Bloggers Debate the Importance of A-lists
Posted on August 3, 2005
Discussion of the importance or over-importance of the A-lists was reignited by the BlogHer conference discussion about the lack of women listed on the blogosphere A-lists (like the Technorati 100). An A-lister backlash followed with criticism of the a-lists from bloggers like Tom McMahon and Jeremy Wright (who unsubscribed from all the A-list feeds).
A-lister Jeff Jarvis says "There is no A list. There is only your list." and "It's not about lists. It's about links." Jeff's article already has dozens of comments debating the importance of the top blogs. Blogebrity, which maintains A, B and C blogger lists, asked "What is sucking up to the A-list?" and linked to some non-listed bloggers -- even though it interrupted some of its important Jessica Coen and Jason Calacanis coverage.
It seems that all the debate over the A-lists just has bloggers coming up with ways to create even more lists.
A-lister Steve Rubel says he would take some of the A-list blogs like Scoble's, Jeff Jarvis' and Dave Winers' with him if he were trapped on a desert island that had broadband Internet access. He suggests everyone create their own top ten blog list and share it at the tag: 10blogs. Jeff Jarvis responded to being placed on yet another A-list.
Blogspotting's Stephen Baker asks blogger and tech investor Mark Cuban to create a new list with his IceRocket blog search engine. And Jason Calacanis has some ideas about improving the Technorati list -- including extending it to 500 to show more of the long tail. He also asks where are the Feedster 500, Bloglines 500, etc. Calacanis has even offered a challenge for someone to come up with a better list:
I need this 500 list so bad that I'll give an incentive: I'll give $50,000 in advertising to the first person to come up with a better 100 list based on the feedback I've outline above (i.e. 500 folks, by links, based on the trailing 12 months, up and comer list, etc).Bloggers upset at the Technorati 100 might also want to check out the Blogpulse profiles. These profiles rank blogs based on citations over the last thirty days instead of the total inbound links over a lifetime. Eventually blog search engines like Technorati will probably have category top 100 lists (or top 500 lists) as well -- allowing for more blogs to be listed. These category lists would be more interesting and valuable than the bulk Technorati 100 that compare the popularity of political blogs like DailyKos to technical blogs like Gizmodo.**Or** if some programmer out there wants to build this for Weblogs, Inc. I'll pay you $10,000 in cash for a proper list straight up.