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Although I prefer to keep away from blog fights, I am tempted to voice my opinion regarding the whole non-issue of “Is Kiruba India’s top blogger?”. Chenthil argued that he was not, and Kaps linked it on DesiPundit . The comments at Chenthil’s blog are nothing short of vitriolic attacks on Kiruba’s blogging style and content, most of which I suspect originate from deep rooted feelings of jealousy or the crab mentality. I do not read Chenthil’s blog that often to question his intent but his post and subsequent comments lend credence to (one of) Neha’s opinions about the Indian blogosphere – we are too insular and more concerned about rankings and hits than we should be.
I guess, we should move beyond petty comparisons and focus on creating content rather than indulging in mud-fights. I believe, we can be more mature than that. We don’t see people pulling down Instapundit or Kottke just because they ‘cut-paste’ weblinks. People don’t lament the fact that personal blogger, Dooce or Stephanie Klein are insanely popular; they either read and enjoy it or simply ignore their blogs.
The ones who are fighting over the issue of Kiruba’s position in the blogosphere are missing the point about blogs. Blogs are a medium of personal expression and the author is free to write whatever he or she feels. If enough people like what they see, they visit it often and even link back to it. Why should it bother us if a certain blogger is considered more popular than others? Are you in it for popularity? If yes, then berating ‘popular’ bloggers isn’t helping your cause. In fact, you could learn from them and I bet they are glad to share their secrets.
On the topic of popularity, instead of going into the issue of why Kiruba doesn’t deserve to be India’s top blogger, it would have made sense to see Technorati rankings and inbound links which I consider one of the better measures of analyzing blog popularity. I am listing the Technorati rankings of few blogs that may be popular in the Indian blogosphere:
Mind you, these Technorati rankings just reveal how many blogs link back to the blog in question. It makes no judgement on quality. Also, this list is by no means comprehensive and feel free to test your blog or the blog that you think might be more popular. The rankings and linkbacks can change overnight. For example, a particular blog makes a popular post that gets linked by a ton of blogs, then it will automatically zoom to the top. The list of blogs above are just off the top of my head and apologies if I missed your ‘popular’ blog. Feel free to tell me so and I’ll gladly add it to the list.
To test blog popularity, just go to the Technorati Search page and type in the blog address in the box on top. It will give you a list of blogs that link to it starting with the most recent one. The little blurb on the top [as shown in the images above] will give you the ranking and number of blogs that link back to it.
The best part about Technorati is that the rankings and linkbacks are constantly updated and record stats for the last six months. So, a dead blog is gradually weeded out. Jivha once a behemoth in the Indian blogosphere now has barely ten blogs that link back; mostly from bloggers who haven’t updated their blogroll.
The India Blogstreet directory is hopelessly outdated and even contains non-Indian blogs like Boing Boing, Instapundit, and Kottke. Heck, I even saw a 404 page listed once. I am guessing Rajesh Jain will be pulling the plug on the service soon. For better measures, I cross-checked all top 25 blogs in India Blogstreet’s directory with Technorati and found it to be misleading and inaccurate. E.g. few of the top 10 listed blogs has less than hundred blogs linking back on Technorati.
So, if you ever feel the urge to compare blog popularity, use Technorati. It is pretty slick especially more so after the recent upgrade and redesign. Better still, don’t waste time fuming over Rin-type behavior (bhala uska blog mere blog se popular kaise). Personally, I wouldn’t berate a fellow blogger with whom I have shared a drink. Navel gazing in the blogosphere is a popular activity and I would rather be positive than negative. But then, that’s your choice and who am I to tell you how to spend your time?
Update#1: Kiruba has a perfect response that underlines the essence of blogs i.e. it is his personal blog and he writes whatever he wishes to; rankings-shankings baad mein aate hai.
Update#2: Holy crappola! I seemed to have missed a blogger who breaks the ‘Amit’ monopoly at the top of the list of most-linked Indian blogs. Ajay D’Souza is a geek blogger (obviously!), as his ‘best friend’ describes him to be. His blog is widely linked due to his ‘Connections Reloaded’ Wordpress Theme but a link is a link. That also reminded me of my good friend, Chetan’s awesome Plain Vanilla Theme. He has been linked by more than 300 blogs as well so I have updated my list accordingly. Check it out, he beats Amit A by 225 links:
Thanks to ever-alert Confused who also is on the lookout for the worst blogger. Of course, unlike others, I am sure he means no harm.
Technorati Tags: blogs, technorati, ranking, popularity, Indian, blogosphere
by Patrix | on Saturday, August 5th, 2006 at 6:48 pm | 
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In my view, Kiruba may not have a great writing flair like the redoubtable greatbong but as a kind of personal diary, he presents it very well and it is an education in itself on blogging for new and budding bloggers.
