Wednesday, March 02, 2005

British Blog Charts - Revisited. Again.

After setting up our very exclusive chart the other day I realised it wasn't very much fun without other people to beat. With the British Blog chart dead already and the Europundit chart insisting on Sitemeter stats it means we've got no one to laugh at! ;)

To that end (well that and the usual self interested link whorage reasons!) I was chatting with Mark from the BritBlog directory last night about the possibility of setting up a chart on his site counting the request for the BritBlog buttons from each site. The biggest problem with the British Blogs chart was someone had to physically collect all the different stats and chart them. For that very same reason I predict the Euro chart probably won't last much longer unless David Wemans happens to be a masochist or suffering from some form of OCD. If the latter magic mushrooms may help!

The advantage of doing it via BritBlog is that it could be done automatically. It would involve some overnight processing of the button request data - what form that processing would take is still being discussed but it would mean you wouldn't have to install another counter to be included. All you'd have to do is display a BritBlog button which most of the best British blogs do anyway. The other main advantage is that the exact same method of counting will be used for everybody. The method should be published so that people can pick holes / suggest improvements but more importantly to give an air of transparency to the whole thing. It should also cut down the bickering about the Britishness of some blogs (I bet the whingers were all Daily Mail readers!) as the Britishness criteria (whatever the fsck that is!) will be evaluated when the blog is submitted for listing on the BritBlog directory.

Mark seems quite excited by the idea - so much so he did a post about it on his own blog late last night. He's produced a preliminary top ten for the last few weeks but he hasn't used the data that would eventually be used for the 'proper' versions. As such take them with a pinch of salt. Hopefully we'll see a regulated inclusive British Blog Chart sometime soon.

EDIT: Check Mark's post for updates in the comments - it's ticking along nicely. :)

12 comments:

bungers said...

Here you go, some competition then:

1. New Links
2. Look at This
3. Bykersinks old site
4. Insert other appropriate blog
5. Bungers' Secret Byker Blog

There you go!

(I look forward to seeing if this new chart comes to fruition! Very exciting stuff. In a nerdy link whoring way. I think.)

mmChronic said...

And how exactly do blogs 2-5 qualify for "Newcastle Upon Tyne (With Foreign Correspondents In Chester-le-Street, Cardiff, Royal Leamington Spa, Missouri And Colorado) Based Blogs With StatCounter Stats Running On Blogger Top Ten Chart"? The all fail on the foreign correspondents bit. :)

Pah.

Anonymous said...

Just got to find some time to actually do the work now.... :)

Newcastle Photos said...

Blog no 2 Look At This... is 100% Geordie. YAY!

Do i qualify? I'm beginning to get confused now. :(

How about a British Blog(solely run by Geordies who use statcounter) Top 10? I might be top of that, I think. :)

mmChronic said...

Yeah you'd definitely be top of the charts there ILN. Interestingly - did you see you were quite highly placed in Mark's proto charts? :)

Mark: Sleep is over rated. Probably. ;)

Newcastle Photos said...

No I did'nt see that. Have you got a link?

mmChronic said...

You should read New Links!

Try starting with this post! ;)

Anonymous said...

(Why do blogger comments suck so much??)

Here you go:

http://www.sweeting.org/mark/blog/2005/03/01/british-blogs-top-n

mmChronic said...

Sshh! Don't mention the comments - you'll only start a lengthy whine from ILN and Merg on the suckiness. ;)

Actually it's most of Blogger that's cack - it's been very dicky for a few weeks in terms of letting you publish and comment.

Newcastle Photos said...

Thanks. :)
And yes, the comments really do suck at the moment.

Anonymous said...

Well at least you're not forced to sign in anymore - that's one of the things that made me move to WordPress!

The Peter Files Blog of Comedy said...

Hi! I'm a little off the point here, but at least you are getting comments. I'm a new blogger with over 6,000 hits in 4 months and about 1% comments. WTF?

Perhaps that is normal. Perhaps my blog is lousy. Perhaps people are laughing so hard they are physically ill and for get how to type - I really don't know.

As to quality of comments - when I get them they are usually pretty good. Especially when they are in response to a comment I've left on someone else's blog. Is that the problem? No one starts with a good comment. No can't be as simple as that.

At any rate, I want to plug this pledge thingy. I hear that all you Brits are down on America because of Bush and his policies. I'd like to remind you that (from my point of view) more than half the country did not vote for Bush and we are just as annoyed as you are at the stuff he's been doing for the last 4 years.

Some of us are ready to vote for Oprah instead. Ehat a nightmare.

So here's the address of my pledge:

http://www.pledgebank.com/forgiveUS

Please forgive the half of the US that did NOT vote for Bush.

I thank you.

Oh, I just Ignore the blogs with lousy comments and try to set an example by making good ones, or at least odd eclectic interesting ones.

Though I am not sure this one counts.

Rosebud.

Comedy and Satire in a Blog