The 2009 SA Blog Awards as it currently is configured has become a meaningless exercise that will do little more than identify which blogs are quick and organised enough to nominate themselves and marshall/motivate their friends and networks to vote for them. Little if any inherent meaning is conveyed by winning an award (or failing to win one, for that matter). There are no pertinent independent or objective criteria involved in nominating blogs, in determining a short list, or in awarding the final winners in the various categories. In no way is the relevance or value of a blog linked to its winning or not winning an award.That's not to say that there couldn't - or shouldn't - be a meaningful award for SA blogs, nor that the SA Blog Awards couldn't become that. The blogosphere in South Africa is socially relevant and strategically significant across economic sectors, and we have some great blogs worthy of commendation. However, the way these awards currently are run will neither recognise nor enhance this, effectively being a popularity contest devoid of real value to the winners.
This is a further indication of just how immature the understanding of blogging's importance remains in South Africa - and how 24.com (the online media company bestowing these awards) is able to exploit that as a PR exercise in the absence of a pushback from bloggers or from industry sectors looking to honour their own blogging excellence.
Over the years one of the most common uses of the Internet has been to try to generate quick buzz around "what's hot". Snap polls, quizzes (as Facebook does ad nauseum), user ratings and other interactive candy is provided in an attempt to engage website visitors, increase "stickiness", ramp up page views, increase ad revenues and - the holy grail - create enough critical mass to have a viable online community. The vast majority of the time (>95% I'd wager, but don't have the data at my fingertips), this ultimate goal is not reached, and these eyeball-grabbing polls and surveys capture trivial snapshots of the preferences of self-selecting respondents to the provocative question du jour. As the statisticians would say, not statistically meaningful. Even marketers rarely take them seriously.
Now, the web has matured as a business medium to the point that real insight can be reached through proper online polling, tracking and analysis. But 24.com's approach to these awards hasn't matured at the same pace.
A credible awards methodology is needed that relies on objective data, the discretion of qualified and impartial judges, an entry process that casts its net widely enough to capture the clear majority of the competitive entrants, and independent oversight/auditing of the whole shebang.
Let's take a quick look at some real, relevant numbers, to see what's wrong with the current awards methodology. What numbers? I would propose the following as a solid set of currently and readily available measures of the relevance of a blog:
- Alexa ranking: A leading global benchmark of website relevance is the Alexa ranking of a site, and even of individual pages on that site. Sites and pages are ranked whether or not they choose to be.
- Technorati authority and ranking: A leading global benchmark of blog relevance is the Technorati ranking of a blog, which calculates both how authoritative a blog is along with its comparative ranking as a blog. In order to be ranked, blogs must register to be tracked (a free and technically trivial step)
- Afrigator ranking: A leading South African benchmark of blog relevance is the Afrigator ranking of a blog, which calculates the comparative ranking of South African blogs including number of visitors, page views, and links.
| Alexa | Technorati | | | Afrigator | | | | |
| Blog URL | Rank | Authority | ranking | Faves | SA | Visitors | Page Views | SA Links |
| amawalker.blogspot.com | 12,665,504 | 4 | 1,951,828 | - | 3,181 | 5,697 | 5,762 | 4,910 |
| trailriderreports.blogspot.com | 2,457,976 | - | 4,978,471 | - | 2,453 | 6,170 | 160 | 5,617 |
| travelblog.portfoliocollection.com | 154,117 | - | - | - | 607 | 4,062 | 169 | 1,098 |
| pakiscorner.com | 957,911 | 3 | 1,363,941 | - | 69 | 186 | 169 | 188 |
| capetowndailyphoto.com | 93,545 | 112 | 39,309 | - | 3 | 9 | 59 | 136 |
| capetown.travel/blog | 90,957 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| getaway.co.za/...Tony Park | 266,278 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| wildwatch.com | 851,051 | 10 | 552,856 | - | - | - | - | - |
| 66squarefeet.blogspot.com | 2,650,772 | 22 | 267,001 | - | - | - | - | - |
| getaway.co.za/...Alison Westwood | 266,278 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
What this tells us is that the blog with the most global clout on the list is capetown.travel/blog, with the highest Alexa ranking. But, as a blog, capetowndailyphoto.com has a higher Technorati ranking, which is serious blog credentials. These are both blogs with status and deserve to be short-listed.
