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Archive: lists

The state of the Scottish blogosphere

16 October 2007 12:11

Categories: Admin, Blogging, General, Internet, Scotland, Technology

I forgot / didn’t have the time to mention it at the time, but a couple of weeks back Scottish Roundup turned one year old.

But it wasn’t the only one — Tartan Hero, Scots and Independent, North to Leith and Granite City were all celebrating last week — mere days after I was bemoaning the lack of SNP blogs. That’ll teach me!

Is it a coincidence that so many great blogs started just after I began Scottish Roundup? Of course not! Unfortunately for me ego, it seems as though an SNP press officer was more influential than me. Pah!

A few weeks ago Grant Thoms drew up a list of the best Scottish political blogs out there. Inevitably, eyebrows were raised.

On the back of that, Holyrood Watcher said:

As far as I can determine, his league table was not based on objective criteria (but it was none the worse for that). I have been musing on how to introduce an element of rationality into the assessment.

Holyrood Watcher’s approach was to use Bloglines subscriptions to try and figure out which blogs were the most read. It’s quite a common method, although not without its faults — as I pointed out in my comment at Holyrood Chronicles.

Another popular method of ranking blogs is to look at Technorati Authority. Unfortunately, Technorati is more unreliable than the Red Bull Formula 1 car. Some of the stats it generates are clearly wrong. I have come across blogs that have an authority of 0, but still have dozens of ‘reactions’.

In case you’re not au fait with Technorati’s terminology, here is how it works. Authority measures how many different blogs have linked to your blog over the past 180 days. Reactions count the number of links in total that go to your blog.

I have actually gone and done it. I thought it would make a quick and easy post, but I spent hours trawling through Technorati to work out how the Scottish blogs line up. I have not even begun to form a comprehensive list. I have looked at around 60 or 70 different blogs. Of course, most of them are the ones that I am most familiar with. They are not all about politics, but they are all Scottish.

But whenever I thought I was finished, I caught sight of an obvious one that I had missed out. So no doubt I have still missed out quite a lot. If you think I’ve missed something out, leave a comment.

There are all sorts of reasons why you should take this with a pinch of salt. For one thing, there are the technical issues that I have already alluded to. Technorati is perennially broken. I could not get any information whatsoever on three major blogs — Mr Eugenides, A Place to Stand and Blether with Brian. (I think it is safe to assume that under normal circumstances at least two of these blogs would be right at the top.) I am certain that there are several other errors. I simply cannot believe some of these results.

Also, the recent link-fest in the wake of the Alisher Usmanov affair has inflated a lot of people’s authority. I reckon mine went up by 50 or 60! This extra authority will disappear almost completely once 180 days have passed.

Also, it is worth remembering that this method only measures links, and is no reflection of how many people are reading the blog. But there are a number of interesting things that come out from this. Think about the ratio of reactions to authority score. If the ratio is quite high, that means that the blog generates a high amount of conversation on a small number of blogs. This suggests to me that these are really good blogs that, for whatever reason, haven’t got the wider attention they deserve.

As with Holyrood Watcher, I am not a big fan of lists like this. As he says, blogging is not a competition. But I was intrigued to see the lie of the land, as far as Technorati is concerned at least. It is a bit of fun. But it’s nothing more than that — a bit of fun.

The first number is authority. The number in brackets is the number of reactions.

  1. Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe — 253 (671)
  2. doctorvee — 157 (534)
  3. Freedom and Whisky — 147 (452)
  4. Musings of a Reactionary Snob — 141 (483)
  5. rhetorically speaking.. — 131 (309)
  6. A Big Stick and a Small Carrot — 127 (699)
  7. Scots and Independent — 126 (306)*
  8. Mike Power’s Website – Not A Blog — 115 (1,199)
  9. Clairwil — 114 (331)
  10. 1820 — 114 (302)
  11. J Arthur MacNumpty — 108 (302)
  12. Bill’s Comment Page — 105 (201)
  13. The Select Society — 100 (266)
  14. Amused Cynicism — 90 (138)
  15. Love and Garbage — 89 (171)
  16. Tartan Hero – 83 (289)
  17. Scottish Blogs — 81 (245)
  18. Shuggy’s Blog — 79 (391)
  19. Backword — 77 (211)
  20. Informationally Overloaded — 71 (286)
  21. Silversprite — 71 (146)
  22. Michael Greenwell — 59 (124)
  23. Rolled-up Trousers — 58 (861)
  24. Colcam.Image — 53 (137)
  25. Havering On — 50 (217)
  26. Scottish Roundup — 50 (139)
  27. Bloodbus — 47 (127)
  28. The Scottish Patient — 43 (129)
  29. Councillor Terry Kelly — 40 (476)
  30. Islay Blog — 39 (91)
  31. Right for Scotland — 36 (257)
  32. Ridiculous Politics — 34 (116)
  33. Naked Blog — 32 (251)
  34. North to Leith — 25 (96)
  35. Scottish Tory Boy — 25 (40)
  36. Terry Watch — 24 (92)
  37. SNP Tactical Voting — 24 (90)
  38. Granite City — 23 (76)
  39. North East Scotland Nationalists — 23 (50)
  40. Indygal — 22 (48)
  41. Edinburgh Sucks! — 20 (49)
  42. Ian Hamilton QC — 19 (42)
  43. leyton.org — 17 (81)
  44. Surreptitious Evil — 16 (62)
  45. Kezia Dugdale’s Soap Box — 16 (50)
  46. Councillor Andrew Burns’ Really Bad Blog — 15 (63)
  47. Whoopdedoo — 14 (66)
  48. Scottish Futures — 14 (36)
  49. Adam Smith Was A Socialist — 14 (24)
  50. Holyrood Chronicles — 13 (132)

