May the GForce be with you

Caveat lector: This piece has as much substance as cuppacino froth. It is, after all a blog about bloggers. Please bear that in mind before you get your Y-Fronts in a wrangle.

There was a flurry of debate before and after the MoneywebLIFE story I did about “SA’s Ten Most Influential Bloggers.” Much of it had to do with the subject of influence and whether local bloggers wield influence.

I am a great believe in innovation and the ability of imagination to change the world. After all how did Skype, Twitter, Word Press, FaceBook or Google start? Simply with an idea that turned into a disruptive technology or morphed into a viral sensation or took something that existed and made it infinitely simpler, better and speedier. It all started with a thought.

And blogging is the battlefield of ideas. That place where the cerebellum meets the cyber. It is nothing but ideas given form by virtue of words or pictures or videos. And what surrounds that is complete freedom. There are no editorial pressures, little legislative pressure, the liberation of anonymity for those who want that, freedom of speech and the ability to blog at your own frequency on the exact topic you desire. From love to lunchboxes, tyranny to titillation, politics to polony, design to deckchairs, the subject matter is whatever you want it to be. Then the audience is everyone. Your audience can be as big as the world or as solitary as a journal for one. All you need are the means - an internet connection and a device to blog from.

Give the liberation and democratization of publishing why hasn’t South Africa rushed headlong into the opportunities offered by blogging and citizen journalism? There’s money to be had in those there free blog engines – if so why aren’t we making it. More so why do local bloggers wield such minor influence. Why aren’t we taking on corrupt politicians, bad business deals, becoming online advisors to the world, story tellers to the globe?

The first answer is of course access. Telkom should be the most reviled brand in South Africa largely because their selfish and myopic stance robbed this country of the benefits of bandwidth. If we were a bandwidth rich country, things might be different. That said, the tide is turning and in two years we’ll be in another country from an access perspective. It will take a while for prices to level but the infrastructure investment for 2010, liberalization of the telecoms industry and laying of three more sea cables will bring a boom.

My intuitive answer to why we’re not on the global stage is that we are myopic. We are fools to the inward stroke. By this I mean that we are a nation of whingers and whiners who spend our time berating our lot, waiting for hand outs, and being blinded by our own reflection. That’s when we’re not serving self-interest or back slapping co-admirers in the legendary digital circle jerk.   

Our sight has become so myopic we see nothing but our selves, and because of this we’ve lost sight of the bigger picture. There is a whole world out there that is our market place. That is our audience. That we can switch on to if we merely adjust our focus.

But back to blogging. There’s no empirical measure of influence for local blogging (how do you measure the density of froth?), so I devised my own. I did because my last blog was gut. I wanted something more. I wanted to crunch a few numbers. I took the Google result (name) score for most of the bloggers mentioned in the last article, added a few more I noticed were missing. If I missed you or left you out, please let me know so I can post you a box of Kleenex. Then I took the Google News result (name) count, and the Google Blog (name) result count. I gave the news count a factor of 100 (x100) and the blog a factor of 10 (x10). This because the ability to affect the media agenda or get the media to talk about you indicates great influence. Then blog word of mouth is powerful, but much less so than the media.

By doing this I came up with a methodology* I call the “GForce” or the amount of Google influence you have. Here are the results (download the spreadsheet - Download The Google Meister ):

