Being the Big Blog

October 15, 2007 12:32 PM

For those times when MeFi isn't enough on its own: Google Reader has just started showing the number of subscribers to various blogs, adding hard numbers to the existing top blog listings, which use links to measure popularity. Here is a detailed comparison between TechMeme's Top 100 and actual subscribers, as well as a list of top blogs by subscriber in a neat embedded spreadsheet. They offer a good way to find interesting things to read.
posted by blahblahblah (28 comments total)

For reference, MetaFilter has 5,592 (plus another 1,000 or to subscribing to other URLs) and AskMe another 2,497.
posted by blahblahblah at 12:35 PM on October 15, 2007

Did I see Perez Hilton only once, as a number 13? I have a hard time believing celebrity gossip rags aren't near the top. I'd be more interested in the demographics and how long the site is viewed. I have a feeling that types like Perez Hilton probably have demographics skewed to visit many times for short periods and with high disposable income, or at least the propensity to spend like they do. Such sites would be more valuable in ad generation than Engadget which is much more narrow in its target audience.
posted by geoff. at 1:00 PM on October 15, 2007

Great! This helped me find a half dozen MORE gadget blogs I wasn't subscribed to!
/sarcasm
posted by twsf at 1:22 PM on October 15, 2007

Sorry for being blind, but where does it actually show the number of subscribers?
posted by sindark at 2:04 PM on October 15, 2007

You have to click "Add Subscription" then type the name of the feed and in the results it will show you the number of subscribers.

Kottke is killing us with about 78,000 total subscribers.
posted by mattbucher at 2:15 PM on October 15, 2007

Sindark, go to Google Reader, click Add Subscription and then search for the name of the site (but don't put the full URL in).

It confused me too. I think it would have been a tad helpful if one of the four links actually explained how to do the thing you're talking about!
posted by afx237vi at 2:15 PM on October 15, 2007

I'll never understand why PVRblog has 69,848 subscribers and mefi has much less.
posted by mathowie at 2:20 PM on October 15, 2007

Because you can't comment via RSS. And the manual reloading of MeFi is what makes it so ADD-tastic.
posted by GuyZero at 2:28 PM on October 15, 2007

Do you think that's true mathowie? I wonder how they're tracking exactly...
posted by serazin at 2:28 PM on October 15, 2007

I think that reading the RSS feeds for MeFi and AskMe are a radically different experience than being logged in and browsing around the blue or the green. For one, if you are reading MeFi in GoogleReader and want to comment, you have to click on a post and then login to MeFi (at which point you are logged into both GoogleReader and MeFi) and that kind of interrupts the process of just scrolling through feeds/posts. GoogleReader is not GoogleParticipator. However, since the deleted posts usually appear in the RSS feeds, I have a fun time reading the feeds and finding something ridiculous only to click on it and see that it is, of course, deleted. That could be a sport for nerds like me: Deleted FPP or Not?
posted by mattbucher at 2:29 PM on October 15, 2007

This only confirms my supposition that 99% of people don't know what RSS is, which is a crying shame.

Of course, each time I show someone something like Miro they just go gagga.
posted by furtive at 2:47 PM on October 15, 2007

I've added MeFi to my Google RSS Feed™©®, but I almost never use it. GuyZero is right. You have to visit MeFi to get the full experience.
posted by eyeballkid at 3:15 PM on October 15, 2007

mattbucher: I play that game, too!
posted by batmonkey at 3:25 PM on October 15, 2007

Yeah, I use Google Reader for everything but MeFi.
posted by escabeche at 3:35 PM on October 15, 2007

you have to click on a post and then login to MeFi

Nope. You can leave your browser permanently logged in to MeFi. I've copied the cookie to several computers, and haven't seen the login page for five years or so.

I'm not really sure how useful it is to rate blog popularity based on counting only the people sophisticated enough to use RSS, but either in love with Google or too lazy to find something better than Google Reader.
posted by sfenders at 3:35 PM on October 15, 2007

I use RSS only for sites that I don't visit every day, those that I may forget.
So for me, RSS means "less visited sites".
posted by bru at 3:37 PM on October 15, 2007

I don't see the point in rating the popularity of a website by counting the number of people that read it. I mean, come on, popularity isn't about numbers is it?

I also disagree with basing population numbers on numbers of people. I think colours would be so much nicer. (Example: How many people live in the United States? Answer: Forest Green).
posted by blue_beetle at 3:40 PM on October 15, 2007

By "subscribers," you mean people who use RSS, right?

This is a flawed, self-selecting metric. In the same way that Alexa ranking tells you how many marketingfolk read your website, RSS tally will tell you how many techgeeks read your site.

Personally? I've never had a use for RSS. I actually like visiting websites. But that may just be because I'm old.

(shrug)
posted by Afroblanco at 3:58 PM on October 15, 2007

My blog seems to have almost as many Google Reader subscribers as daily visitors, suggesting that most "bloggy" people do know about RSS now.
posted by roofus at 4:05 PM on October 15, 2007

I'm not really sure how useful it is to rate blog popularity based on counting only the people sophisticated enough to use RSS, but either in love with Google or too lazy to find something better than Google Reader.

Agreed. Aren't these numbers extremely low compared to actual usage? (please no sample-size arguments. please!)
posted by mrgrimm at 4:52 PM on October 15, 2007

Here's mefi vs kottke vs pvrblog on Alexa. Most people don't read metafilter in syndication. Information is something you can send me, but community is a place I go to hang out and enjoy the company.
posted by psyche7 at 4:59 PM on October 15, 2007

When MeFi isn't enough on its own, it's time to step away from the computer and go for a walk.
posted by flabdablet at 6:41 PM on October 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

Google Reader subscribers are not The Internet.

(Only Al Gore is The Internet. That's why he has a medal and you don't.)
posted by blacklite at 6:54 PM on October 15, 2007

I've spent most of the day trying to figure out and articulate why this makes me want to bite the throat out of somebody.

Best I can do is probably because the bulk of the traffic to my own sites these days is random googlenauts searching for 'bottle fuck' and other lovely I'mFeelingLuckyisms. Which might change if I spent less time here and actually wrote something once in a while. Ah well.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:48 PM on October 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

Hasn't bloglines being doing this all along? If you were going to crunch stats, why not include bloglines (still possibly? the leading feedreader) and feedburner with the googlereader numbers? Nevertheless, it still seems to me like combing out the bellybutton fuzz to judge the quality of one's navel. I donot subscribe to the idea in the last sentence of this fpp.
posted by peacay at 1:08 AM on October 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I unsubscribed to the Metafilter RSS feed because the headlines are post titles, not the (often more explanatory) text that appears on the front page. Anyway, MeFi's one site I don't mind reloading the front page of every so often.
posted by JHarris at 1:11 AM on October 16, 2007

Yes, Bloglines has been doing this kind of tracking for FOUR FUCKING YEARS. The main feed for the blue has 18,085 subscribers via Bloglines.
posted by blasdelf at 3:29 AM on October 16, 2007

Al Gore is a series of tubes?
posted by flabdablet at 4:52 PM on October 16, 2007