Rankings and statistics can be sometimes very deceptive because the person with a better marketing flair may sport better statistics than the person with the better content. In my one year of blogging, I have seen blogs with excellent content with a high degree of consistency but with no comments.
Just as TV programs such as Indian idols is a platform for singing talent to manifest, blogging is an excellent platform for unknown writing talent to showcase itself. The Chupas rustams of writngs should be spotted and highlighted. Who knows how many Shobha Des and Khushwant Singhs are there amongst us. Greatbong and Domainmasimus obviously have a unique writing flair. More of suoh people should be proactviely identified and highlighted.
Everything that is good is not successful and vice-versa. Naseerudin Shah is a brilliant actor but nowhere successful as Govinda. So success in terms of links and comments in blogging can be deceptive. Some prominent figure from the mainstream media alongwith Desipundit should judge in accordance with the principles of third eye judgement so both the “critic” view and popular view are covered.
Blogging can prove to be a powerful tool in the hands of the indivdual and that too should be explored.
Sorry but I forgot to add a new blog that I floated. The name is “Cust-se-mar-customer” . In case interested, the address is http://custsemar.wordpress.com/
Blogging is not just a tool for self expresion of ideas and opinions. It is also a tool in the context of empowerment of the individual and should be used as such. I am sure our ancestors would have loved to have something like this for the causes they espoused.
ah. you too think its hyped and not worth the discussion? well-met then! the indian blogsphere is sadly juvenile in some ways. tis a big regret that we have so few seriously political blogs.(why are we so scared to be heard when it really matters?!) it seems such a sad waste of the free speech forum. *shrug*
btw – the photos that appear on your page header each time are simply fabulous! i know ive told you so before, but each time i come i find a nicer one to fall for, so i just wanted to tell you so again :)
cheers!
m.
Seriously, the topic didn’t deserve a post and definitely wasn’t worthy of such verbosity. If the cream of Indian blogosphere is scraping the proverbial barrel with such discussions, then there is trouble, the 20 million server side scripts and SEO tools not withstanding.
One thing is clear though, there is a tremendous desire to be heard in these popularity contests, there is this burning desire for validation. This is probably what it is all about. Validation, considering the amount of emotional and cultural baggage we lug as Indians.
On a tangent, do you also see the bankruptcy in Indian blogosphere? I am yet to see a gawker or a political blog conglomerate of credible currency in Indian blogosphere. What is it that we lag? Are we intellectually challenged or do Indians lack the viscosity to create a successful group blog that attracts the attention of political commentators in MSM?
Hiren, unfortunately popularity doesn’t always coincide with quality although that also can be subjective. But as you point out, it is certainly admirable the way Kiruba manages to promote himself through his blog and he makes it quite clear that he is out to do just that. As far as judging quality content, that can be a murky task. We at DesiPundit try to do that but let me be honest, the choice of posts is completely ours and may not reflect the opinion of the majority. That said, there are enough people who visit us and agree with our choices to keep us going.
M, there are quite a few quality political blogs out there but not all get the exposure and eyeballs they deserve. Perhaps, blogs yet aren’t seen as a medium for serious op-eds and still remain as personal blogs. That may not necessarily be a bad thing. I guess we just need time to mature but I’m afraid we aren’t reaching there any quicker.
Regarding those header images, unfortunately they aren’t mine. I have borrowed them from Flickr with due credit on my Colophon page.
Prope//er, thanks for the insightful comment. I agree that I can be verbose at times but I wanted to cover all the bases on advantages of using Technorati ranking as a measure for popularity.
The dearth of alternative blogging as we see in the Western world may be attributable to the lack of numbers. I doubt there are even 100,000 Indian bloggers so the incentive to create content is sorely lacking. Why aren’t we able to do the things that you point out? I frankly have no answer. Perhaps it is a cultural thing or simply or inability to hear an alternative opinion or even our inherent character flaw to run down any opinion that is different from our own. This warrants an extended discussion.
Frankly, I found it quite surprising that Desipundit itself linked that post by Chenthil :) – Chenthil’s post itself was an exercise in self promotion by first slamming kiruba, and smartly linking back other bloggers so that they read that one and comment on it.
I think I-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine mentality will not go out of Indian blogoshphere in general.
S
I wonder why this hype about no. 1 blogger? and technochrati ratings (as pointed my u) are just based on liking sites. If i have to pick one, perhaps i would pick greatbong or mukta…but then there are bloggers like mukta who are not easily visible because its her personal site and she hasn’t even edited the original blogger template.
We should keep blogging clean of attributes like no.1 or the best. Let this be a platform to express ourselves to the world and the hidden writer in us to come up :)
btw great job with desipundit :)
Suyog, I don’t control what other contributors choose to post on DesiPundit. But scratching-the-back behavior is a prevalent everwhere maybe more so in the Indian blogosphere. The old boys network exists everywhere; even in the offline world.
