I've added a bunch of blogs to the Minnesota Blog Directory, which now features entries on more than 940 sites. I've also updated popularity data for most of the blogs and recalculated the Newsbobber score for every site. So there's an updated list of Minnesota's Top 100 blogs.
The list has changed quite a bit since I first created it last summer. Some of top blogs weren't in the directory when the initial list came out. Other top-scoring sites have been in the directory for months, but until recently did not have accurate or updated popularity data. Once I updated the data and recalculated the scores, those blogs shot up in the rankings. That explains why some blogs (talking to you, Bob Collins) have fallen in the rankings, even though their score stayed the same or even increased.
Some caveats: The Newsbobber score aims to rank blogs by popularity, not quality. The score is based on four metrics -- inlinks, Google Reader subscribers, Google PageRank and a ranking from the feed-filtering service PostRank. For each metric, a blog gets 0 to 10 points, depending on its performance against all the other blogs in the directory. A blog's overall score is the average of its points in each category. The system is far from perfect, but it does a decent job measuring any given blog's popularity vs. the other blogs in the directory.
Also, I'm fairly liberal when it comes to including blogs in the directory. Blogs based in Minnesota get in ... even those that aren't really about Minnesota. I've also included blogs based outside the state that feature a lot of Minnesota-related content.
One blog that cracked the Top 10 -- Rex Sorgatz's Fimoculous -- is really on the bubble for me. He worked in Minnesota for several years, helping found MNSpeak and working at Internet Broadcasting (my former employer). A lot of people here know him. But he now lives in New York City and his site has little to do with Minnesota. Should Fimoculous be included in a Minnesota blog directory?
If you want to see how various blogs stack up in various categories, check out the directory main page and click the topic tabs. Blogs are listed by topic, with top-scoring sites appearing at the top.
Also, play around with the search function. You can search for blogs by title, author or topic. General search terms like "baseball" or "real estate" might bring up blogs you've never seen before.
Now that I've got the directory listings updated, I may begin tracking how the ranking and scores change over time. It would be cool to see how any given blog's rank and score have gone up or down during the past month or year.
See any errors in the directory? Outdated info? Know of blogs that should be included? Have any other feedback? Comment below or better yet, use the directory feedback form.
I owe a hat tip to MNHeadhunter at TwinCitiesBlogs. Paul DeBettignies has done a great job pulling together lists of Twin Cities blogs ... and he was tracking a bunch of sites that were not in the Newsbobber directory.
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