a research study. I'm just playing around with some data because that's what I like to do (yes, I'm a data geek). Concerns aside, there is some interesting info here. Over time this will get better and more complete, particularly with your help. Please don't get offended if you got left out: e-mail me your Technorati URL and I'll add you for April. I figure that by the end of the year this should be humming along pretty well. I welcome all suggestions and feedback; I'm trying to be as open and transparent as possible. Happy data exploring.

P.S. I unapologetically admit that I care about my Technorati ranking. Why? Because I'm trying to make change. The bigger audience I have, the more readers I reach directly and the more people I can influence indirectly through those readers. I'm on a mission. Aren't you?

Comments

[Ewan McIntosh]

1.

You missed me and whole raft of Scottish edubloggers who would fit within the current rankings. TBH, I'd argue along with many that it's not how many people read or link to a blog but how many subscribe and who they are that's important:
http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2007/01/you_dont_need_a.html

[Kevin H.]

2.

Hi Scott
I need some help -- I have my blog claimed at Technorati but I am not sure how to find my Technorati URL that you ask for.
Any advice?
Thanks
Kevin

PS -- the charts are very interesting and intriguing.

[Scott McLeod]

3.

Hi Ewan, I've visited your site before. I'm sorry I didn't remember to add you to my list. I'm particularly sorry since my family castle, Dunvegan, is there on the Isle of Skye. How embarrassing to fail to include the home country! =)

I do hope that you and the other folks there in Scotland will drop me an e-mail ([email protected]) with your Technorati URLs. I'll get you all in the mix for the next round: the more the merrier and the better and more comprehensive my monitoring becomes.

Finally, I'm interested in any and all thoughts about the best way to monitor blogs' regular subscribers as opposed to the individual links that Technorati monitors. I'm sure there's probably some easy way to do this but it's early in the morning here and my brain's still foggy. Suggestions are welcome and encouraged.

Kevin, I think the best way is to go to

http://www.technorati.com/search/

Type in the URL of your blog (http://dogtrax.edublogs.org) in the URL search box. Click on the Search button.. Your Technorati URL is the URL for the title of your blog (in blue) inside the green box. Right below it is your current rank. Your Technorati URL thus is

http://www.technorati.com/blogs/http://dogtrax.edublogs.org
(e-mail this to me, please!)

[Jon Becker]

4.

Scott, any chance you can flip the first chart around/over? IMHO, the way it is currently configured, it looks like Will Richardson is in second-to-last place (not that this is a horserace or anything).

Great stuff as usual.

[Scott Elias]

5.

Excellent information!! Hopefully I'll make the list for April, but there are big shoes to fill in the edublogging arena...

I was just happy my Technorati ranking is under 1,000,000 today!!

[Tom Hoffman]

6.

I'd argue that if you're talking about edublogs and not ed-tech-u-blogs, you should include blogs like http://eduwonk.com/ and http://educationwonk.blogspot.com and many of the blogs in their blogrolls.

[Gary S. Stager]

7.

Check out http://www.districtadministration.com/pulse

[Tom Hoffman]

8.

Erm, I guess Eduwonk is on there.

[Scott McLeod]

9.

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll have to add The Education Wonks. I believe the other two are in the Excel spreadsheet already...

[Kelly Christopherson]

10.

Scott,

Well, the list looks very interesting. I think that it shows how people are searching for information all the time and, when they find good information, will continue to visit and use that information.

For April - http://www.technorati.com/blogs/http://kwhobbes.edublogs.org

Again, thanks for the interesting info.

Kelly

[Scott Elias]

11.

Forgot to add...

http://www.technorati.com/blogs/http://blog.scottjelias.net

[Nancy]

12.

Scott, I'm surprised you missed me. My rating is an astonishing 2,561,261!! I have three blogs; a student blog, a personal blog and my latest blog on using primary sources in the classroom...I really enjoy creating the blogs, writing and reading...I read many of the ones on your list. Hopefully a year from now I will be rated 1,342,435!! A huge improvement!!

[Scott McLeod]

13.

Jon and others, here's the graph flipped the other way:

http://tinyurl.com/2rpf29

Thanks for the request. I learned something new in Excel as a result. Let's hear it for blog comments as essential parts of our personal learning networks!

[Jon Becker]

14.

Wonderful, thanks, Scott. But now I wonder why I'm apparently the only person in the world not reading Inside HigherEd...

[David Truss]

15.

By ranking these blogs, you have exposed me to resources I would never have known about. I find it very useful to know what thousands of others are finding interesting in the world of edublogs... thanks!

[Vicki Davis]

16.

It is important to look at the "rankings" just to get an idea of the linking trends. I think there is a bigger story here that doesn't get captured in Technorati and that is one of traffic. This is showing what bloggers say about bloggers but it is interest that there is a whole group of people who primarily read (as some say "blurk" -- lurk on blogs) without commenting but yet they are there and learning. I believe that blogs have become a whole new media. I think that subscriptions and something we don't see -- traffic -- should have an impact, although we have no way to see that with the Technorati rankings. It is still kind of "what do 'geeks' say about geeks" in some ways because the more technologically proficient are the ones who know how to link and ping.

