Ad Age 150 – is it any good?

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As someone who is relatively new to the world of blogging, and who is keen to learn as much as possible about social media, I’ve been wondering how to discover the blogs that make the grade. What makes a blog worthy of attention when there are so many to choose from?

This is where the Power 150 comes in – a global ranking system of the top English language media and marketing blogs. Developed by Todd Andrlik, and now housed by Ad Age,  the Power 150 (which confusingly ranks 707 blogs) uses a multimetric algorithm to determine the best PR, advertising and marketing blogs. Sounds complex and too mathematical for my liking, but basically it considers eight sources, seven of which tally results from Google, Bloglines, Alexa, Yahoo! and Technorati with the eighth derived from Todd’s personal input – Todd Points. These value “frequent, relevant, creative and high-quality content” and the “use of audio, video and graphics.”

Todd Points is the only subjective metric. On one hand this is brilliant to have an actual human’s insight into the blogs, yet I can’t help but feel skeptical that 707 blogs can’t personally be checked regularly by one individual for their updated content. And what if a bias against the blog topics skewers the score – how impartial is the Todd Points scoring system? At least the input from the traffic rating sites has no human agenda but this does not make it completely reflective of blog popularity. Understandably, metric ranking is not perfect yet - this post by Rohit Bhargava highlights some of the issues surrounding this method – but for now, it’s all bloggers have got if they want an indication of their blog reach. 

Putting those technical complexities aside, I think the Power 150 is an excellent starting place to delve into the world of global media and marketing blogging. Alternatively, if you’re looking for UK blogs, Seventy Seven has helpfully compiled the Top UK blogs based on the Power 150. I’m pleased to see I’m in the right place at Wolfstar for my social media experience – Stuart Bruce’s A PR Guy’s Musings currently ranks 12^th and Sam Oakley’s All Things PR 49^th.

What other tools or measurements do you think should be considered when ranking a PR blog?