In the SA blogosphere as tracked by Afrigator, there are 4,548 blogs (as of the date of posting this). So 3 of the 10 blogs fall in the top quintile (20%), 1 in the 3rd quintile, and 1 in the 4th, with the other 5 not tracked. Not exactly compelling evidence of "top blog" status.
What's sad is that only 5 of the 10 blogs even BOTHER to be listed on Afrigator, which shows a lack of concern with their relevance to the South African context. 5 of the 10 blogs (not the same 5) also don't BOTHER to be indexed by Technorati, which shows a serious lack of seriousness, or of the understanding of the power and relevance of Technorati.com.
Now, HOW can a top SA Blog not be benchmarked against other SA blogs? Afrigator ranking should be a requirement. And how can any blog not be benchmarked against all other blogs? Technorati ranking should be a requirement.
Now, numbers aren't the full measure of a blog's value or relevance, but it's absolutely clear that the current shortlist selection process is seriously flawed. Two of the ten blogs in the Travel category aren't even blogs about travel! One (pakiscorner.com) is about sport, and one (66squarefeet.blogspot.com) is about urban container gardening - in New York City!
Based on my quick analysis, the following 3 blogs are actually credible short-list candidates:
- capetown.travel/blog (high Alexa ranking)
- travelblog.portfoliocollection.com (high Afrigator ranking)
- capetowndailyphoto.com (high Afrigator and Technorati ranking)
A response to this critique could be that I should just "lighten up" and that this is all meant in the spirit of fun and reflects the "web 2.0 lifestyle". If that's the argument, then my case is made -- the awards are meaningless fluff.
Another response could be that some blogs are new and haven't had the time to generate the status or credibility that will be reflected in the numbers. My answer is to put in a "newcomer" category for them, that relies more on the judges than on the data to make the decisions.
To close this rambling and occasionally ranting post, I think 24.com have done a good job by helping raise the profile of blogging through these awards since 2005. Now I think they need to get serious about what they're doing - or partner with organisations that are.
[Full disclosure: I did not nominate Afrika T for these awards, nor to my knowledge did anyone else.]
Excellent exposé, Kurt. You did well backing up your assertion with statistics from Alexa and Technorati. I think many web awards suffer the same problem.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first year 24.com has been involved.
ReplyDeleteThe awards were started in 2005 by Jon Cherry (cherryflava) and has evolved and improved since then.
Have you compared the previous voting/judging/nominating processes?
Everyone contributing to it is doing so in their spare time for free.
The SA Blog Awards will get there eventually. Would you like to help setting judging criteria in the future?
You know what would help? If a winner couldn't be renominated for the next 3 years. That alone would be incentive for newer blogs to compete.
ReplyDeleteIt would also help if they awarded based on points, and they included things like Alexa rank as points. That would be incentive for blogs to actually do things properly, as opposed to simply marshalling followers.
My 4c.
I dont agree. I have nominated blogs that I find interesting. If there are newer blogs out there, then make yourself known and if you have an interesting blog, I will nominate/vote for you. You forget that voters can choose their vote, I for one won't be swayed by persistent vote requests. I think perhaps you are feeling down that your blog was not nominated? This is the first time I have come across your blog.
ReplyDeleteThey did have a “newcomer” category, which was labeled as “Best New Blog.” This is what I was keen on thinking that they would take blog improvement (using statistical data) into account. I follow my stats on Afrigator, Amatomu and Technorati rather religiously and really thought I had a good shot based on this.
ReplyDeleteI was disheartened to see that that blogs with a far poorer ranking than me cracked the nod. Not to blow my own trumpet, but my blog has made it into the top 100 on both Afrigator and Amatomu during the course of the year, yet blogs that publicly display their (far poorer) rankings still seem to get more recognition :P
I reckon they need to pay more attention to the statistics offered by various blog aggregator sites and take these into account (or even use them to a large extent) when making their decisions.