It is moving mainstream and I predict significant changes -- note that Will Richardson moved down, however I would venture to say his whole link count moved up -- there are more blogs and the edublogosphere is just a niche -- some of the more popular social and politico blogs will usurp our corner of the blogosphere.

It is good to know for "buzz" purposes, although I find that sometimes if I look at the rankings too much it can distract me from my purpose: making a difference! Encouraging others!

Thank you for a great post!

[Adrian Bruce]

17.

Oh yes, and the humble little blogs that have over 2 000 email subscribers, 110 000 page impressions to the associated web 1.0 site for today and a Technorati rating of 1 687 079 don't even rate a mention. ;)

Can anyone tell me why many educators are not embracing RSS?

cheers

Adrian Bruce
http://www.adrianbruce.com
http://teacher-toolbox.blogspot.com

[Judy O'Connell]

18.

I have to agree with Vicki about the fact that lots of educators 'lurk', and even URL-hop, so rankings are not everything! You missed Ewan and the Scots, and all the good Aussies too I think. But the idea of collecting this information is useful - I can see value in this as I promote blogging downunder. Here's my own blog at http://heyjude.wordpress.com (technorati rankings improving) and my collaborative effort for work at http://parra-bib-blog.blogspot.com. I collaborate in Digital Chalkie and Aus Mac Ed as well, which you can pick up from my HeyJude blogroll - plus lots of other terrific edubloggers!

[Adrian Bruce]

19.

Hey Scott and Co,

I just added almost all the Edublogs to my Pageflakes account and have made it available for all to share :)

http://www.pageflakes.com/hey_ad.ashx

cheers

Adrian

[James Farmer]

20.

Howabout Edublogs (edublogs.org - 62) & Incsub (incsub.org -115)... both education blogs, technically speaking :)

[Scott McLeod]

21.

Thanks, everyone, for the new blogs. I am excited to add them to the list. Please make sure to e-mail your Technorati URL to me ([email protected]). James, does edublogs have a RSS feed?

[Peter Rock]

22.

Scott,

I have updated my post and replied to your comment here...

http://gnuosphere.blogspot.com/2007/02/top-edublogs.html#comments

If what I have said is still not clear, please let me know.

[Oldandrew]

23.

Well you can have mine for April (It's http://www.technorati.com/blogs/http://infet.co.uk/blog/index.php/a/a ). However I'm utterly confused as to how Technorati works. According to Technorati my blog hasn't been updated for weeks, and no amount of pinging seems to change that. Presumably that will affect the ranking?

[James Farmer]

24.

Better late than never - you can get all the latest edublogs.org posts at http://edublogs.org/wpmu-feed/ or the edublog news blog (currently being redesigned) at htttp://edublogs.org/feed

Ping me at james (at) edublogs /dot/ org for any other qs.

Cheers, James

[Vivek]

25.

Scott, I've been a reader on your site for some time. The incisiveness of thought reflected in your writing brings me back here.

Congratulations to you and your team on getting this survey out.

It was both humbling and surprising to see my blog at #407 just 3 weeks into my blogging efforts. Then I saw the long tail you mention.

Only 900 blogs have a technorati "authority" or 1 and above, and only 500 odd cross a Technorati ranking of 10 and above.

To me, thats a whole lot of voices, just sitting unnoticed.

For anyone who's been blogging for even a few days, its obvious, that the network effects of blogging are stupendous.

I wonder, then, what can be done to bring some of these blogs readership? Apart from the efforts they put into "publicizing" their blogs, maybe its worthwhile for some of the leading EduBloggers to evangelize their effort.

I am contemplating starting a small exercise on my blog where some of us check out blogs ranked between sub 500 (to around 1000) and put up posts that we find interesting. That should drive traffic to those blogs!

Maybe the traffic generated to the blogs would lead to more effort on the writer's part to post regular, more cogent work.

The only caveat I see is evidence of blogging activity: any blog that qualifies for linking should have had at least one post in the last 10 days and at least five in the last two months. Wouldn't want to be spending time linking blogs abandoned by their writers, would we?

What do you think? I'd be grateful if coments from you or other readers could be sent to me at theredpencil [at] gmail.com or at my blog.

Vivek

[Sean Nash]

26.

Hey Scott...

I wish I understood Technorati a bit more. However, since I started this thing back in April, no amount of love seems to change what goes on there with my blog.

In fact, the site itself has been plain ol' unruly at times.

Nice post... love the datafest. I had to look at the first graph and do a double-take when I gazed before looking at the *units*. It reminds me of a graph depicting golf averages. ;-)

Keep it going...
Sean