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Web Strategy Analysis (Part 2/2): Homepage Breakdown of Tech-related Personal blogs in Technorati 100

You must read this first to understand this post: Yesterday, in my previous analysis, I did some homepage breakdowns for the top 10 blogs in Technorati. In the comments, I was asked to make a conclusion or a suggestion to what I found. I looked at the top personal blogs in the 100 rank and found far less advertising.

Criteria
The following blogs meet these requirements:

  • Personal Blogs (written by one person)
  • Focus on Technology (it would be too much work to do all personal blogs)
  • In the Technorati Top 100
  • Methodology
    Same as yesterday, I took screenshots and put overlays for five categories: identity, navigation, search, content, and advertising.


    [Finding: The Top 10 Blogs in Technorati resemble online eMagazines, and have more homepage advertising than the tech related single authored blogs in the Top 100]

    Findings, Conclusions, and Analysis:

  • Tech related personal blogs in the Technorati 100 have far less advertising than the top 100 blogs by average, compare the “red zones”.
  • All of the top 10 related blogs are written by groups, some resemble online magazines more than a personal blog.
  • It’s being debated in my comments if having advertising reduced the credibility of a blog

  • 17) Guy Kawasaki
    How to Change the World Entrepreneurship, marketing, venture capital, & evangelism
    Authority: 8,760
    Homepage Analysis: Guy Kawasaki


    33) Robert Scoble
    Scobleizer
    Authority: 6,681
    Homepage Analysis: Robert Scoble


    54) Jason Kottke
    kottke.org : home of fine hypertext products
    Authority: 5,219
    Homepage Analysis: Kottke


    65) Joel Spolsky
    Joel on Software
    Authority: 4,808
    Homepage Analysis: Joel of Software


    73) Steve Rubel
    Steve explores how technology is transforming marketing, media and public relations.
    Authority: 4,508
    Homepage Analysis: Steve Rubel


    95) Hugh MacLeod
    gapingvoid: “cartoons drawn on the back of business cards”
    Authority: 3,710
    Homepage Analysis: Gaping Void

    Please view Part 1: Top 10 blogs for comparison. Let me know what you think. It made techmeme.

    9 Comments so far

    1. […] Please read part 2: A break down the top personal tech blogs, notice the difference in advertising use. […]

    2. Geoff Livingston July 22nd, 2007 9:35 am

      This is fascinating. It almost seems that advertising legitimizes the very top properties. It would be interesting if one of the mid-100 bloggers strategically targeted the top ten via additional corporate sponsorship of their blog. Great stuff!

    3. jeremiah_owyang July 22nd, 2007 9:38 am

      Geoff, glad it was helpful.

    4. Nik Cubrilovic July 22nd, 2007 5:13 pm

      All of these sites, while they may not advertise through a banner of online ad, are still advertising something (themselves, their companies, their products)

    5. alan p July 23rd, 2007 1:10 am

      Be interesting to know if having photos on the Identity part is a good or a bad thing :)

      Adevertising probably increases the impression of being a “big swinging blog” - as otherwise it would not attract Ads - but will inevitably raise questions about objectivity.

    6. jeremiah_owyang July 23rd, 2007 3:07 am

      @ Nik

      You are so right. I would call that “Marketing” not advertising. They are weaving their influence into their stories. That’s cluetrain.

      @ Alan, those are the very questions I asked, but cannnot answer without more research

    7. […] Breakdown of content types on the top tech-blogs with a single author. […]

    8. Star Aasved July 18th, 2008 8:31 am

      The criteria listed seems a bit sketchy - is most popular also part of the decision-making process in terms of determining the top ten? Is that the “authority” number?

    9. jeremiah_owyang July 18th, 2008 9:06 am

      Yup Star, it’s using Technorati’s authority ranking

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