Minnesota Blog Rankings

I've built a system to rank blogs and the first version is up and running. The rankings are a work in progress, but the initial list of top blogs is interesting for sure.

As far as I can tell, no one else is ranking Minnesota blogs like this. So far, I'm using four metrics: Google PageRank, inbound links measured by Yahoo, Google Reader subscribers and blog rankings from PostRank.

I've built an algorithm that mashes those four metrics into a score from 1 to 10. I'm sure I'll be tweaking (or overhauling, I suppose) the ranking system as I see how it performs and get feedback.

During construction, I turned to the AdAge Power150 rankings for ideas and inspiration. The Power150, which ranks marketing and advertising blogs, is far more polished than the Newsbobber system, but I'm getting there.

One of the cool things the Newbobber system lets me do is create feeds from top blogs by topic. On the Newsbobber front page, you can see a box that streams latest posts from the top news, sports and political blogs. So far I'm using the top 10 ranking blogs in each category, but I can change that number easily to expand the pool. What I like about this module is that it's fully automated, so that as the Newsbobber rankings change, the mix of blogs feeding into the box changes, too.

A huge leap for the ranking system will come when I build a system for user voting. Then I can have a "fan vote" that stands alone as a pure popularity contest while also folding into the overall scoring system. This is a Phase II plan that will require me to really expand my programming abilities (sessions, cookies, usernames, passwords, complex database management, styling issues, user interface, etc.).

Comments

[griffinjay]

Hi Bob,

This is an impressive platform you've built. Nice to see Locally Grown http://locallygrownnorthfield.org listed at #43 in your top 100. Can we get listed in your neighborhoods directory/map mashup? Northfield (pop. 12,000) is probably similar in size to the neighborhoods. Or will you have a different listing for hyperlocal blogs by small town?

In the Northfield area there are several dozen blogs. I sort of keep track of the civic-oriented ones in a listing on our blogosphere page http://locallygrownnorthfield.org/blogosphere/ and we aggregate a few on our left sidebar.

Northfield.org aggregates them all http://northfield.org/aggregator/sources (Drupal platform) and they do some aggregation by groups in their right sidebar.

I'm guessing that most of these Northfield-area blogs would be too small/too niche-oriented for your site. So I'm wondering if you plan to make your platform available to others who might want to deploy it locally?

[Bob Ingrassia]

Thanks for your comments and questions. The 'Neighborhoods' page is powered entirely by Outside.In. I just added Locally Grown to the feeds it scrapes for the Twin Cities region. So let's see if Locally Grown posts start showing up.

I wouldn't say Northfield is too niche for the Minnesota Blog Directory. I'm including blogs from all over the state, as long as they're active, have some appeal to a public audience and have been around for at least a little while.

The directory is definitely available for local use. It's just a matter of tagging and categorizing blogs (by geography in this case). So I can easily create a 'Northfield' category or tag group.

I'm still in the process of figuring out how to distribute the directory information. Is the directory search available only on Newsbobber? Or will other publishers be able to embed a search box on their site? I'm not sure which way this will go. So there are a variety of ideas/options about 'deploying locally.' Streams of latest blogs posts by region or category. Lists of top blogs by city.

Things will take shape in the coming weeks as I near a public launch of Newsbobber & the directory.

[griffinjay]

Bob, I'd argue that from a local community perspective, it would be best to have your entire platform be deployed for an area like Northfield.

That way, the home page features could all be deployed for Northfield, ie:

Top Stories
Latest News
Good Reads
Alternative Sources
Featured Posts
Featured Blog

So could you license your code/platform to a local entity for installation on its own web server?

Or could you create, on your server, completely separate installations, eg:

Northfield Newsbobber
northfield.newsbobber.com

[Bill Roehl]

Interesting site with a big list of hard hitting names. Thanks for the inclusion and I'm looking forward to what more comes along in the future.