When Todd Andrlik put together the Power 150 list I was amazed. He brought together a series of available metrics to rank 150 of the top marketing blogs in the world — not only was the approach sound, but the effort involved to identify, calculate and so on would have been a significant amount of work.
Later, when the Power 150 came under the auspices of Ad Age, it expanded to cover several hundred marketing and related blogs from across the globe. And while the calculations and rankings have become automated, Charlie Moran from Ad Age continues to refine and grow the list as a great resource.
However, with the growth of Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms, the conversations and discussions have shifted away from the more static blogs. Not content with the asynchronous comment-and-respond discussions offered by blogging systems, we are now turning to all-in, open conversation on Twitter. Mack Collier, for example, now spends a significantly larger amount of time on Twitter than he does on his blog … and he is not alone. And this is where the Power 150 loses a little of its shine — as it only covers blogs, it is missing more of the "conversation" than it is covering.
Recently, Armando Alves, built upon the Power 150 to produce the Twitter Power 150 – a ranking that assesses the top 300 blogs together with the Twitter accounts of the bloggers – to produce a single score across the blogging and micro-blogging formats. The change in rankings is amazing. Seth Godin, who unassailably leads the Power 150, but does not use Twitter, scrapes into the top 150 at #144.
Be sure and take a look at the full list over at Armando's site. What do YOU think? Is it a game changer? Is it a more relevant way of quantifying marketing's social media conversations?
Honestly, the Twitter 150 makes zero sense to me.
“Recently, Armando Alves, built upon the Power 150 to produce the Twitter Power 150 – a ranking that assesses the top 300 blogs together with the Twitter accounts of the bloggers – to produce a single score across the blogging and micro-blogging formats.”
Ex: Chris Brogan is #7 on the Power 150, and has well over 30K followers on Twitter. So logic suggests that if you combine the Power 150 with his Twitter ‘grade’ to get the Twitter 150, that Brogan would likely be #1 on the list.
He’s #28.
The Viral Garden is #56 on the Power 150, and I have more Twitter followers than blog readers, yet I am #110 on the Twitter 150. And the other day when I clicked on the link for my score with the Twitter 150, it was actually 40 points higher than what was listed.
Huh?!?
I get that we all love lists, but they should at least have some sense of logic to them. Or maybe it does and I can’t see it?
Personally I don’t see it as a game changer. And I guess that’s due to a combination of factors. They include the fact that some people use Twitter differently to others, time available versus content, and the ‘network’ element of Twitter which then somehow negatively affects the perception of ‘ranking’ for me. It’s like being ranked via your connections on Linked In. It just doesn’t feel right. Yet. That might change. But for now, no, it’s not a game changer for me.