Mini StatBot: Leaderboard vs Technorati Top 100 (and Digg Top 100)
October 1, 2007 | 7:10 pmTechmeme’s Gabe Rivera (who is someone I highly respect for the code that shows through in TechMeme and Memeorandum) is about to launch something somewhat similar to Technorati’s Top 100 list of blogs, called Leaderboard. Dave Winer got an early list of the sites that are part of the leader board, and Ben Metcalfe chimes in with the fact that only about 50% of the “Blogs” mentioned in Leaderboard’s Top 100 are actual Blogs.
So, I just wrote a small scrapper (just around 10 lines of VB9) that pulled down the Technorati Top 100, and compared it to the Leaderboard. Here’s the table:
As you can see, a LOT of the blogs present in Technorati’s Top 100 are not present in Techmeme’s Top 100. Only 15 blogs present in Technorati’s Top 100 are present in Techmeme’s Top 100, and except five (Techcrunch, ArsTechnica, TUAW, Webware and DownloadSquad), most have much lower ranks on the Techmeme board than in Technorati Top 100.
So, I think that these are not in competition at all. Techmeme is just Technology news. Blogging is not just about news. The Technorati Top 100 lists blogs which are popular, while Techmeme’s Leaderboard lists sites which are good, consistent news sources. There’s a world of a difference between a news source and a blog, no?
Comparing with Digg Top 100
While Digg doesn’t have an easily accessible Top 100, I do have the data lying around (as part of my StatBot on Digg. Part II was supposed to go live today, this one took it’s place instead). So, I couldn’t resist comparing the two:
| Site (with position in Leaderboard) | Digg Rank |
| 1. TechCrunch | 21 |
| 2. Engadget | 4 |
| 3. New York Times | 8 |
| 4. Ars Technica | 1 |
| 5. CNET News | 88 |
| 6. Read/WriteWeb | 79 |
| 7. GigaOM | x |
| 8. BBC | 7 |
| 9. InfoWorld | x |
| 10. Wall Street Journal | 86 |
| 11. The Register | x |
| 12. Reuters | 15 |
| 13. Silicon Alley Insider | x |
| 14. paidContent | x |
| 15. Between the Lines | x |
| 16. Gizmodo | 13 |
| 17. Google Operating System | 128 |
| 18. eWEEK | 56 |
| 19. Search Engine Land | x |
| 20. Computerworld | 76 |
| 21. Crave: The gadget blog | x |
| 22. Associated Press | 90 |
| 23. TorrentFreak | 41 |
| 24. Webware | x |
| 25. VentureBeat | x |
| 26. The Unofficial Apple Weblog | 48 |
| 27. Business Week | 25 |
| 28. CrunchGear | x |
| 29. Business Wire | x |
| 30. Google Blogoscoped | x |
| 31. Techdirt | x |
| 32. Microsoft | 69 |
| 33. Bits | x |
| 34. Rough Type | x |
| 35. DailyTech | x |
| 36. Scripting News | x |
| 37. mathewingram | x |
| 38. PR Newswire | x |
| 39. CenterNetworks | x |
| 40. The Boy Genius Report | x |
| 41. ZDNet | 23 |
| 42. Guardian | 29 |
| 43. All about Microsoft | x |
| 44. PC World | 57 |
| 45. Wired News | 9 |
| 46. Inquirer | 34 |
| 47. AppleInsider | 30 |
| 48. Epicenter | x |
| 49. Tech Trader Daily | x |
| 50. Washington Post | 17 |
| 51. Forbes | 50 |
| 52. Bloomberg | x |
| 53. Times of London | 44 |
| 54. Apple | 26 |
| 55. BoomTown | x |
| 56. InformationWeek | 66 |
| 57. Publishing 2 | x |
| 58. Scobleizer | x |
| 59. A VC | x |
| 60. iLounge | x |
| 61. Download Squad | x |
| 62. All Facebook | x |
| 63. Financial Times | x |
| 64. Boston Globe | x |
| 65. Electronista | x |
| 66. Yodel Anecdotal | x |
| 67. apophenia | x |
| 68. Official Google Blog | x |
| 69. Google Public Policy Blog | x |
| 70. USA Today | 39 |
| 71. Compete Blog | x |
| 72. AdAge | x |
| 73. Apple 2 | x |
| 74. WebProNews | x |
| 75. Mashable! | 92 |
| 76. New York Post | x |
| 77. Googling Google | x |
| 78. iPhone Central | x |
| 79. Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog | x |
| 80. NEWS.com Australia | 14 |
| 81. DigiTimes | x |
| 82. Digital Daily | x |
| 83. BuzzMachine | x |
| 84. comScore | x |
| 85. Security Fix | x |
| 86. CNN | 5 |
| 87. Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim | x |
| 88. NewTeeVee | x |
| 89. istartedsomething | x |
| 90. Think Secret | x |
| 91. ProBlogger Blog Tips | x |
| 92. Reflections of a Newsosaur | x |
| 93. GNUCITIZEN | x |
| 94. O’Reilly Radar | x |
| 95. MediaShift | x |
| 96. ipodminusitunes | x |
| 97. Doc Searls Weblog | x |
| 98. Kotaku | 22 |
| 99. Valleywag | x |
| 100. Los Angeles Times | 62 |
I stole this list from Ben Metcalfe, who had conveniently put the Mainstream Media sites in Bold. As you can see, the number of sites common between the Dig Top 100 and the Leaderboard is 34, far higher than the overlap between Technorati and Leaderboard. Also, if you count only the Mainstream Media sites, only 11 of them are missing from the Top 100 in Digg, and most of those 11 are well near the 100-200 Rank as well.
