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Gordon's Republic

The glamour of blogs

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The Observer devoted 19 pages of its magazine yesterday to blogs or to be more precise 'The World's 50 Most Powerful Blogs'. It named Arianna Huffington's Huffington Post number one, but while the most glamorous woman in blogging took the top spot it was Nick Denton's Gawker empire that made the cover.
The Huffington Post is, of course, not like most blogs, it's bigger, better and well-funded. It also helped changed the view of blogs, showing that they didn't have to be one-man bands. They could have staff and columnists and thus blur the lines. It also helps if you have star pulling power and you can call on the likes of the late great Norman Mailer to blog for you.

Boing Boing, the geeky videos and liberal politics blog is number two and uber-technology blog Techcrunch is third. Designer and long-time blogger Jason Kottke's Kottke is fourth and another personal blogger Heather Armstong's Dooce follows.

At six, it might be a new blog, but it is one that so much has been written about. PerezHilton. It is the celebrity blog that launched in 2005 and has enjoyed a storm of publicity. Famously posting 60 times on the day that Lindsay Lohan was arrested for drink driving (I know the mind boggles…kind of) and has since led to a reality TV show on VH1.

The leading Brit comes in at ten and that is Nick Denton. Like the Huffington Post Gawker is a little different. Denton, of First Tuesday and Moreover fame, launched Gawker, a New York media blog back in 2002, and has since grown it into a mini-empire that runs to 15 blogs that now includes Valleywag, Wonkette and Jezebel.

It has had a few bumps in the road, but with just five blogs in 2004 the growth has been fast. And while Gawker might be the best known it is not the biggest. That is tech and gadget blog Gizmodo, which delivers around 50m page views a month helped by the fact that it is in nine countries including the UK where Denton has done a joint venture deal with IT publisher Incisive Media.

There are other Brit bloggers in there including Holy Moly and La Petite Anglaise and it is an entirely subjective list. For instance Matt Drudge and the Drudge Report only makes it to 11, but is arguably far more influential than some of those higher-placed. Not least because it made headlines (again) last week when breaking the Prince Harry in Afghanistan story.

It underlines how far blogging has come and how far there is yet to go. There are big spaces yet to be filled particularly if you look to areas where there are few blogs. It has shown itself as a real alternative to traditional news and traditional news set ups, its just that not everyone has yet realised this.

For the rest of the Top 50 visit the Observer, which also carries an extensive interview with Denton.

Published Mar 10 2008, 09:31 AM by Gordon Macmillan

Filed under: Blogging, Gawker, Huffingtonpost, Norman Mailer

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Comments

by 208645

March 10, 2008 3:52 PM

Holy Moly isn't really a standalone blog. It's got a mailout and an invite-only message board from where most of the stories emerge.

by Gordon Macmillan

March 10, 2008 4:02 PM

I know, not my top 50 though.

by Will Callaghan

March 10, 2008 9:11 PM

Hats off to Hecklerspray.com - delivering incisive copy every day and they don't have Gawker's blockbuster budget

by George Parker

March 27, 2008 9:45 PM

The most amazing thing about Huffington is that it makes a shitload of money... And they don't pay their writers a penny.They said you should regard it as an honor to post for them... That's what I call a "Business Model!" Cheeky sods. Cheers/George

by Gordon Macmillan

March 28, 2008 8:39 AM

George but they do have a staff there these days as well. Besides I think Forbes is doing the same thing. But you're right signing up bloggers for free is a scandal...oh wait.

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