The first thing to do was to map out which of the May 19, 2005 members were still on the list. The results looked like this:
| Blog Title | Position 5/19/05 | Position 2/20/06 |
|---|---|---|
| Boing Boing | 1 | 1 |
| InstaPundit | 2 | 12 |
| Daily Kos | 3 | 5 |
| Gizmodo | 4 | 9 |
| Fark | 5 | 23 |
| EnGadget | 6 | 2 |
| Davenetics | 7 | Â |
| Eschaton | 8 | 36 |
| Dooce | 9 | 15 |
| Andrew Sullivan | 10 | 51 |
| The Best Page In The Universe | 11 | 52 |
| Talking Points Memo: by Joshua MicahMarshall | 12 | 26 |
| lgf: anti-idiotarian | 13 | 35 |
| kottke.org | 14 | 21 |
| WIL WHEATON DOT NET | 15 | Â |
| Metafilter | 16 | 47 |
| Doc Searls | 17 | 92 |
| (In)formacao e (In)utilidade | 18 | Â |
| Wonkette | 19 | 25 |
| Scripting News | 20 | 95 |
| Power Line | 21 | 33 |
| Balmasque | 22 | Â |
| Corante | 23 | Â |
| A list Apart | 24 | 17 |
| Something Awful | 25 | 44 |
| Megatokyo | 26 | Â |
| Michelle Malkin | 27 | 10 |
| Arts and Letters Daily | 28 | Â |
| Gawker | 29 | 19 |
| Afterall it was the best I ever had | 30 | Â |
| The Volokh Conspiracy | 31 | 74 |
| Scobelizer | 32 | 34 |
| Jeffrey Zeldman | 33 | Â |
| This Modern World | 34 | Â |
| The Web Standards Project | 35 | 57 |
| Joel on Software | 36 | 39 |
| Media Matters for America | 37 | Â |
| Television without pity | 38 | Â |
| Kuro5hin | 39 | Â |
| Lileks | 40 | Â |
| Hugh Hewitt | 41 | 55 |
| Joel Veitch | 42 | Â |
| Truthout | 43 | Â |
| Baghdad Burning | 44 | Â |
| Buzz machine | 45 | 60 |
| fleugel | 46 | Â |
| Informed Comment | 47 | 93 |
| Doppler: redefining podcasting | 48 | Â |
| geek and proud | 49 | Â |
| loadmemory (Asian site) | 50 | Â |
| Photojunkie | 51 | Â |
| Ross Rader | 52 | Â |
| The Truth Laid Bear | 53 | Â |
| Joi Ito | 54 | Â |
| ScrappleFace | 55 | Â |
| LexText | 56 | Â |
| Google Blog | 57 | 8 |
| Xbox | 58 | Â |
| My life in a Bush of Ghosts | 59 | Â |
| Astronomy picture of the day | 60 | Â |
| Crooked Timber | 61 | Â |
| Vodka Pundit | 62 | Â |
| Captain’s quarter | 63 | 70 |
| A small victory | 64 | Â |
| Gato Fedorento | 65 | Â |
| Mezzoblue | 66 | Â |
| PostSecret | 67 | 4 |
| Samizdata.net | 68 | Â |
| Lawrence Lessig | 69 | Â |
| Counterpunch | 70 | Â |
| Democractic Underground | 71 | Â |
| Right Wing News | 72 | Â |
| StopDesign | 73 | Â |
| iBiblio | 74 | Â |
| Samizdata.net (mistake?) | 75 | Â |
| Abrupto | 76 | Â |
| gene7299 (Asian MSNSpaces site) | 77 | Â |
| Where is Raed | 78 | Â |
| B3TA: We love the web | 79 | Â |
| Talkleft | 80 | Â |
| Wizbang | 81 | Â |
| m1net (MSN spaces site) | 82 | Â |
| Hoder | 83 | Â |
| CTRL+Alt+Del | 84 | Â |
| Brad DeLong | 85 | Â |
| Blogs for Bush | 86 | Â |
| Neil Gaiman | 87 | Â |
| Gothamist | 88 | 85 |
| Thought Mechanics | 89 | 7 |
| IMAO | 90 | Â |
| Dan Gillmor (old weblog) | 91 | Â |
| HINAGATA | 92 | Â |
| Dean’s World | 93 | Â |
| Defamer | 94 | 53 |
| USS Clueless | 95 | Â |
| Dive into Mark | 96 | Â |
| Pandagon | 97 | Â |
| Blogging.la | 98 | Â |
| Why are you worshipping the ground I blog on? | 99 | Â |
| Daring Fireball | 100 | Â |
This provided me with a departure point but it wasn’t really getting at what I wanted. Obviously, a fair number of people had changed position. So I decided to take a cut of the same data on the 20th of February and start mapping out movement. It looked as follows:
