I will not be posting an update for the ‘Belgian Popular Blogs‘ today because I haven’t had the time yet to add Technorati/PubSub scores. Since I expect this will shake up the listing in a significant way, I want to do it right.
I have had some publicity for the list through Maarten and De Standaard and of course some bloggers have taken the opportunity to take a piss at the initiative. So some clarification: I started the list because of poor Astrid Wittebolle’s article in De Morgen, where she had the audacity to list the Top-5 Belgian bloggers. The indignation afterwards (“No, I was first!”) was amusing, but I realised I probably only knew the tip of the iceberg of Belgian bloggers. Since there was no adequate top whatever, I started making one myself. The project combines some of my pet topics – social software, search engine metrics, Excel statistics – so it’s fun to do.
Some blogs are not included because it is impossible to get the right numbers. I only include blogs with their own domain name. If someone publishes on users.skynet.be/jamesdoe/blog/page.html, then I don’t include that. Maybe in the future I will, but for now, I can’t get significant statistics.
The results, as I have claimed from the beginning, have nothing to do with the ‘quality’ of the blog, just the quantitative, measurable criteria like link popularity, PageRank, … My idea of what blogs are worth reading or not does not enter into the picture. For example, I believe the De Standaard blog has great value as a cross-over between traditional media and the blogosphere. But it is not featured in the Top #30, because its numbers are not high enough (yet?). When I will add blog-specific ratings (Technorati, Feedster, PubSub, BlogLines, …) it might climb up, or not. I have no idea yet.
And to end a little quote (in Dutch, sorry) about the ‘VLD-syndrome’ from pietel.be, one of the good (my own personal opinion and all that) blogs I discovered by creating this list:
Dit is een kwaal waarbij je zodanig met jezelf en het kappen op je blog-genoten bezig bent, dat je het eigen publiek totaal uit het oog verliest. Je blogt om gelezen, bekeken of beluisterd te worden en natuurlijk heeft iedereen die hiermee bezig is de pretentie of het ego om te pretenderen dat je iets te vertellen hebt. Anders begin je er niet aan. Ca va de soi, non?
(from: pietel.be)
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