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The Most Influential State Political Blogs

BlogNetNews has been ranking the most influential blogs by state. If you blog in the following states, see if you made the list:

-- Arizona
-- California
-- Colorado
-- Connecticut
-- Delaware
-- Florida
-- Georgia
-- Illinois
-- Indiana
-- Iowa
-- Maryland
-- Massachusetts
-- Michigan
-- New Hampshire
-- New Jersey
-- New York
-- Ohio
-- Oregon
-- Pennsylvania
-- South Carolina
-- Tennessee.
-- Texas
-- Utah

After New Jersey's rankings were published, BlogNetNews founder Dave Mastio discussed them in an interview with Kelly Heyboer, a blogger for The Star-Ledger in the state.

I'm eagerly awaiting the rankings for my home state of West Virginia.

UPDATE: Mastio thought it might be helpful to include for my readers a description of BlogNetNews. Here's how he summed it up in an e-mail to me: "BNN brings together the most insightful and most read local and state political bloggers into a single state-focused page designed to give you a window into what is going on across that slice of the blogosphere. ... Think of BNN as the front-page summary of the state and local political blogosphere."

It sounds like a valuable tool for every blog watcher on Capitol Hill who wants to know what the influentials back home are saying about lawmakers.

Posted by Danny | 09:46 AM

Comments

Wow. Thanks for the plug.

David Mastio | 06.29.07 11:26 AM

Just to give you some perspective from people who are actually members of the "blog communities" that BNN claims to rank. It's been developed and continues to be proven in each new state they launch in that they have a partisan Republican skew and are not representative of the actual widely accepted leaders of most influential blogs in the states.

This has been exposed quite clearly in Virginia and New Hampshire.

Of course, that is no surprise since David Mastoi is a former Bush administration speechwriter. As a credit to your readers, I hope this background info is helpful to clear up the partisan skew of the rankings.

KTM | 06.30.07 04:02 PM

Wow, these rankings are absolutely meaningless. Not only are they subject to influence by a small set of people (BNN's 3 readers), but they also skew right. It doesn't take long to do a Google search to find that these rankings are not respected in the blogosphere. A few links, and comments:

From right-leaning blogger at Red County:
In the Comments at LiberalOC:

As far as the BNN rankings are concerned, I find it odd that you had no problem publicizing your #1 position but once you dropped from #1 it became a marketing gimmick.

As I commented on Art’s blog, I was excited about the BNN ranking when it first came out, and posted about it like everyone else. Even then, my comments were about the OC blogosphere in general, and not a long horn-tooting session about Red County/OC Blog.

Once that wore off, it became apparent it is a marketing gimmick by BNN. They happen to have ready made blogads in different sizes and make it super-easy for us to post them on our blogs. They even had ready-made graphics of the list — complete with one’s individual blog highlighted.

Plus, BNN leaves off some of the genuinely most influential political blogs in the state.

OC Blog has done better in the BNN rankings than anyone other blog, but it’s clear to us this isn’t a credible list. That’s why we dropped it — not the other way around.

From left-leaning Raising Kaine (Virginia):

It's easy to "be the best" if you want to be by simply clicking on your own links through BNN all day long. Some of us just aren't that trite and obsessed with ourselves, I guess, whereas some OTHERS who demand attention all day are. I think we can make some easy guesses as to whom on that list I speak of... ;)

Brian Leubitz | 06.30.07 04:16 PM

Come on Danny, don't be the only person with an internet connection who didn't laugh when seeing this joke.

Blogswarm | 06.30.07 04:27 PM

Boy all that stuff from New Hampshire and Virginia sounds bad – biased, a joke – until you actually read the results.

For example, all three top spots are held by left-leaning blogs in Iowa, Mass, Mich, Ohio,

Left-leaners are also #1 in Conn, Virginia, Indiana, Florida, Texas and Washington State

BNN has launched the influence index in 24 states and left-leaning blogs had 10 of the top spots last week, Non-partisan and media blogs had five and conservatives had nine.

I know in these kinds of debates, the facts don’t matter, but I just thought I’d put it on the record. The left-leaning blogs listed below deserve a lot of credit for the following they’ve developed and they won’t get it if a few left-leaning blogs spewing sour grapes trash the whole thing.

Note, by the way, the big complainer in Virginia is #1 as I post this, their third number one showing. They’ve been #2 or #3 for an additional four weeks.

Week of June 24:

#3 CA www.theliberaloc.com
#2 CO www.coloradoconfidential.com
#1 CN www.myleftnutmeg.com/
#3 CN www.blogs.courant.com/colin_mcenroe_to_wit/
#2 DE http://www.wgmd.com/blog/
#3 DE http://delawareliberal.wordpress.com
#1 FL http://quinnell.us/sspb/ (Florida Progressive Coalition)
#2 GA http://sarawaraclara.blogspot.com
#3 GA http://spaceygreview.blogspot.com/
#2 IL http://illinoisreason.wordpress.com/
#1 IN http://www.takingdownwords.com/taking_down_words/
#2 IN http://www.bilerico.com/
#1 IA http://www.essentialestrogen.com
#2 IA http://www.iowaindependent.com
#3 IA http://jdeeth.blogspot.com
#1 MA http://www.bluemassgroup.com
#2 MA http://point08.blogspot.com/
#3 MA http://medianation.blogspot.com
#1 MI http://www.michiganliberal.com
#2 MI http://ourmichigan.blogspot.com/
#3 MI http://www.mediamouse.org/
#2 NY http://www.thealbanyproject.com
#1 OH http://glasscityjungle.com/wordpress/
#2 OH http://www.plunderbund.com/
#3 OH http://www.progressohio.org
#2 OR http://www.blueoregon.com
#2 PA http://www.brendancalling.com/
#3 SC http://rogueplanet.blogspot.com
#1 TX http://www.offthekuff.com/mt/
#2 TX http://stxc.blogspot.com/
#1 VA http://www.raisingkaine.com
#1 WA http://www.horsesass.org/index.php

David Mastio | 06.30.07 10:19 PM

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