We’ve been analyzing historical TechMeme data to dig a little deeper than the leaderboard information on the site that shows top blogs over the trailing 30 days. Mark McGranaghan and I are slicing the data in a number of ways and will publish it shortly on CrunchBase.
For now we thought we’d show a teaser – below are the top 100 tech bloggers/authors, based on the total number of headlines they have had on TechMeme from January 1, 2008 until today. The data isn’t 100% perfect as we’ve been grabbing it only once per hour, so a headline that was up for less than one hour may not be counted. But in terms of tracking the most popular bloggers, the data is meaningful. Since a lot of the top leaderboard blogs are multi-author, this helps to shake out who’s actually writing the popular stories.
Clarification: This list doesn’t take into consideration authors who write for multiple publications.
Full list is below:
| Rank | Author | Property | Num. Headlines |
| 1 | Michael Arrington | TechCrunch | 207 |
| 2 | Erick Schonfeld | TechCrunch | 126 |
| 3 | Larry Dignan | Between the Lines | 105 |
| 4 | Duncan Riley | TechCrunch | 88 |
| 5 | Marshall Kirkpatrick | ReadWriteWeb | 75 |
| Henry Blodget | Silicon Alley Insider | 75 | |
| 7 | Mike Masnick | Techdirt | 65 |
| 8 | Thomas Ricker | Engadget | 55 |
| 9 | Mathew | mathewingram.com/work | 54 |
| 10 | Eric Savitz | Tech Trader Daily | 53 |
| 11 | Allen Stern | CenterNetworks | 52 |
| 12 | Om Malik | GigaOM | 51 |
| 13 | Josh Catone | ReadWriteWeb | 50 |
| 14 | Mary Jo Foley | All about Microsoft | 47 |
| Ryan Block | Engadget | 47 | |
| 16 | Joseph Weisenthal | paidContent.org | 44 |
| 17 | Rafat Ali | paidContent.org | 43 |
| Ionut Alex Chitu | Google Operating System | 43 | |
| 19 | Eric Bangeman | Ars Technica | 39 |
| Kara Swisher | BoomTown | 39 | |
| 21 | Mark Hendrickson | TechCrunch | 37 |
| 22 | Robert Scoble | Scobleizer | 36 |
| 23 | Jacqui Cheng | Ars Technica | 34 |
| Arn | MacRumors | 34 | |
| Elinor Mills | CNET News.com | 34 | |
| 26 | Brad Linder | Download Squad | 33 |
| Sarah Perez | ReadWriteWeb | 33 | |
| Saul Hansell | Bits | 33 | |
| 29 | Ina Fried | CNET News.com | 32 |
| Caroline McCarthy | CNET News.com | 32 | |
| Eric Eldon | VentureBeat | 32 | |
| 32 | Joshua Topolsky | Engadget | 31 |
| Greg Sandoval | CNET News.com | 31 | |
| 34 | Todd Bishop | Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog | 30 |
| MG Siegler | VentureBeat | 30 | |
| 36 | Anne Broache | CNET News.com | 29 |
| Ernesto | TorrentFreak | 29 | |
| 38 | Paul Miller | Engadget | 28 |
| MG Siegler | ParisLemon | 28 | |
| 40 | Nate Anderson | Ars Technica | 27 |
| 41 | Philip Elmer-DeWitt | Apple 2.0 | 26 |
| Fred | A VC | 26 | |
| Philipp Lenssen | Google Blogoscoped | 26 | |
| Miguel Helft | New York Times | 26 | |
| 45 | Liz Gannes | NewTeeVee | 25 |
| Marguerite Reardon | CNET News.com | 25 | |
| 47 | Rafe Needleman | Webware.com | 24 |
| Martin LaMonica | CNET News.com | 24 | |
| Peter Kafka | Silicon Alley Insider | 24 | |
| David Kaplan | paidContent.org | 24 | |
| 51 | Nilay Patel | Engadget | 23 |
| Darren Murph | Engadget | 23 | |
| Owen Thomas | Valleywag | 23 | |
| 54 | Erica Ogg | CNET News.com | 22 |
| Matt Buchanan | Gizmodo | 22 | |
| Greg Sterling | Search Engine Land | 22 | |
| Richard MacManus | ReadWriteWeb | 22 | |
| Caroline McCarthy | The Social | 22 | |
| Barry Schwartz | Search Engine Land | 22 | |
| 60 | Scott Karp | Publishing 2.0 | 21 |
| Adrian Kingsley-Hughes | Hardware 2.0 | 21 | |
| 62 | Dean Takahashi | Tech Talk with Dean Takahashi | 20 |
| Ryan Paul | Ars Technica | 20 | |
| Danny Sullivan | Search Engine Land | 20 | |
| Stacey Higginbotham | GigaOM | 20 | |
| Tom Krazit | One More Thing | 20 | |
| 67 | Dave Winer | Scripting News | 19 |
| Jesus Diaz | Gizmodo | 19 | |
| John Markoff | New York Times | 19 | |
| 70 | Doug Aamoth | CrunchGear | 18 |
| 71 | Staci D. Kramer | paidContent.org | 17 |
