Brendan Cooper, your Friendly PR Social Media Planner

Apologies for missing out September and October. I’ve been on a blog sabbatical (a bloggatical?), but decided to start it all up again.

1		Micro Persuasion	10	10	10	10	10	10	15	10	15	100
2		Online Marketing Blog	10	10	10	10	10	10	15	10	15	100
3		a shel of my former self	10	10	10	10	10	10	15	10	15	100
4		Center for Media and Democracy	10	10	10	10	10	10	14	10	15	99
5		NevilleHobson.com	10	10	10	10	10	10	15	10	14	99
6		PR 2.0 Silicon Valley	10	10	10	10	8	9	15	10	15	97
7		Communication Overtones	10	10	10	10	7	10	14	10	14	95
8		PR Squared	9	9	9	9	10	9	15	10	14	94
9		Strumpette	10	10	10	8	10	9	14	9	14	94
10		Todd Andrlik	10	10	10	6	9	10	13	10	15	93
11		The Buzz Bin	9	9	9	8	9	8	14	10	14	90
12		Pop! PR Jots	9	9	9	10	7	10	13	9	14	90
13		Web Ink Now	9	9	9	9	7	9	14	9	14	89
14		Pro PR	9	8	9	9	9	9	13	9	13	88
15		The Bad Pitch Blog	9	9	8	9	9	9	13	9	13	88
16		Media Orchard	8	8	9	10	8	9	14	8	12	86
17		PR Meets the WWW	8	8	8	9	9	10	14	8	12	86
18		Canuckflack	10	10	10	6	7	8	12	9	13	85
19		Common Sense PR	9	9	9	5	10	8	12	9	14	85
20		Young PR	8	8	8	8	7	9	14	9	13	84
21		Spinwatch	8	8	8	10	10	7	13	8	11	83
22		Paul Gillin - Social Media	9	9	8	8	9	8	11	8	12	82
23		PR Blogger	8	8	9	9	9	8	10	8	12	81
24		Corporate PR	9	9	8	9	8	9	10	8	11	81
25		Strategic Public Relations	9	8	9	9	6	7	9	9	13	79
26		PR. Differently	9	9	9	7	9	7	9	8	12	79
27		PR Works	7	7	8	7	8	8	13	8	12	78
28		Tech PR Gems	7	7	8	6	8	8	11	9	13	77
29		A PR Guy’s Musings	7	7	7	9	7	8	12	8	11	76
30		Cooler Insights	8	8	8	8	6	8	11	8	10	75
31		Blogging Me, Blogging You	7	7	7	8	7	9	10	7	10	72
32		Media Guerrilla	8	8	7	7	9	7	8	7	11	72
33		On Message Wagner Comms	8	8	7	9	7	10	7	6	6	68
34		PR Communications	7	7	6	8	8	6	10	6	10	68
35		Heather Yaxley - Greenbanana PR	8	8	7	7	5	6	8	7	11	67
36		KDPaine’s PR Measurement Blog	7	7	7	5	5	6	11	7	10	65
37		Engage in PR	6	6	8	4	6	4	11	7	11	63
38		ToughSledding	7	7	6	7	5	7	9	6	9	63
39		Murphy’s Law	7	7	6	5	6	7	9	6	9	62
40		PR Studies	6	6	6	7	5	7	11	5	8	61
41		The Friendly Ghost	7	7	7	6	5	5	7	7	10	61
42		PR Conversations	6	6	7	6	7	5	7	7	9	60
43		….the world’s leading….	6	6	6	5	3	5	12	7	10	60
44		Object Towers	6	6	6	4	6	4	9	7	11	59
45		Teaching PR	5	5	7	4	3	6	12	6	10	58
46		bitemarks	6	6	5	7	8	6	8	4	7	57
47		Glass House	5	5	4	7	6	6	7	7	9	56