Data gathered on Sunday 14th October evening.

*Scots and Independent recently changed URL. I calculated its ranking by aggregating the scores of the two URLs.

As I said, there are a lot of surprises in there. And it is radically different to the top 20 that Holyrood Watcher posted last week. It goes to show that there is no relationship between the number of readers and the number of links. And neither of these are a measure of importance anyway. No-one in their right mind would objectively rank Holyrood Chronicles as low as 50th.

At least Holyrood Chronicles is the ninth most-read. As they say, there’s only one thing worse than not being talked about, and that’s being talked about (I got that the right way round, right?).

Something else interesting about this list? As far as I am aware, there are no Lib Dem members on it (although there are a number of Lib Dem voters there I reckon). The highest, that I can make out, is Anything Caron can do… in 55th. Actually, Caron herself would be higher, but still misses out (just) on the top 50. Should really have checked that before I published this post.

8 comments

Apologies if you were looking for politics

19 September 2007 23:48

Categories: Admin, Blogging, Current affairs, General, Internet, Personal, Politics, Scotland, Technology

Did Iain Dale tell you he has a new book out? What? He did? Oh.

Anyway, seemingly on his blog he is publishing some of the lists that are appearing in the book and today the top twenty Scottish blogs, as decided by Grant Thoms of Tartan Hero fame, have been posted. I am guessing — since the book is about political blogging and Iain Dale’s is a political blog — that it is a list of Scottish political blogs. This blog appears at number 2 in the list.

This raises the thorny old issue — is this a political blog? I grappled with this on the back of the election earlier this year.

Like I said in that post, back when I was a seventeen year old (when I was still in blog nappies and regularly vomiting in the sidebar), I used to aspire to be a political blogger. Over the years I became more and more apathetic about party politics (although usually not the issues in general) and I gradually toned down the political posts until this blog ended up being the eclectic rag-bag it is today. Nowadays I only really blog about politics if I get really wound up.

Anyway, it’s not every day you get linked to from one of the country’s most popular political blogs. Perhaps not the best selection of posts to have on the front page. So many people will have arrived to see the post about Blur (which I only did because I couldn’t be bothered writing a proper post!), some F1 posts and “ooh, look at me on the radio”. Politics is nowhere to be seen really.

Still, I am of course grateful that Grant Thoms saw fit to put me in second place, even if I’m not sure if it’s deserved or if I’m even eligible. But the thing about lists is that nobody ever agrees with another person’s list. It is bad enough choosing just number one, but to choose one to twenty and rank them… well, nobody is going to be very happy with the result. You can see that in the comments at Iain Dale’s.

Many — including The Devil’s Kitchen — are quite rightly asking where Mr Eugenides is. Personally, I am not sure why Rolled-Up Trousers is number one. I think it’s a good blog, but number one? Not so sure.

I would have placed J. Arthur MacNumpty and Holyrood Chronicles (not Hollywood Chronicles as Iain Dale wrote, no matter what the politicians might like to think!) higher, although I probably should not say what I would put lower as that is not very polite. But like I say. Lists? Fun to make, but infuriating to read.

Kerron Cross suggested in Iain Dale’s comments that Ridiculous Politics should have made the top twenty. Ridiculous Politics is the most aptly named blog out there. Once, when I was considering posts to go into the roundup, I got so angry at it that I wrote a long rant about why Ridiculous Politics is ridiculous. Needless to say, it wouldn’t have made my top twenty.

Update: Just realised also — where is SNP Tactical Voting?

6 comments

Music of 2006 — #20–#11: All right I suppose

21 December 2006 10:32

Categories: Entertainment, Music, Radio, Reviews

Over the next four days I’m going to do what every other bore worth his salt does at this time of year, and that’s writing a big list showing off all the records I bought this year. I list them in reverse order of preference. Or I just put them all in a hat and drew lots. See if you can guess which. I might as well have drawn lots, because coming up with twenty decent albums that weren’t reissues of some sort was like shitting a building.

To be honest, it hasn’t been a vintage year for music. This year I’ve preferred to buy music from the past, because I worked out that there must be so much better music from the period zero to 2005 than music from today. Which is obviously true because even the top album on this list probably wouldn’t have made it into the top five of last year’s list. If I didn’t separate reissues and whatnot into their own separate list, they would have taken up most of the top ten.