It hard not to feel that the top dogs (bloggers) are there to stay. Viva the underdogs!
Now that's a good blog post!
ReplyDeletethank you Kurt.
I haven't read your blog before, but you've just been bookmarked and I'll be back again!
I really enjoyed the fact that you conveyed a serious point in a well balanced argument.
It seems that many bloggers simply rant on about a topic which they think might generate some interest (traffic), without doing the proper research and writing something which actually has the potential to add some value.... like you have done here.
Keep up the good work.
Nice post, a vast majority of finalists should never have gotten through the first stage.. Hell there is even a blog nominated for best design that is using a paid theme... WTF? The entire thing is a joke and should be scrapped...
ReplyDeleteNice post Kurt, you've highlighted some key criteria that also should have been taken into account when selecting candidates for the various categories of the SA Blog Awards.
ReplyDeleteYou might want to also take a look at this post:
http://www.aquilaonline.co.za/2009/03/who-is-auditing-the-sa-blog-awards/
(and the comments therein) which also highlights some other key problems.
Thanks for the comments - I don't think anyone wants to (or intended to) take shots at unpaid volunteers doing their best to make this happen. However, any award that positions itself as *THE* SA Blog Awards can't be allowed to treat it as fluff any longer.
ReplyDeleteThe criticisms here (and at aquila online, @Deems: thanks!) are a sign that the awards have been successful, now they need to keep up with the medium. In fact, we all need them to keep up, otherwise our (de facto) national blog awards will tar all us bloggers with the same fluffy brush.
I've nominated blogs that I find interesting...they weren't shortlisted. And I'm pretty sure a lot of people read them, so I'm really disappointed in the process. @Anonymous I agree!!
ReplyDeleteAlso: no disrespect intended for Amatomu (http://www.amatomu.com/). They are still in alpha release, and if/when they release 1.0 then we'll need to look at Afrigator vs Amatomu -- or use both -- for gauging SA blog status.
ReplyDeleteDude...Ouch!
ReplyDelete66 Square Feet, nominated for best travel and best photography blog - which could not have surprised anyone more than me! - is not just about "urban container gardening"!
If you bothered to read it you would have found entire categories devoted to travel in Southern Africa.
My blog may be based on my tiny New York terrace (which is why I found it inappropriate to be listed with Afrigator, but relevant to be listed with Amatomu - maybe a quibble), but I do manage to get out...
When it was nominated I had imagined that if 66 Square Feet made it anywhere, it would be to the Overseas blog category. Whoever voted, chose the categories. Not me.
And of course I publicize it by putting a widget on the blog. It made happy...innocent that I am.
Some of your criticisms may be well founded, but don't firebomb us all.
@Marie good points, and further evidence that the awards aren't where they need to be just yet.
ReplyDeleteMy criticism wasn't of your blog, but of its category in my mini-case study of "Travel" - and if I had used Amatomu (instead of or alongside Afrigator), perhaps I'd have learned something different about your blog as well. As it is, your Technorati authority is second strongest of the bunch. Apologies if singed a fellow blogger unintentionally.
Well said Kurt. I think you've highlighted a very important point, in that measurable rankings are completely void in this current process. At the moment it's very subjective and spur of the moment (not necessarily a bad thing, just slightly fawed).
ReplyDeleteDear Kurt,
ReplyDeleteI would seem to me that your own analysis of the 2009 Blog Awards and of blogging in general is biased in its own way and, in my opinion, inaccurate.
You write: "The blogosphere in South Africa is socially relevant and strategically significant across economic sectors." I strongly disagree with that statement. Being a blogger myself, I resent people who attempt to leverage everything on the web with money. Blogging is not a financial activity, it's a creative one. Whatever blogs are taping into the "economic sector" have been corrupted.