48		Drew B’s take on tech PR	7	7	7	8	6	7	0	6	8	56
49		IndiaPRBlog!	4	4	6	5	10	4	12	4	6	55
49		Piaras Kelly PR - Irish Public Relations	5	5	5	8	6	7	7	5	7	55
51		PR Disasters	6	6	6	6	8	5	8	4	6	55
52		Beyond PR	5	5	5	8	8	7	7	4	5	54
53		Wadds’ tech pr blog	5	5	5	5	5	4	11	5	7	52
54		Naked PR	6	6	6	6	6	4	9	4	5	52
55		Getting Ink	5	5	5	3	4	6	11	5	8	52
56		The New Marketing	6	6	5	3	5	4	10	5	8	52
57		Tech PR War Stories	5	5	5	3	5	5	7	6	9	50
58		The PR 2.0 Universe	6	6	6	7	5	5	0	6	8	49
59		The New PR	5	5	1	6	5	8	8	4	6	48
60		Alan Weinkrantz PR Web Log	4	4	4	4	5	5	7	5	7	45
61		The PR Place	4	4	4	5	4	5	8	4	6	44
62		Valley PR Blog	3	3	3	3	7	3	12	4	6	44
63		Onalytica - analysing online buzz	4	4	6	4	4	4	0	6	10	42
64		Client Service Insights (CSI)	4	3	4	4	4	6	7	4	4	40
65		Don’t eat the shrimp	4	4	3	4	4	3	8	4	4	38
66		Media Artifacts	4	4	5	2	3	4	0	6	9	37
67		PR Voice	5	5	5	2	8	4	0	3	4	36
68		DummySpit	2	2	4	3	2	3	7	5	7	35
69		media mindshare	4	4	4	5	4	3	0	5	6	35
70		Priscilla’s World	3	3	2	2	3	2	8	4	7	34
71		The Thicket	3	3	3	2	6	4	7	2	3	33
72		First Person PR	5	5	4	1	2	3	8	2	3	33
73		GREENblog	2	2	4	4	2	5	7	2	3	31
74		Fusion PR Forum	4	3	4	1	2	2	0	6	8	30
75		The Rosemont Loving	4	4	3	7	4	3	0	2	3	30
76		PR 2.0	3	3	2	5	3	6	0	3	4	29
77		Active Voice	4	4	4	6	3	6	0	1	1	29
77		Tech for PR	2	2	3	3	4	2	7	2	4	29
79		Wired PR Works	2	2	1	2	3	2	9	2	4	27
80		PR Girlz	3	3	2	5	4	5	0	2	3	27
81		note to editors…	2	2	2	2	1	2	7	3	5	26
81		wordymouth	2	2	1	3	9	4	0	2	3	26
83		nerd-in-residence	3	3	3	1	3	3	0	4	5	25
84		Indian and Global PR	3	3	3	4	3	3	0	4	2	25
85		Public Relations Rogue	3	3	3	3	2	1	0	4	6	25
86		my(PR)palette	1	1	3	2	2	2	0	5	7	23
87		copypunk	3	3	3	2	1	2	0	3	5	22
88		The last man in Europe…	2	2	2	3	1	3	0	3	5	21
89		All Things PR	1	1	2	4	2	2	7	1	1	21
90		Corporati	2	2	2	6	2	1	0	2	3	20
91		The Spud Gun	2	2	2	2	1	2	0	2	3	16
92		point being:	1	1	2	4	3	1	0	1	2	15
93		PR (in a jar)	2	2	1	2	1	1	0	2	4	15
94		PR India Post	1	1	1	1	1	2	0	3	1	11
95		The Byline	1	1	1	1	2	1	0	1	2	10
95		PRactical P.R.	1	1	1	1	1	2	0	1	2	10
97		Small Business PR and Marketing	1	1	2	1	2	1	0	1	1	10
98		The Jive Man	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	1	2	9
99		On the face…	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	8
100		72 Point Blog	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	8

