Bill Hobbs mentions that BlogRunner has changed the formula whereby it ranks “The most influential reporters and bloggers on the web.”
Their original formula–which is still being used–is based on total references and rewards prolific posters. I’m currently ranked #8–I’ve been at least as high as #6– ahead of some much more popular bloggers but also ahead of the likes of Tom Friedman and George Will.
In response to criticism about this listing I’ve added a revised listing that uses a different methodology. The original listing counts the cumulative number of inbound links to unique blog postings and articles for each author. This methodology favors industrious bloggers and underrepresents the influence of reporters and columnists who only contribute one or two pieces a week. The new listing averages out the number of inbound links over the number of posts contributed by each author. In turn, this probably puts bloggers who post frequently- such as Instapundit- at a disadvantage. What this all means, if anything, I don’t know. I’ll let you figure it out.
Under that formula, I’m an anemic #148, with no Big Media authors below me.
In terms of my relative ranking, the latter is more accurate than the former. I’ve yet to be offered a spot on a Sunday morning talk show, for example. On the other hand, Glenn Reynolds is only #100 on the “revised” version, with Steven Den Beste that top blog author at #21. Indeed, some bloggers I’ve never heard of are ranked ahead of Reynolds. That doesn’t make much sense either.
