Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s news analysis mockup, “The Colbert Report,” had a big year on the Internet. In addition to orchestrating a “wikiality” check for Wikipedia, Colbert attracted the second most number of links to a blog covering the White House correspondents’ dinner.
What was more interesting than Colbert ripping on the entire administration in front of them and the entire press corps? According to Nielsen Buzz Metrics, a multitude of bloggers angry at LiveJournal’s change to its user interface.
The blogosphere is a strange, strange place.
Nielsen ranked the top blog posts of 2006, ranking them according to how many inbound links came their way between January and December. There were 18 blogs generating the 100 most popular posts of the year.
In June, a Canadian blogger was so angry at LiveJournal for its shoddy graphics, “obstructive interfaces popping up,” ” lack of customer-service displayed by the team in relation to ‘rebuilding’ the site,” and “clearly insane string of ‘fiddle-faddle’ from the Support Team,” that he started a petition to stop the madness. Almost 800 bloggers, and 5000 (yes, 5000) commentators at his blog agreed.
That number is pretty surprising given that all you have to do is blog somewhere else. But who are we to judge the wishes of the mob, er, blogosphere?
The remaining top ten weren’t the most diverse in terms of subject matter. For the most part, liberal (or at least, anti-Bush administration) posts prevailed, pulling in Colbert’s antics, and the comments of Keith Olbermann (who?) came in third and fifth place for scathing comments about Donald Rumsfeld and the President.
Those three posts all came from CrooksAndLiars.com, which actually contributed four of the top ten linked-to posts.
Technorati’s Dave Sifry made the list three times, coming in fourth, ninth, and tenth, for three installments on the “State of the Blogosphere.”
So what are we to conclude about the active blogosphere, then? Is it fair to say it leans left? Is it too dismissive to assume there are more important things than a blogging service’s UI? Is it insulting to say that the blogosphere is self-absorbed, linking to itself (via Sifry) three times, and bit on the geek crybaby side?
Oops, shouldn’t have said that.
“A minority of highly influential blogs continues to influence the broader conversation on the web,” said Jonathan Carson, CEO, Nielsen BuzzMetrics. “However, unique circumstances and events, such as the LiveJournal protest against proposed interface changes, can resonate with passionate stakeholders and catapult lesser-known blogs to the top”.
That was more diplomatic.
Here are the top ten blog posts of 2006, according to Nielsen:
1. 2006 Petition Against Changes in the LiveJournal Interface
2. Colbert Does the White Correspondents’ Dinner
3. Keith Olbermann Delivers One Hell Of a Commentary on Rumsfeld
4. State of the Blogosphere, August 2006
6. Support Denmark: Why the Forbidden Cartoons Matter
7. SNL: If Al Gore were President
8. Milking it? (graphic war images)
9. State of the Blogosphere, February 2006 Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth
10. State of the Blogosphere, April 2006 Part 1 On Blogosphere Growth
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