As you can see, the Techmeme Leaderboard is much closer to Digg Top 100 than to Technorati Top 100. Kinda supports my view that Leaderboard is a list of Top News Sources rather than Top Blogs. The distance between Digg and Leaderboard Top 100 can be explained by the fact that while Digg gets all types of news on the frontpage, Techmeme gets only the tech news.
So, Technorati Top 100 and Leaderboard are two completely different things, so could everyone please stop comparing them? Thank you!
Work on Digg Part II is pretty much finished, I could even post it up today if I go through it. Part I, in case you are interested, is here. Oh, and, yeah, I did reveal what the most Dugg site on Digg is in this post, but I don’t really think that matters much 
[...] Original post by http://blog.yuvisense.net/2007/10/01/mini-statbot-leaderboard-vs-technorati-top-100-and-digg-top-100... [...]
» Mini StatBot: Leaderboard vs Technorati Top 100 (and Digg Top 100) | October 1, 2007 | 8:11 pm[…] Original post by http://blog.yuvisense.net/2007/10/01/mini-statbot-leaderboard-vs-technorati-top-100-and-digg-top-100... […]
[...] - Yuvisense does some interesting analysis comparing the Top
Techmeme Launches Top 100 Leaderboard | October 1, 2007 | 10:40 pm[…] - Yuvisense does some interesting analysis comparing the Top 100 at Technorati, Techmeme’s leaderboard and top sites on Digg (thanks to […]
Good work Yuvi. I would have compared Techmeme's media list
Mukund Mohan | October 2, 2007 | 12:52 amGood work Yuvi. I would have compared Techmeme’s media list (by AUTHOR) as opposed to just NYTimes, to get a better feel for who’s getting traction. Just because NYTimes appears on top does not mean much, but how many times a specific writer makes it to the top. I know that’s harder to get data.
@Mukund: Yep, it would be better to compare them by
yuvipanda | October 2, 2007 | 7:36 pm@Mukund: Yep, it would be better to compare them by auther. Perhaps, I could do that as well
However, Hardware limits do exist on my side: Running a single report on Digg takes time, and I expect Techmeme to be bigger than Digg.
Thanks for dropping by!
Wonderful observations Yuvi! I am of the view that the Technorati
Siddharth Thakkar | October 2, 2007 | 7:48 pmWonderful observations Yuvi!
I am of the view that the Technorati Top 100 list is an amazing indicator of a blog’s popularity (and perhaps the most authoritative one).
I can see where you have made a distinction between the two lists and perfectly agree to your logic.
Cheers!
You do great work and your observations are amazing.
Junius Fullard | October 3, 2007 | 8:08 pmYou do great work and your observations are amazing.
Keep up the good work. I will stay tuned
[...] - Yuvisense does some interesting analysis comparing the Top
Techmeme Launches Top 100 Leaderboard | MegaBlogg Free Blog Host | October 20, 2007 | 11:14 pm[…] - Yuvisense does some interesting analysis comparing the Top 100 at Technorati, Techmeme’s leaderboard and top sites on Digg (thanks to […]
Another approach is the buzz index
thebusinessofsoftware.net | October 23, 2007 | 1:52 pmAnother approach is the buzz index
Its quite interesting, thanks for this great list and im
merlia | November 5, 2007 | 11:34 amIts quite interesting, thanks for this great list and im glad i found your blog. Great info…
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