The big change for this time around is the way I’ve put this together. I was trying to use the Easy Bee software but came unstuck when Technorati changed its layout. Then, I was notified that I was contravening the Technorati terms of use by employing Easy Bee. I thought I was, to use the vernacular, pwned.

Also, the software just wasn’t intended for large compilations. It’s great for a few grabs off web pages but go beyond a couple of hundred of them and it becomes woefully slow.

So, I looked for alternative solutions and found two which together make this whole thing easier. I love it when a second stab at a problem gives a better answer.

Now, I use the ImportHTML function in Google Docs for the Yahoo and Google metrics and, through help from a very nice man at Technorati (whose name I’ve since lost unfortunately), I now employ the Google Docs ImportXML function with Technorati API calls for all the Technorati metrics. It’s immediate, and much quicker. Just a small amount of data formatting, scrubbing and verification in Excel, and the job’s done.

As a consequence of this, a major change to the metrics is that I’ve changed the Technorati Reactions to Technorati Inlinks. This requires explanation.

Reactions are the posts or blogs that have linked to a specific blog. This can include self-referential links - that is, links to your own blog - as well as links to other blogs simply because they posted, and you link to them. In other words, if your blogroll - or mine - link to you, then every time you post, Technorati Reactions is incremented. As the Technorati FAQ says:

To remove these links, you can submit a support ticket from our Support Contact Form with the URL that you’d like to mark as a duplicate so that your blog will no longer be indexed under the duplicate URL and the blog reaction links should be removed.

My guess is that not many people will apply for this ticket, and therefore Technorati Reactions becomes huge.

So, Technorati Reactions is a false count. It counts *every* link. I’ve seen this in action. I’ve actually been asked by other bloggers why I appear in their reactions when all they’ve done is post, without even mentioning me. My (no pun intended) reaction has been: I think it’s because my blogroll probably links to you.

That’s one reason why I’ve abandoned it. The other practical reason is that Google Doc ImportXML calls do not include a ‘reactions’ parameter. They only include rank, inboundblogs (which is the Authority metric), and inboundlinks. So, given that inboundblogs is Technorati Authority, that is, blogs which link to you, inboundlinks is *every other* link to your blog, that is, everything outside the blogosphere. In that respect it’s both a better metric and, happily, available through Google Docs as an API call.

If none of this makes sense - and I’m still trying to get my head around it too, I had someone much cleverer than me explain it to me - then you can see for yourself through the Bloginfluence SEO tool. If you click that link you’ll see details for this blog come up. Look at how it separates ‘blogs linking’ - that is, Technorati Authority, which in a Technorati API call is inboundblogs - from ‘posts linking’, which is inboundlinks. Now compare the ‘posts linking’ score to the Technorati Reactions score on the Technorati site. They’re different, right?

There are also two other important new metrics. I’ve toyed with the idea of including the frequency with which a blog is updated or referenced, and I discovered that both Google Blog Search and Blogpulse offer this. Google Blog Search will list mentions over the past month, and Blogpulse over the past 180 days. I’ve also weighted these with a score out of 15, because I consider the recent activity around a blog to be as important as its link score. Plus, this gives a nice round score out of 100.

And there’s one metric fewer: Google Page Rank. I don’t think this is updated frequently enough to be of use, plus it’s the one remaing metric I share with the Power150. So now, these two tables are independent, yet complementary.

Other changes are:

• I’ve reduced it from 104 blogs to 100. This is because Google Docs only allow up to 50 calls per spreadsheet. I decided that splitting them into two spreadsheets per metric was fiddlesome enough: three was just too many.
• We now have two new additions: Priscilla’s World, which seems a pretty good PR blog to me; and Getting Ink which I think is more from the journalist pov but talks about PR and new media. So, they’re in.
• You can now click the graphics at the top and bottom of each column to see exactly what they’re referencing - they take you to the metrics for my blog.
• I still don’t have an up/down/no change figure. I tried doing it but it’s a bit fiddly, especially when the blogset has changed. Perhaps, now that I have a good set of blogs, I’ll be able to do this in future.
• Although largely automated, this isn’t a ‘live’ index. For this reason alone you could say the Power150 is a better indicator of rankings. I never claimed the PowerPR to be better. Just different.
• This time I’ve really tried to keep track of blog addresses. If yours is on this list please do check that I’ve put the right address in, especially if you moved recently.
• I did toy around with the idea of a badge. I think this could be slightly cheesy. If you really want a badge, feel free to grab the graphic at the top left of the index table. You’ll probably be better off just pointing to it rather than copying it though, in case I change it now that I’m no longer a ghost.

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