Then you write: "Now, the web has matured as a business medium to the point that real insight can be reached through proper online polling, tracking and analysis." Again, that slight obsession with business and numbers. Traffic and ranking aren't everything. You do not judge a book's author by the numbers of copies sold, but rather by how reading it made you feel. When you elect someone, you end up voting from your own personal perspective and even though the system will try and manipulate you with numbers and ranking, in the end, it’s your gut feeling that will prevail. Let your gut feeling be controlled by Alexa’s abstract numbers if you will, I’ll stick to the pleasure I get by reading a blog post.
Then later: "... also don't BOTHER to be indexed by Technorati, which shows a serious lack of seriousness, or of the understanding of the power and relevance of Technorati.com." I am SO glad that at least some bloggers haven't yet become slaves to the system and don't bother with Technorati. What you call a lack of seriousness I call poetic license. They don't care? Kudos to them. And by them I mean the individuals behind a blog and I assume we are talking about single-author blogs, or at least those with just a few cooperating contributors. Multiple-author blogs aren’t blogs. They are forums, they are news pages, compilation web sites or whatever we might label them. Not blogs. They have no personality and imply absolutely no individual dedication of the various authors to the blog.
If you want to redefine the role of the South African Blog Awards, of any blog awards, call them something else. The 2009 South African Ranking Awards, or the Best Traffic Magnets of the Year, or Strongest Money Making Blogs of 2009. I like the Awards the way they are. Flawed, yes, and prone to human error and indeed subject to favoritism. But this is about blogging and writing and photography, not economics, traffic, ranking nor power. And it is meant to be fun.
This is not a battle of the Titans but rather a friendly tug between individuals. Bloggers are, and should remain, simple people with simple goals. Let's not blow this out of proportion and turn their craft into what everything else on the web has become, an endless quest for profit and control.
Now am I biased? Of course I am. I’m a blogger. And I did vote for a finalist, hence my anonymity here, sorry. :-)
Sincerely,
VM
@VM always hard to take the comments of an anonymous poster seriously, particularly when they're uniformly critical. However, have your say and let's see what others think.
ReplyDeleteMy response:
- there's an inherent conflict between your interest in avoiding the corporatisation of blogging and your participation in a corporate-sponsored award programme. I'd love you to comment on that.
- blogs don't need to be for-profit in order to be taken seriously by various economic sectors. My statement was part of my argument about the broader importance of blogging (hence the reference to social relevance as well), not their direct economic clout.
- I don't make any money from this blog and agree with you that it's primarily about creative expression. However, if I'm going to be recognised for that creative expression I'd rather have it be based on criteria that are meaningful. If you don't like the quantitative measures I propose (like Technorati and the others), then what do you think would work? Surely a popularity contest isn't an effective way to recognise quality?
Kurt,
ReplyDeleteThe problem here is that any contest, in any field, will always be somehow biased and generate controversy because not everyone will be pleased with the methods and results.
Why wouldn't popularity be an effective factor in judging quality? We're talking about subjective popularity here - individual opinions - not the global numbers spat out by major ranking tools like Technorati. I have nothing against Technorati as a listing engine, but ranking strikes me is a useless expression on our ever present ego.
Why on Earth would a site with less ranking and traffic be less worthy than one with a huge deal of both? I assume in most cases ranking is a direct consequence of traffic, and sometimes (Google for instance) also controlled by the ranking of inbound links. Nowhere in here was quality ever mentioned. The worse possible crap can be found on a high ranking site and if traffic persists and stupid people keep visiting, ranking will remain. Is that logical?
You said "blogs don't need to be for-profit in order to be taken seriously by various economic sectors." But that's the problem: said various economic sectors should NOT be a factor for non-profit blogs. They have nothing in common. But obviously, non-profit blogs must be quite appealing and if they can generate traffic, so can they generate revenue. And an initially pure intent gets corrupted.
As far as my participation in a corporate-sponsored award programme, you have a point, but I don't have to be a victim of said sponsoring. And I believe it should be the role of such programs to promote small blogs, individual gems and unknown little pieces of genius rather than the big ones that are obviously deep into the system and need no additional public attention.
I will remain anonymous out of respect for all finalists and especially one who is close to me because I don't want to affect anybody's voting. I'll be happy to sign my comments with ID as of April 1st.
