New York magazine has an interesting cover story
about the “haves and have-nots” of the blogging world — those at the
top getting rich, and those part of the “long tail” who earn little or
for whom blogging is more hobby than career.
What caught my eye was a chart accompanying this sidebar article, “Linkology,”
which lists the 50 most-popular blogs worldwide based on which get the
most links from other websites. A close review of the chart shows just
how mainstream blogging is becoming.
In the early days, the top blogs were about technology (or blogging
itself). But now, politics is the hottest topic, with technology coming
in second place. Here’s my break-down of the topics covered by the Linkology 50
most-popular blogs (out of the estimated 27 million in the world):
- Politics – 14
- Technology – 10
- Popular culture – 8
- Japanese blogs (topic focus unavailable) – 7
- Chinese blogs (topic focus unavailable) – 5
- Personal/family – 3
- Humor – 1
- Trade/business – 1
- Arabic blogs – 1
What surprises me most is that there are no sports-related blogs in
the top 50. (This list is ranked based on links; perhaps if the ranking
of top blogs was based on actual reader traffic, results might be very
different.)
In terms of the larger picture for blogging, it’s encouraging to see
that technology is no longer the dominant theme overall. That’s an
indicator that blogs continue to move quickly toward becoming
mainstream. Some of the blogs in the top-50 list have readership levels
that rival traditional big media.