Why has this year been so rubbish? Mostly because the media has been collectively masturbating to the boring drones of The Arctic Monkeys to the exclusion of almost everything else. These dullards are the future of music? I certainly hope not, because they could hardly sound less contemporary. It’s just like when The Strokes became huge five years ago for re-hashing the seventies. What is around the corner? There must be something… please?

Right. What you’re getting today is my list of top albums from #20–#11. The series will be rounded off with a top ten, and in between you’ll get a couple of other posts of other stuff. Enjoy!

20. FM3 & Dou Wei — Hou Guan Yin

A pleasant little album. There’s not much else to say about it. If you liked the music on the Buddha Machine, give it a shot. Even if you didn’t much like the Buddha Machine, you could well like this — although I’ve not spotted anybody else giving it much attention.

What I said about it at the time

19. Pulp — The Peel Sessions

You see, I couldn’t even resist including this one. Although it isn’t technically a re-release, there is not a single piece of music on this record that isn’t at least five years old. It compiles all of Pulp’s Peel Sessions — including the 1983 session which Jarvis hoped would never be released — and some other live bits and bobs. It’s certainly an interesting listen, even if they hit the odd bum note. A must for any Pulp fan.

What I said about it at the time

18. Plaid & Bob Jaroc — Greedy Baby

This audio-visual collaboration was hit by many delays, and it seems as though it was a right pain to make. Sounds like it will be a disaster, but it actually isn’t bad. Which is quite surprising really, considering how boring Plaid’s recent music has tended to be. Both the music and the visuals vary in quality from track to track, but overall this is not too shabby — as long as you’re not expecting too much.

What I said about it at the time

17. Malcom Kipe — Lit

I wasn’t too keen on this album at first. It seemed okay, but nothing particularly special. But I really grew fond of it. I found that it was a great album to listen to in the summer. Very nice stuff indeed. A bit like the Plaid album, as long as you’re not expecting anything revolutionary, you might well enjoy this.

What I said about it at the time

16. Clark — Body Riddle

The damp squib of the year. After all the hype, and the amazing Throttle Furniture EP that came out at the start of the year, this album was a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps this was because expectations were so high, but I just found this album a bit underwhelming. In fact, I thought the freebie EP that came with it, Throttle Clarence (a collection of music from the Clarence Park era), was much better! If you lump in Throttle Furniture and Throttle Clarence, Body Riddle would easily enter the top ten; maybe even the top five. Body Riddle on its own, though, is a disappointment.

What I said about Body Riddle and Throttle Clarence at the time
What I said about Throttle Furniture at the time

15. London Sinfonietta — Warp Works & Twentieth Century Masters

This is yet another album where none of the music came from 2006. Oh well. This is a compilation of highlights from the celebrated Warp Works concerts that explore the links between contemporary electronica a la James and Jenkinson and ‘avant garde’ composers of the twentieth century such as Steve Reich and John Cage. There is plenty of interesting music here. I know I’ll certainly be investigating Karlheinz Stockhausen more in future. Perhaps the most intriguing parts of the album are the bits where classic Aphex Twin and Squarepusher tracks are re-worked for acoustic and performed by London Sinfonietta. The results are sometimes patchy, occasionally rewarding — but certainly interesting.

What I said about it at the time

14. Thom Yorke — The Eraser

It’s certainly been a good year for frontmen to be breaking away from their successful bands to pursue a solo career. Yorke is the first of three in my list, but his was the most disappointing album. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting too much. To be honest, it is quite an average album. But there are some great moments. My particular favourite is ‘Black Swan’, which like grey funk; cold but groovy. There is too much of the old fuzzy pampered rockstar politics as well. He ensured that carbon emissions were kept to a minimum, and he did this by chopping down more trees than was strictly necessary.

13. Boards of Canada — Trans Canada Highway

A lot of people have gone off Boards of Canada now. I guess the novelty has worn thin. I thought The Campfire Headphase was pretty poor, but the Trans Canada Highway EP is a little gem in my opinion. It gives you what you’re looking for as a Boards of Canada fan, without resorting to re-hashes or minor variations of their most-loved albums. What a track ‘Skyliner’ is!

What I said about it at the time

12. Hot Chip — The Warning

This album is proof that all a half-decent band needs to get exposure is a major label deal. Everybody is banging on and on about Hot Chip at the moment — and for good reason. This is quite a good, enjoyable album. But I prefer their previous album, Coming on Strong. I shouldn’t complain though. It’s great to see such good music getting so big. So full marks in that respect.

11. DAT Politics — Wow Twist

This was my introduction to DAT Politics. I didn’t like this album much at first. Its pace was unrelenting, and there was very little variation in style (with the exception of ‘Fake Friend’). But after a while it really grew on me. If you like brash and colourful electronics, you can’t really afford to miss this.

Right, that’s the first ten sorted out. Tomorrow I will bring news of three sloppy turds.

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