Cheers.
Oh and one last thing - and I should probably have started with this: I do agree that the whole voting process of the South African Blog Awards is flawed. However, no one is forced to participate. You either vote, and you should enjoy it, or you don't. Complaining is so easy, isn't it? We do it well and often. Offering sustainable alternatives is much harder.
ReplyDeleteKurt, the singed tail feathers smell funny, but I'll recover...
ReplyDeleteKurt I think that basing blog authority off the Alexa and Technorati rankings is a flawed approach on its own. Alexa is known to throw out some very 'interesting' results. A case in point would be our site 'From the Couch' which is ranked 76,000th on Alexa. I know certain blogs which do ten times our traffic but are ranked 150,000+.
ReplyDeleteThe same goes for Technorati, it is a subjective tool which is not used by all and possibly not even used by a certain blog's reader base.
I agree that the nomination system is flawed to a degree but at the end of the day there will never be a perfect way to rank blogs and awards. At the moment I believe that the only way to nominate and rank a blog is by using the current system.
If your reader/view base is loyal and not just a random google hit then they will nominate you and it will be representative of the impact your blog has.
Along with that I also feel that your argument about new blogs not being able to take part due to lack of hits etc is incorrect. Our vlog 'From the Couch' is only 6 months old yet we are one of the finalists. Quality content with a good viewer base will push your blog forward and upwards, you can't have one and not the other... you need both and that requires a huge amount of effort.
Looking at the nominations for each category I believe that there are some genuinely good choices there.
And yes, the awards may mean nothing to some people but to others it represents the effort they have put into their content and community.
Kurt, have you won a blog award? I won the best technology blog award last year, and believe you me, it opened up massive doors for me, more than I could have ever imagined - Not just personally, but financially as well as in terms of employment and recognition.
ReplyDeleteI do follow what you're saying about statistics, but having a huge alexa rank or technorati rank might mean that you're indexed well and receive lots of traffic, but it has nothing to do with loyality - I could start a new blog tomorrow and drive several thousand unique hits to it in a few days, because that's what I do, but when asking people to vote - the blog would get nowhere, so yes, it's about calling on your friends and readers for a vote, much like the political parties do, but that's what it's all about mate. Well, in my opinion at least :)
I know hundreds of bloggers in the blogsphere, who work really hard at their blogs and most of them have been nominated for awards - A good friend of mine, he shall remain un-named, decided last year when I won, that it was his quest to be nominated and he just has - His traffic isn't amazing, he alexa and technorati rankings are not amazing, but he's taken an incredible amount of time to build up some loyalty, even though it's not alot.
From a personal note, I do feel rather upset to read a blog post like this, because naturally this is a big deal to me as someone who's been blogging since the begining. I think that if you'd been nominated for the Travel category, this post would never exist :)
Is winning an award going to change your life? No.
ReplyDeleteAll bloggers, including me, are egotistical at some point. (You want more hits, subscribers etc, check your Google Analytics, adsense too. ) and so winning an award is really a great pat on the back (along with a couple of cool prizes this year).
Just come along to the ceremony and enjoy the rocking party, because actually meeting all the bloggers and having a drink with them is really what its all about. Hiding behind your PC and ranting about the blog awards - which happens EVERY year - is so 2007.
Finalists should remain anonymous. Kurt, you've made many good points as have the likes of Anonymous VM. I've had many of the same thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThe process is flawed? Yes.
The awards relevance? Questionable.
Will the best blog per category be chosen? Doubtfully across the board, though perhaps in some cases.
Perhaps the winners shouldn't be crowned as "Best Travel Blog for 2009", etc, but rather
"The travel blog that received the most nominations and votes", or perhaps in cases "The travel blog that was able to elicit the most nominations and votes through self promotion and continuous badgering of their friends, families, and readers".
IMO it's fair for bloggers to draw their reader's attention to the the blog awards, but it's also true that using marketing campaigns to elicit votes undermines the truth of "best blog".
