Amy Gahran writing on Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits provides some analysis of a recent Technorati report on bloggers influence or perceived authority.
Technorati measures influence by counting inbound links to blogs. Technorati’s ranking mostly reflects popularity and the effects of posting frequency. In some cases these may correlate with influence or authority — but not always.
First of all, people link to blogs for all sorts of reasons — not always because they consider a particular posting authoritative. Often people link to blog postings in order to question, disagree with, refute, or even ridicule them. Or they may link to blogs strictly for entertainment. Also, people often link to blogs in the hope of attracting return links — and thus traffic.
Gahran goes on to say thoughfulness counts in many circles and that some of the most authoritative bloggers she reads do not post everyday.