| Dan Frommer | Silicon Alley Insider | 17 | |
| Dawn Kawamoto | CNET News.com | 17 | |
| Joel Hruska | Ars Technica | 17 | |
| Ken Fisher | Ars Technica | 17 | |
| Steven Hodson | WinExtra | 17 | |
| Dan Farber | Between the Lines | 17 | |
| Matt Marshall | VentureBeat | 17 | |
| 79 | Joe Wilcox | Microsoft Watch | 16 |
| Jacqui Cheng | Infinite Loop | 16 | |
| Jason Chen | Gizmodo | 16 | |
| Caroline McCarthy | Webware.com | 16 | |
| Wilson Rothman | Gizmodo | 16 | |
| David A. Utter | WebProNews | 16 | |
| 85 | Cade Metz | The Register | 15 |
| Karl | DSLreports | 15 | |
| Nick | Rough Type | 15 | |
| Stephen Shankland | CNET News.com | 15 | |
| 89 | Chris Williams | The Register | 14 |
| Peter Ha | CrunchGear | 14 | |
| Michael Learmonth | Silicon Alley Insider | 14 | |
| Brian Stelter | New York Times | 14 | |
| Enigmax | TorrentFreak | 14 | |
| Nicholas Carlson | Valleywag | 14 | |
| Betsy Schiffman | Epicenter | 14 | |
| Ashkan Karbasfrooshan | HipMojo.com | 14 | |
| 97 | Tom Krazit | CNET News.com | 13 |
| Chris Ziegler | Engadget | 13 | |
| Dan Goodin | The Register | 13 | |
| Mike Butcher | TechCrunch UK | 13 | |
| Jason Calacanis | The Jason Calacanis Weblog | 13 | |
| Adam Ostrow | Mashable! | 13 | |
| Stefanie Olsen | CNET News.com | 13 | |
| Michael Liedtke | Associated Press | 13 | |
| Larry Dignan | Zero Day | 13 |
Michael Masnick and Mike Masnick from Techdirt are the same person, putting his combined score at 65.
Boy, this headline is going to invoke much subjectivity. I remember the saying: “there are lies, damn lies, and then statistics.”
Arrington’s going to need a new hat, I think he just grew a size or two…
Very interesting data, but you should probably merge some of the entries which are coming from the same person (and really the same place as well).
The first the jumps out at me is Jacqui Cheng, you have her Ars frontpage stories and Ars blog (infinite loop) stories listed as two separate entries.
I might point out that #34 and #39 are in fact the same person, and that just might put them at #7 combined
Title should be called “Who Are The Top Tech Bloggers With The Most Headlines?”
Charles, MG: I will merge and re-compile. Stay tuned.
3 out of the top 4! Very impressive
No worries Henry, the dual listing is kind of cool. Like being nominated for two Oscars in one year.
there are at least three example of authors appearing twice. The ones mentioned above, as well as Caroline McCarthy at CNET who is on the list three time. Looks like Henry’s recalculating totals to strip out splits for authors of multiple blogs.
What I’d find interesting is data about how often they post, keywords that come up in those posts, and so on. I suppose that’s a little harder to do, but might be valuable for new authors, advertisers, and people wondering what the hot button topics consistently are once the fads have faded into the background.
Very interesting compilation. In this case, I guess ‘top’ means most frequently quoted on TechMeme. At NewsCred, we’re collecting metrics so that we can determine lists of the top news sources as well as top journalists (both mainstream/bloggers), but using credibility as our criterion. We want to highlight writers and sources based on quality, rather than popularity or frequency of posts.
We just launched our Alpha, so the dataset is very limited, but in terms of sources, the Economist and Techcrunch (go figure!) came out on top this week.
Boy, if you could post that list as OPML, that would be a service!
@Alan I imagine you are probably referring to the TC list, but the NewsCred ‘Most Credible’ lists for both top writers and top sources will be syndicated weekly in all formats.
Quantity is not quality
Great post…..but I wish there were links to each site.
i’m going directly to twitter and adding all of them….if they use it (…..and don’t constantly post about what they just ate for breakfast or when they have terrible gas.)
i’m danlondon on twitter.