| Position 2/20/06 | Name | Position on 5/19/05 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Boing Boing | 1 |
| 2 | Engadget | 6 |
| 3 | File Lodge | Â |
| 4 | PostSecret | 67 |
| 5 | Daily Kos | 3 |
| 6 | The Huffington Post | Â |
| 7 | Thought Mechanics | 89 |
| 8 | Official Google Blog | 57 |
| 9 | Gizmodo | 4 |
| 10 | Michelle Malkin | 27 |
| 11 | Blog di Beppe Grillo | Â |
| 12 | Instapundit | 2 |
| 13 | Crooks and Liars | Â |
| 14 | Lifehacker | Â |
| 15 | dooce | 9 |
| 16 | Herramientas para Blogs | Â |
| 17 | A List Apart | 24 |
| 18 | Think Progress | Â |
| 19 | Gawker | 29 |
| 20 | MSN-SA (MSN Spaces) | Â |
| 21 | kottke.org | 14 |
| 22 | shiraishi.seesaa.net | Â |
| 23 | Fark | 5 |
| 24 | AV Watch Title Page | Â |
| 25 | Wonkette | 19 |
| 26 | Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall | 12 |
| 27 | The Space Craft | Â |
| 28 | Joystiq | Â |
| 29 | The Superficial | Â |
| 30 | TechCrunch | Â |
| 31 | Weebls Stuff News | Â |
| 32 | manabekawori (Japanese) | Â |
| 33 | Power Line | 21 |
| 34 | Scobleizer | 32 |
| 35 | lgf | 13 |
| 36 | Eschaton | 8 |
| 37 | Autoblog China | Â |
| 38 | Google Blogoscoped | Â |
| 39 | Joel on Software | 36 |
| 40 | Xiaxue | Â |
| 41 | AMERICAblog | Â |
| 42 | atnewz.jp | Â |
| 43 | WRETCH Blog | Â |
| 44 | Something Awful | 25 |
| 45 | nosz50j | Â |
| 46 | Overheard in New York | Â |
| 47 | Metafilter | 16 |
| 48 | Cute Overload | Â |
| 49 | Paul Graham | Â |
| 50 | The Unofficial Apple Weblog | Â |
| 51 | Andrew Sullivan | 10 |
| 52 | The Best Page In The Universe. | 11 |
| 53 | Defamer | 94 |
| 54 | Mark’s Sysinternals Blog | Â |
| 55 | Hugh Hewitt | 41 |
| 56 | Techdirt. | Â |
| 57 | The Web Standards Project | 35 |
| 58 | Stuff On My Cat | Â |
| 59 | Om Malik | |
| 60 | BuzzMachine | 45 |
| 61 | Break.com | Â |
| 62 | Dr Dave | Â |
| 63 | Pink Is The New Blog | Â |
| 64 | Microsiervos | Â |
| 65 | Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals) | Â |
| 66 | Micro Persuasion | Â |
| 67 | Blogcritics.org | Â |
| 68 | Poynter Online | Â |
| 69 | excite.co.jp/News/odd | Â |
| 70 | Captain’s Quarters | 63 |
| 71 | MAKE: Blog | Â |
| 72 | Aamukaste | Â |
| 73 | John Battelle | Â |
| 74 | The Volokh Conspiracy | 31 |
| 75 | TPMCafe | Â |
| 76 | dumpalink.com | Â |
| 77 | iammew | Â |
| 78 | Seth Godin | Â |
| 79 | hcy521 | Â |
| 80 | Search Engine Watch | Â |
| 81 | The Corner on National Review Online | Â |
| 82 | toothpaste for dinner | Â |
| 83 | aki09041 | Â |
| 84 | slim | Â |
| 85 | Gothamist | 88 |
| 86 | strawberry2 | Â |
| 87 | Autoblog | Â |
| 88 | VG Cats | Â |
| 89 | Yarn Harlot | Â |
| 90 | BILDblog | Â |
| 91 | Ain’t It Cool News | |
| 92 | The Doc Searls Weblog | 17 |
| 93 | Informed Comment | 47 |
| 94 | Rather Good | Â |
| 95 | Scripting News | 20 |
| 96 | Semiologic | Â |
| 97 | we make money not art | Â |
| 98 | waiterrant.net | Â |
| 99 | atsuya furuta | Â |
| 100 | Treehugger | Â |
This provided me with two points in time: One in May 2005 and one in February 2006, 9 months later. If the theory of gatekeepers held true, the lists should have been pretty consistent.