Unless a large group of independent, unaffiliated, judges are used to carefully measure each blog against both statistical and non-statistical data that it is unlikely that the "best" blog will actually win.
This is however not practical, so in reality I guess that no matter which way it's sliced, it's just not going to happen that the best blog is chosen in any particular category.
What I would hope is that judges will:
1. Remove finalists who don't conform rules
2. Remove finalists in inappropriate categories
Perhaps the best way to make the 2009 awards as accurate as possible is for judges to hold veto right by consensus - and then for us to (a) not know that they hold this right and (b) hope that they are fair.
Perhaps we should skip all the drama and hype and simply ask Google... Google knows everything. ;)
Good post Kurt.
@rafiq happy to provide my input for next year's criteria. Even better would be to post them in advance for comments - not design by committee, but at least comments from the blogosphere. It's important that the criteria, processes and judges be seen as credible. Everyone doesn't have to agree, but the more credible they are, the more meaningful the award will be
ReplyDelete@VM @perarace70 agreed that ranking (Technorati, Google, etc.) doesn't equal quality, and thank you for making that point loud and clear. Given that, what I'm proposing is the inclusion of *some* measurable criteria so that we can compare one blog to another within a particular category. What else would work? Feed subscribers? number of comments? unique page views?
I hope my central point remains clear: that without independent, measurable criteria that are seen as important and credible, the meaning of the award is lost - it's just subjective value placed by an arbitrary judge. I also wrote that "numbers aren't the full measure of a blog's value or relevance", and wouldn't want them to be. But the lack of them also means there isn't firm ground to stand on.
Finally, next year's corporate sponsors should agree to give the volunteers involved in making these awards happen a bit of compensation for their time and effort. Whether cash or otherwise, the value those sponsors see in the awards can't be sustained through charity forever.
@Kurt - You decide not to address my views?
ReplyDeleteHi Kurt
ReplyDeleteWhile I take your point about what are arguably flaws in the current awards judging system, I take exception to unsubstantiated attacks like: "24.com (the online media company bestowing these awards) is able to exploit that as a PR exercise".
Not only is that fundamentally not true it's also completely unfair. You make it sound as though a predatory corporation has latched onto the blogosphere, intent on sucking it dry.
Here are the facts:
- We were approached very late in the process and sponsored the awards in the spirit of growing the industry
- I spent a large chunk of my limited marketing budget on the project, despite the fact that I am certain I won't see the same ROI as I would in other mainstream channels.
- Since we were the only people actually willing to put up any money, the organisers kindly OFFERED to make us headline sponsors. I was actually concerned that our logo was too prominent and our involvement might be misconstrued. I see now that I was right to worry.
We welcome your constructive criticism, Kurt, and we recognise that we aren't perfect and neither are the awards. But to call the entire process meaningless and attack us unfairly because we are such an easy target is just plain wrong. It muddies the very valid points you have to make.
Alistair Fairweather
WOW this post is sooo long! I'm not going to say much but criticising 24.com is bollocks if you want to criticise anyone aim it at me ok.
ReplyDeleteIf you prefer next year maybe i should not put any effort in and you can base the whole awards on Alexa/Technorati and Afrigator stats (cos I'm sure that would really work for you).
Cheers
@Alistair thanks for weighing in and clarifying, and I agree that the 24.com brand is too prominent given the hands-off involvement you say the company had.
ReplyDelete@Chris Please do read the comments at some point. The SABA clearly have many supporters, and in spite of my pointed critique of the 2009 awards, even the OP isn't all negative - there are some constructive suggestions as well. You also have a slew of ideas in the comments and offers of assistance for when it comes around again.
Absolutely, perhaps I didn't phrase my comment 100%, I was in a hurry at the time, I'm two fold about this. One half of me agrees to an extent about credability, but the other half realises that it takes YEARS to do that - my blog is ranked 32000 odd on Alexa, but not everyone has had so much time to build that sort of credibility and that's why I feel that a lot of it does have to remain up to the blogger to target his loyal readers.
ReplyDeleteFrom all of this, I really hope that next year, you'll step up, come forward before hand and other your valid points, because it would really help us all in establishing an award ceremony which has respect from everyone.
