What are the Top Blogs of the Net, Really?

Now there's a question for you - what are the top blogs on the net?

TechCrunch published an interesting list - the top blogs and news sites on Google Reader. According to the data there, BBC, Google News and ESPN are the top three sites. I was surprised for a second there, to see Google News so high up. After all, it's not a very efficient news service, and the information there isn't very helpful. Then again, it might be a default choice that a lot of people just didn't bother to remove - exactly the same as the MSN homepage in every IE.

When you look at Technorati's list, there are no "official" news sites - only blogs. According to Technorati, the leading blogs are Engadget, Gizmodo, and Boing Boing.

Bloglines' most popular feeds show a different picture altogether. eBizMBA gives another ranking (for August 2007). You can't trust data from Alexa, naturally, so that leaves us with a lot of nothing.

Popularity contests can be won in many ways. There are different ways to look at data, and many times it's twisted to the favor of the one presenting the data. These lists are interesting gimmicks - but nothing more - and they shouldn't be taken too seriously.