There must be some kind of synchronicity in this world. A couple of weeks back, I discovered Todd And and his Power 150 list ranking the top Media and Marketing Blogs in the world. Todd has been running this list for a while based off of a simple algorithm he created around these pillars: Google PageRank, Bloglines Subscribers, Technorati Ranking and his own subjective, Todd Points. When I first saw his list and noticed that this Twist Image Blog was not ranked, I was a little surprised, especially considering that I knew a lot of the other Blogs’ traffic compared to this one (as some of the people on the list are close friends). I emailed Todd and he quickly responded and added Twist Image on the list (not critical, but lists like this do generate new forms of traffic if people are looking for this sort of content). Here comes the synchronicity: about a week later I see an announcement that Advertising Age has now partnered with Todd to promote and market this Power 150 list (whew, made it in just under the wire).
Then, yesterday, the news broke: Who Has The Top Blog? Find Out At Adage.com – Power 150 Ranking System Now Part Of Ad Age. The story goes on to say:
“In hosting the ranking, Ad Age has done little to change it. The design has been tweaked to work within the current Adage.com specifications, and there’s a new search function that allows users to find specific blogs.
‘I’d be lying if I said that we weren’t thinking about attracting more readers and more links by adding the Power 150 on our site,’ said Ad Age Editor Jonah Bloom. ‘But we also believe this is a useful service to our readers, showcasing and linking to all the marketing and media blogs in one place and giving our readers a sense of how influential they are. Ad Age has always been the leading source of data and rankings on marketers, brands, agencies and media companies, so it made sense to us to also provide a ranking of blogs. Todd had a great idea here. I hope Ad Age can help sustain and build on this service.'”
I’m proud to report that this Twist Image Blog ranks at #68. The only other Canadian Bloggers ahead of this one are: AdGoodness (#13), One Degree (#47) and Canuckflack (#63). We’re in good company.
While those of you who are regular readers know how little importance I place on winning awards or ranking on lists, seeing Ad Age take this Power 150 so seriously and watching the traffic spikes since the lists’ mainstream launch yesterday gave me moment to pause and appreciate any new found readers that the Power 150 might bring to the conversation.
The other additional feature that I’m really charged about is that they offer the entire Power 150 as an OPML file, which means anyone using a tool like Google Reader just needs to import the file and can have immediate access to the full Power 150 list. I love this function because there were many Blogs I wanted to subscribe to, but the tedious action of clicking on each link and adding it to my Google Reader set my procrastination senses to overload. Now, no worries_ I’ve got them all with just a few clicks.
The only change I think they will have to make in the coming months to the Power 150 ranking system will be the “Bloglines Subscribers” as a key metric. With the growth of RSS capabilities in places like Google Reader and even directly within browsers, I don’t hear of many people who still use Bloglines as their main reader, and I think Bloglines will continue to shrink as more places like My Yahoo!, Facebook, etc_ enable RSS feeds.
Who owns the coveted number one position on the Ad Age Power 150 list? Why, of course, it’s Seth’s Blog by Twist Image friend and Marketing Guru, Seth Godin.
You can check out the full list and grab the OPML file here: Ad Age Magazine – Power 150.