Deal?
not to mention that a couple of blogs in the best new blog category should not even be there purely because there were not started in 2008 as the 'rules' require! haha.. prob 'judges' nominating their chums or something of the sort no doubt.
ReplyDeletewould love to see if the organisers disqualify these blogs knowing that they don't belong there - they're taking up a couple of spots of deserving blogs in that category which really sucks.
I'm a finalist in two categories so I will remain anonymous. But this is what I want to say: in years gone past, I have felt only disbelief at looking at some of the winning blogs. Okay, this was probably partly sour grapes because neither of my blogs were nominated (until this year, and they're only there because I actively lobbied my readers and pals to nominate them). But I also could not believe how irrelevant and shallow some of the winning blogs were; the quality of the writing and design was frankly atrocious. What's more, I thought that the these blogs reflected very badly on South African blogging in general. These awards need to make up their minds: is this a popularity contest, or is it about good-quality, relevant, compelling content? I don't think the two criteria sit easily in the same competition, not least because winning blogs tend to range from the truly excellent to the crushingly mediocre. And, okay, I'm depressed because my blogs are unlikely to win: they may be packed with good content, but hardly anyone (comparatively speaking) reads them.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree and wrote a cartoon about the SA Blog Awards: http://jonin60seconds.squarespace.com/blog/2009/3/31/its-blog-awards-time-again.html
ReplyDelete@Jon touché! Absolutely spot on, you've skewered the lot of us
ReplyDeleteSh*t, I hope I don't win now! Then I'llbe in big trouble.
ReplyDeleteInteresting stuff, though. I see Alex rates Alison and me at exactly the same, so I'm assuming that rank must be for the Getaway website overall.
I don't know how they list the blogs (or even how to list a blog) on the other ones.
I've got another blog that I'm sure gets a lot more traffic than my Getaway blog and I direct people over to Getaway whenever I post there.
cheers
Tony
Do the SA Blog awards look at amatomu.com, there is a ranking system in place there.
ReplyDeleteThe question I have is where is the one place all blogs should be registered in order to have an accurate comparative measure ?
JP Naude
The reliability and credibility of the Alexa Rankings have often been subject to differences. There are opinions that the Alexa ranking is far more credible and true for the sites below 10,0000 than that for the ones above it. Another factor that proves to be a major drawback of the Alexa rankings is that the rankings are governed by the Alexa toolbar and the Alexa toolbar users community. All the browser types are not taken into account as far as the rankings are concerned. As for example the Alexa rankings does not work in Windows Vista even though the latter has a huge user base and is highly popular.
ReplyDelete"What's sad is that only 5 of the 10 blogs even BOTHER to be listed on Afrigator, which shows a lack of concern with their relevance to the South African context. 5 of the 10 blogs (not the same 5) also don't BOTHER to be indexed by Technorati, which shows a serious lack of seriousness, or of the understanding of the power and relevance of Technorati.com."
ReplyDeleteDude, maybe they don't know about it, or maybe they just don't care. I fail to see the relevance of Technorati myself. What about Amatomu? What about Stumbleupon? Some people don't care about ranking on Alexa (there are many others) or Google PageRank. It's a matter of personal choice. Some people surf the interwebs with Aardvark or Yahoo. It's neither here, nor there. Just your opinion. Just my opinion.
OK, let me repeat my previous comment in response to valid points raised about Alexa, Afrigator, Technorati not being without their own shortcomings:
ReplyDelete"without independent, measurable criteria that are seen as important and credible, the meaning of the award is lost - it's just subjective value placed by an arbitrary judge. I also wrote that "numbers aren't the full measure of a blog's value or relevance", and wouldn't want them to be. But the lack of them also means there isn't firm ground to stand on."
I still believe my argument is sound, and haven't heard a counter argument or proposal that would deal with the arbitrary nature of the awards.
Arguments in favour of their arbitrary nature don't particularly bother me (e.g., @griffin "just your opinion. just my opinion") as they only reinforce the fact that the 2009 awards are meaningless.