What the data showed, however, was that the technorati 100 list is a very dynamic one. Let’s take a look at some of the moves.
Boing Boing: King of the blogosphere
Only one blog, Boing Boing, manage to hold its position steady in the last 9 months. Sitting at the top spot, it looks like it won’t move for a long time to come.
The movers and shakers
In this new list, 9 blogs successfully moved up in the last 9 months. They are:
- EnGadget (from 6 to 2)
- Post Secret (67 to 4)
- Thought Mechanics (89 to 7)
- Google official blog (57 to 8)
- Michelle Malkin (27 to 10)
- A list apart (24 to 17)
- Gawker (29 to 19)
- Defamer (94 to 53)
- Gothamist (88 to 85)
Those were all blogs that appeared on both lists and managed to climb up in the ranks. More surprising, however, was the fact that 65 new bloggers appeared on the list, new claimant to the title of top blogger. A quick analysis seems to point to Asian blogs becoming a major force, one that I personally have not heard much about in discussion of the evolution of the blogosphere. David Sifry’s State of the Blogosphere did not cover any of this type of movement when he did his last overview of the state of the blogosphere. I don’t know if he deliberately decided to ignore the data or whether he did not see it as that important but I consider this a pretty powerful observation. In a world where globalisation is key, the blogosphere has not yet fully grappled with the impact of the Asian Pacific region and there probably will be some interesting discussion around this in the future.
From a legacy standpoint, it also seems that upward moves are not fully distributed across the space. The following table shows how the legacy upward moves were distributed among the population:
| Top 10 | 5 |
| Top 25 | 7 |
| Top 50 | 7 |
| Bottom 10 | Â |
| Bottom 25 | 1 |
| Bottom 50 | 2 |
So being in the top 50 percentile makes it easier to move up, which would give some credence to a network effect. However, because we are talking about such a small segment of the population, it is impossible to generate any meaningful conclusion from the data.
The endangered list
While 65 blogs already dropped off the list, the 25 following blogs are in danger for the next 9 months as they have suffered a drop in ranking over the last 9 months:
- Daily Kos (from 3 to 5)
- Gizmodo (4 to 9)
- Instapundit (2 to 12)
- Dooce (9 to 15)
- Kottke (14 to 21)
- Fark (5 to 23)
- Wonkette (19 to 25)
- Talking Points Memo (12 to 26)
- Powerline (21 to 33)
- Scobelizer (32 to 34)
- LGF (13 to 35)
- Eschaton (8 to 36)
- Joel On Software (36 to 39)
- Something Awful (25 to 44)
- Metafilter (16 to 47)
- Andrew Sullivan (10 to 51)
- Best Page in the Universe (11 to 52)
- Hugh Hewitt (41 to 55)
- Web Standard Project (35 to 57)
- Buzz Machine (45 to 60)
- Captain’s Quarter (63 to 70)
- The Volokh conspiracy (31 to 74)
- Doc Searls (17 to 92)
- Informed Comment (47 to 93)
- Scripting News (20 to 95)
The interesting thing, in terms of that drop is that it seems to affect members across the list as a whole in a similar fashion. A quick analysis of the drop breakdown shows no clear advantage in being near the top of the list versus being closer to the bottom:
| Top 10 | 2 |
| To 25 | 7 |
| Top 50 | 15 |
| Bottom 10 | 3 |
| Bottom 25 | 3 |
| Bottom 50 | 10 |
More interesting is that this number is low compared to the blogs which disappeared completely from the top 100. That number stands at 65 and breaks down as follows:
| From top 10 | 1 |
| From top 25 | 5 |
| From top 50 | 20 |
| From bottom 50 | 45 |
| From bottom 25 | 22 |
| From bottom: 10 | 9 |
A dynamic list
If you take those numbers, it means that a total of 90 blogs (25 dropping within the list and another 65 dropping off the list completely) ended up with a lower position in 9 months. Combined with the fact that 9 blogs moved up, this means that 99 percent of the list was dynamic.
This, to me, was a pretty stunning revelation: while there is much obsession about who is and isn’t on those lists, it seems that their nature is a lot more dynamic than expected. Going beyond that, it also look like being on top is no guarantee that you will stay there (if anything, it is a guarantee that you will not, as 9 out of 10 blogs fell and 65 percent disappeared from the list altogether).
Because the overwhelming majority of the blogs listed in May 2005 experienced a downward spin, it seems that the concept of a network effect is widely overstated. In fact, there seems to be the equivalent of a reverse pull, where being a Technorati 100 is only a short lived glory.