Rank	Name	GCount	GBlogs	GNews	GForce
Above God	Nelson Mandela	6730000	7954310	1215000	15899310
Satan	Robert Mugabe	5210000	6640600	2319700	14170300
God	Huffington Post	9270000	221630	328000	9819630
Not God	Jacob Zuma	650000	298580	688900	1637480
1. Rockstar	Adii	510000	2160	800	512960
2. Rockstar	Ryk Neethling	47,400	4690	33700	85,790
3. Rockstar	Koos Kombuis	66000	3220	1200	70420
4. Rockstar	Duncan McLeod	53400	420	2100	55920
5. Rockstar	Matthew Buckland	53000	2400	900	56300
6. Rockstar	Vincent Maher	48,880	280	400	49,560
7. Rockstar	SA Rocks	48000	190	200	48390
8. Rockstar	Skinny LaMinx	32700	3840	100	36640
9. Rockstar	Mark Forrester	34400	400	200	35000
10. Rockstar	CherryFlava	34100	320	100	34520
Pop icon	Mike Stopforth	28000	2660	500	31160
Pop icon	Eric Edelstein	26200	310	200	26710
Pop icon	Chris Roper	19700	240	2800	22740
Pop icon	Vernon Koekemoer	22100	270	200	22570
Pop icon	Vinny Lingham	18300	180	700	19180
Pop icon	Arthur Goldstuck	15900	80	2900	18880
Pop icon	Dave Duarte	17700	220	500	18420
Pop icon	Ramon Thomas	14200	2860	200	17260
Pop icon	Simon Barber	16600	120	300	17020
Pop icon	WoganMay	13300	70	0	13370
Lead singer	Nic Haralambous	12400	250	200	12850
Lead singer	Roy Blumenthal	12200	70	100	12370
Lead singer	Justice Malala	11900	70	500	12470
Lead singer	Steve Hofmeyer	9910	770	100	10780
Lead singer	2oceansvibe	8420	1920	100	10440
Lead singer	Michael Trapido	9770	150	400	10320
Lead singer	Charl Norman	9390	400	300	10090
Lead singer	Chumpstyle	9480	190	0	9670
Lead singer	Max Kaizen	7950	1040	100	9090
Lead singer	Sarah Britten	8410	210	100	8720
Niche/edge	Rafiq Phillips	7990	190	200	8380
Niche/edge	Ivo Vegter	7940	60	200	8200
Niche/edge	Ray Hartley	7840	110	800	8750
Niche/edge	Andy Hadfield	6410	130	100	6640
Niche/edge	Tertia Albertyn	5450	80	600	6130
Niche/edge	Richard Catto	5330	120	100	5550
Niche/edge	Eve Dmochowska	4270	60	100	4430
Niche/edge	Mark Keohane	3510	110	500	4120
Niche/edge	Ndumiso Ngcobo	3400	110	200	3710
Niche/edge	Damien du Toit	3190	10	0	3200
Bit player	Bolton DeVenter	2650	150	100	2900

* The methodology is fraught of course because specific names are at a disadvantage to generic names. I was more careful about weeding out non relevant results in the “News” and “Blog” results because these were more manageable. But wading through Google to see some responses one gets a sense that the heavyweights deserve their rankings despite the addition of irrelevant results. Then this is time bound – the figures will change in time.

 

The gods (Mandela/Huffington) and demiurges (Mugabe) are added to offer contrast. To show by relativity what real influence is in terms of numbers.

 

What is interesting with the GForce table is how the design heroes have become the gods of the internet (Adii/Mark Forrester). This picks up on something Simon Dingle tweeted today: “Web 2.0: transforming web designers into messiahs.” If you look at the local and global design heavyweights he’s absolutely right, and I bet that the design gurus will be the first to operate on a global platform. Then there are the suprises like Skinny LaMinx who achieve the numbers because of the extreme creativity and value offered. If there’s one person who deserves to be a global guru it’s the LaMinx because of her extreme smarts.

 

As expected those who are the most vocal on public forums are not necessarily the most influential.  Those who are influential offer value of some or other kind – they lead thinking, trends, news, opinion. Be it knowledge, information or advance sight to niche audiences – they lead content.

Then in terms of the categories:

• The rock stars – these are the people to watch, the thought leaders, the cultists.
• The pop icon – they cause waves of influence and attract interest, but don’t have the broad reach or influence of a rock star.
• The lead singers – They’re hot but either appeal to a specific niche audience or are still fledgling rock stars.
• The audience : Either they don’t give a damn about influence, are on their way up, on their own mission or are a lot less influential than they’d like to think.
• Bolton deVenter : A bit player invented by a rock star.

To confirm that the rock stars lead opinion by adding value I plotted a Blogopticon – which is an idea I got from VanityFair.

 

Given I do have a day job I only plotted the top ten, but you can download the file here if you want to take this further if you’ve got nothing better to do with your life. Download BlogOpticon

 

Lastly, I believe there is huge potential in local blogging (and local Web technology and services) but that the success of this will be determined by an ability to see beyond ourselves. By adding value to the audiences we want to reach.

Comments

[Mandy de Waal]

@Richard Catto: Guy McLaren - really? I reckon it will be one of those mysteries. Whomever it was - very smart. Great sense of humour.

@amandzing - Poetry is so hot!

[amandzing]

poetry is just not hot. *woe is me sigh*

[Richard Catto]

Okay, I will come right out and say it.

I believe the most likely suspect for the creation of Bolton DeVenter is actually Guy McLaren.

[Mandy de Waal]

@ Chris - That SkinnyLaMinx is quite something. Major find. Awesome creativity. And damn it. You're right about Hofmeyr. But I'm unfairly prejudice to Koos Kombuis - so I'll leave things as they are for now. But will have to change it the next time I'm trying to 'win friends and influence people.' ;)

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@ChrisM - Thanks for the email and letting me know about your blog. And yes - nice to hear about what you're up to.