Sharique, let us admit that popularity and quality doesn’t always go together especially because perception of quality is subjective. But at a more personal level, attributes like a top blogger doesn’t matter but lets admit it, its a vicious circle. Once you get hits, you crave for more :)
very true…without even a shadow of doubt
“let us admit that popularity and quality doesn’t always go together especially because perception of quality is subjective. But at a more personal level, attributes like a top blogger doesn’t matter but lets admit it, its a vicious circle.”
Very well said. Found you via technorati…
The Girl Who.
Have posted on this whole issue. just thought it would be fair to give you a heads-up.
An article in yest. TOI- sunday pages. 3 bloggers name were there including indiaUncut.
Quite surprising to see so many posts on popular bloggers. :)
Few days back I already talked about my post on Bloggers & popularity. (You already checked I think).
[...] Recently an interesting debate broke out regarding Kiruba status as India’s number one blogger. A dude called Chenthil wrote a post giving some ‘’logical’’ reasons why he is not, Kiruba defended himself on his blog and Patrix, wrote a logical post, kind of which he is famous for, summing up everything nicely. [...]
The no:1 blogger has inspired many to take up blogging and it is because of him, I have started my blog.
The blog has even been quoted in Guardian Online, but sadly no one has noticed it….a bit of self-promotion never hurts..
Thanks for the reference and the Update2 dedicated to me :)
To join the discussion. How exactly do we measure popularity? And have we “Indian Bloggers” ever decided to be world players?
I think I will write a more detailed post on my blog in the evening, instead of making this a long comment. Will post back here then.
BTW, what is the funda behind Desi Pundit and how do you get your contributors and how exactly do they contribute?
Alright, you dragged me into this by linking me :), that too on my last day, and when my internet lights are just about to go out.
This Kiruba thing sounds much like he’s being trolled (for whatever reasons).
What I like about Kiruba’s blog is his honest take and shows human side of things, and simple life among others.
He is much appreciative when you respond to his quest and whenever it adds to the constructive discussion of his posts. I have never seen him lose his temper on his blog. It’s a gift. Kiruba seems to have it all. I don’t think he really cares about the numbers. He is a guy having fun at what he’s doing and shares those things too (online), and I respect him for that, be it his cross-country bicycling, marathon or rowing.
I have been following his blog since 2002. He held barcamp like talks in Chennai among friends, and used to have tech-related topics and sessions on a Sunday morning. I remember that. (So, in a sense, although he might not have had a word for it, he really started barcamp like discussions in India.)
“Don’t feed the troll” is something we learn by experience. I guess, this is one such.
As for link popularity, in my case, is a non-starter. To me I am still lurking somewhere at 50k technorati rank (even if it shows 6000 something). Because people are using my theme and hence the link. It doesn’t say anything about the quality of my blog. So, it is easy to deduct me from the list of popular ones.
[As a matter of fact, I didn't want a link back because of the theme, and hence I hid my link in the source by commenting the line -- see any Plain Vanilla powered blog's source, the link is commented, by me in the file. But I can't stop people from putting-up an attribution, although not needed at all from my side. Blogsome even went on to put a very visible link at the bottom. And those are the ones that are showing.]
A lot of others have earned their due through their writings and posts, and so those links are their earnings. Unlike mine.
That reminds me about pointing to a recent wonderful post: Gentle Reader, Stay Awhile; I Will Be Faithful.
It is worth reading for all those who squabbling about ‘popularity’.
Chetan, my opinion regarding this echoes yours hence the title of the post. The reason I made this post was simply to point out that if we really want to talk about popularity, let us use the more reliant Technorati rankings. Of course, this doesn’t offer any opinion on quality. Probably you opted out of the credits but as I understand, the blog cred works on attribution and a link might be the only ‘payment’ or feedback you get for your work in the blogosphere so in that way, even technical help like attribution for your theme is acceptable. But others might differ.
Thanks for that great link. Lovely read.
[...] Patrix has expressed his opinion on Popularity in the Indian Blogosphere. He goes on to list several Indian blogs (including mine) according to their Technorati Ranking. [...]
Hey,
Made a blog post on popularity.
Do join the discussion there and let others know as well.
Thanks :)
P.S. Remove the Crazy Factor pingback, it is a spam blog.
I had missed the contovery but enjoyed your writeup tremendously. Thanks!
check this list out :D
[...] There’s a storm brewing in the collective cutting chai of the Indian blogosphere on who is the top Indian blogger. Labels like this mean nothing. Who is an Indian? Anil Dash who’s a big-shot at SixType? Should Om Malik be there? [...]
[...] http://www.kiruba.com/ — India’s Top Blogger? [...]