Yeah, we need to be talking more about signal to noise ratio.
Wonder how well Om would’ve done sans heart problems? He’s still #11 despite being on a seriously reduced workload most of this year.
So is Duncan gonna be sacked?
Can’t help but think it would have been a good idea for Techcrunch to have given the data to someone else to publish. Though I’m sure it’s accurate (you are always on TM) it comes across as backslapping rather than analysis.
OK I just recompiled this list a bit. Also, for those authors in multiple publications, they are still listed twice in the list. Sorry, MG!
Paul: quantity != quality. However, since making TechMeme is a recognition of quality, making lots of quality things is pretty impressive.
Title should be “How are the top US tech bloggers”…
Nice list. Predictably straight on to Techmemememe…
Eric
given I don’t live in the US and I’m on that list: no it shouldn’t.
So where are Pete Cashmore, Drama 2.0, Joshua Porter..? Am I the only guy who thinks they’re big?
That’s okay Henry, I assume you’re planning something more robust and interactive with links for CrunchBase which is why you can’t just merge us multis together. I’ll always be #8 in my mind.
Nico, according to our data:
Cashmore — no posts on Techmeme in 2008.
Drama 2.0 — no author, so not on the list.
Joshua Porter — 12 posts in 2008.
When I hear “top,” I don’t think of frequency. I think of quality and the influence of that person’s contributions across the community at large. We’re in a quantity-obsessed moment in the blogosphere, and it’s not going to last much longer. The “blogger burnout” effect is not to be ignored. It’s just not a sustainable way of life for human beings. Drafting is an important part of the editorial process. How about we value the folks who do that and come out with well-thought reports in the end?
I appreciate your understanding, MG
first off, it’s not quantity but quality that counts.
second, i have no proof that mike arrington is actually writing his articles. in my opinion he just picks a subject and leaves it to one of his underpaid intern copywriters.
put a webcam in mike’s office if you dare.
Hmm … do I hear an echo?
Could it be that Techmeme is the most amazing judge of bloggers in the universe?
Or could it be that some blogs are over-represented in their secret algorithm and all writers of those blogs benefit?
you know what is cool at least… calacanis is not in the list.
MG
you should see it this way: you’re on there twice because you’re twice as good
30: the headlines are based on links in, so there is a quality factor, and no, Michael doesn’t outsource his writing, he does it all himself, if you check the site you’ll see others (not on this list) writing under their own names
Surely the thing to do is to get it coded to update automatically
Frank that is actually a good thing.
In many cases if you are on the list, there is a good chance people don’t even bother subscribing to your blog as they will find anything good you write on Techmeme.
there are other tech blogs besides, tech crunch?!@# and they are being recognized by TC??!!@@## Is there a good reason for that or are we just being nice to commoners now coz it is 34 and half weeks to Xmas?
Gabe “Techmeme” Rivera (:love:) Techcrunch= BS handmade Algorithm
http://www.flic...ber/2337879680/ +
http://www.flic...man/2411366766/ =
http://www.flic...ity/2203425790/
1 Michael Arrington TechCrunch 207
whyarewenotsurprised
I love data like this – can’t wait to see the actual live data when it’s up and running
Matt
Mike A. is the most read and influential blogger in the tech industry right now.
Good work Mike and the Techcrunch team!
@newssweb
Dude, Calicanis is tied for 97th. He’s on the this.
@duncan – fair enough. thank ya.
I think this list is scued. You have some old timers there, but fresh new blood of social median networking is not to be found!
I think Michael is doing a really good job recently following the blogosphere developments. Maybe you guys should take his signal.
I would be interested in seeing the median number of links each post generated and the median time each post actually stays on Techmeme.
I think some of these “top” tech bloggers are riding on their reputation, not their current readership, tech knowledge, credibility, or influence.
Does Gabe still live at Michael’s house? I’m just asking…
hats off to those of us who have no need for a last name
Matthew
Arn
Ernesto
Karl
Nick
and me
i hope i didn’t leave anyone off
so strange. i wonder what one has to do to have their last name left off
fred
The blog listed for me is wrong, which makes me wonder if I’m double counted for two blogs or not. Tech Talk With Dean Takahashi was my blog through Feb. 26. And after that, I have been with VentureBeat.
Must be a severe lack of real news.
Shouldn’t this be called ‘The Top Tech Echo List’?
Techmeme, another M$ backed, biased news source, like Techcrunch and digg.
Dont’ believe me?
No news source at all covers 50 articles from mary jo foley, M$ bitch, none!