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@EveD - We obviously have different understandings of influence. Kudo's to http://marco-za.blogspot.com/ and http://ninjamonkeys.co.za/ for their reach, but reach or page views does not equal influence in my book. If you go through those you will see they there's not huge interaction on those blogs. This - together with the Clickatell corporate web site (http://www.clickatell.com/) ranking at 14 on the Technorati/Amatomu list shows that the ranking is fraught. Then influence can be positive or negative. Mandela is influential, and so is Mugabe,they just choose to wield their influence differently. Lastly real influence in part includes the ability to affect the media agenda and public agenda. (And nope -nobody on my list blogs about kittens, although I haven't checked Matt Buckland's blog lately. Your list though includes people who blog about bunnies, trap jaw ants and chard. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing - all that freedom of speech. But I wouldn't take all this too seriously. It's just blogging about blogging. Hardly earth shattering stuff.)

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@Melissa: I reckon you're profile's growing nicely. I've been aware of you for a while. Long before I got back into journalism anyway.

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@Adii: Nice one - but interesting what Simon Dingle said on Twitter, that designers are the new messiahs of social media. That's a question I've put to Matt Mullenweg who I'm doing a story on for Brainstorm. Will be interesting to see what he says about that.

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@Vinny - you make me laugh big time - "how'd you like them apples.".

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@Matt - Damn. When I quickly glanced over your response I thought you said you were going to forgo blogging to learn how to strum the ukalaili. Music's loss if flora's gain.

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@Richard - The thot plickens. I have my suspicions about the author of the Bolton scandal. My undercover journalists are tracing the source of that story as I type this. No stone will be left unturned.

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@Chris Roper - Damn. Damn damn damn. I hate it when you're right and I'm wrong.

[Chris Roper]

It's just occurred to me - I've been wondering how it's possible for Steve Hofmeyr to be so far down the list. I see you've spelt his name incorrectly. Think he'd be higher on Google with the correct spelling, or is that error page specific?

[Richard Catto]

I think Bolton DeVenter was actually invented by someone who aspires to be a rockstar.

[Matthew Buckland]

well, i'm thinking of giving up blogging and going into gardening. I feel the need to care for a Eucalyptus

[VInny Lingham]

http://www.amatomu.com/

Click on the Technorati tab on the homepage and that should give a global view of where everyone in the Amatomu blogosphere ranks worldwide.

How you like them apples Eric? :-)

Interesting post Mandy... coincides with something I read a few days ago - "the more interesting your life becomes, the less you blog" :-)

[Adii]

Wow... There can be only one someone once said... Rockstar that is... :)

How the hell did I manage to kill that one? :P

[Andrew]

Haha, Eric Edelstein ranks higher than Vinny Lingham. Vinny won't be pleased.

[Melissa]

You've raised some interesting points...I'm also inclined to look at the PR value (it's what often matters to potential blog advertisers)
However, my PR is pretty good (better than most) but yet I'm rarely on 'the' lists so I dunno...all a matter of opinion I guess :)

[Eve Dmochowska]

This would be great, but I am not sure I understand the correlation between Google News result and blog influence? Just because someone has a high Google ranking, does that make them a more influential blogger? For example, what if you have a high Google rank because you are notorious, but you blog about your cat's kittens? Does that make you influential blogger?

The list I outlined to you in my email, which was all about bloggers and number crunching, is based mostly on Technoratti ranking which, although still frought with issues, allows you to compare oranges with oranges. You are, after all, confining yourself to the blogosphere and not the websphere.

Recently, a blog post made the rounds on the top 100 people in the web world. This was measured by the Google result numbers, and was actually a clever way to assess CELEBRITIES, but not influencers (which the author of the blog post acknowledged). For instance, Perez Hilton scored considerably higher than Larry or Sergei, but I think we can at least agree on who really has had more influence on the world.
http://www.techcult.com/top-100-web-celebrities/

Incidentally, the clever Google boys have an algorithm in place that ranks the influence/authority of blogs. This PageRank, a closely guarded algorithm, is the most pursued number by professional bloggers. On a scale of 10, the higher your rank, the more influence you will have (due to other applications of the PR rank).

Quirk has a very clever tool that allows you to see the PR of a website. Amatomu ranks local blogs according to Technorati rankings (which I would put my money on). I used a similar approach (the one I outlined in my email to you) in my Thought Leader posts. When I wrote it, there were 51 local blogs ranking higher than 100,000 on Technorati.
http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/evedmochowska/2007/10/03/sas-top-51-blogs

I will republish the list, with updated results, this week. It will be interesting to compare how the blogosphere has evolved - or not - in the last year or so.

[Chris M]

I would be interested in knowing where I would rank in that mix..

[Chris Roper]

Fantastic concept! We need more of this. Be interesting to do one based on readers per week or something as well, although I suspect that'll be unfair to some. So Keo will jump up, and someone like Heather from Skinny LaMinx will disappear, which of course has little relation to influence or worth.