Let's face it, the Friendly Ghost, who came out with his own PowerPR index (inspired by ToddAnd) had a host of things working against him:
- The blogosphere is generally suspicious of anonymity
- The PR community had been recently burned by an anonymous troll (Strumpette)
- The new index was seen as a competitor for the Power 150, and most of us like and know the person who created it
However, every book turns a page, and at last Brendan Cooper has put his name to his work, and he has done a considerable amount of work, to come up with his list of 100 PR blogs.
Methodology
Brendan is also clear that this list is simply the list of 100 PR blogs that he considers interesting (his blogroll) ranked against each other.
He has completely changed his methodology over time. He relies on Technorati, Yahoo, Google and Blogpulse. As a result, older blogs will do a little better than newer ones as they do better in searches overall, and this index is heavy on the search side of things. And while he drops the Google Page Rank, it still looms large as it determines the position of a blog in a search for a relevant term.
It also relies heavily on inbound links and I learned a little something from him when he described the difference between reactions and inlinks on Technorati. Fascinating for measurement geeks like me, but for some mere drivel.
It Don't Mean a Thing
Still, what does it mean really? What benefit is the PowerPR list to the community?
- Good: It provides a way to measure the relative influence of Brendan's blogroll
- Better: It is a great marketing tool for 100 bloggers
- Best: It provides fresh, new voices to read (look to the middle of the list for the upcoming voices)
- Bonus: It puts me in the top 10 of one of these lists (laughing)
Okay, so that last benefit is perfectly selfish.
It also gives me a chance to write this post and formally welcome Brendan Cooper into the light of the digerati. And to thank him for adding this blog to his blogroll and to all of you for reading and linking. I love this community, it's why I still do this.
Thanks Brendan.
Oh, and Geoff Livingston and I (mostly Geoff I must admit) have been linking to some case studies in social media that you might find helpful to populate your social media tactics database.
tags: Brendan+Cooper, PowerPR
