Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

2006 Annual Weblog Awards In Review

The 2006 Annual Weblog Awards is upon us again. This time the Best Asian Weblog category seems to have mysteriously left out Xiaxue but has included Noodlepie and Tokyo Times again. My friend Simon has been included (well done!) and we now have an Indian weblog (excellent!) and another Japanese Weblog.

1. Simon World – Technorati Ranking: 2,268 (1,540 links from 437 sites)
2. Tokyo Times – Technorati Ranking: 10,249 (263 links from 141 sites)
3. India Uncut – Technorati Ranking: 1,220 (2,245 links from 666 sites)
4. Tokyo Girl – Technorati Ranking: 89,518 (52 links from 28 sites)
5. Noodlepie – Technorati Ranking: 27,523 (576 links from 69 sites)

Overall, this year’s nominees are a better representation of the Asian blogosphere. Strangely, there are no Malaysian, Singapore, Phillipino or Indonesian weblogs although it is common knowledge that those countries boast vibrant and active blogospheres.

I do wonder why (5) Noodlepie was included though. His technorati ranking is dismal – it clearly shows that he lacks an audience. So how did he end up in the final 5 nominees? (4) Tokyo Girl’s ranking of 89, 518 is even worse – she doesn’t even have an audience. And of course (2) Tokyo Times’s ranking of 10, 249 is an indication that the site has only just begun to grow.

Now I am not saying that popularity equals good blogging. If I ever had to submit nominations for the best blog it would be not so well known blogs like Preetam or Ampulets, which I think represent blogging in the highest possible form but remain largely unappreciated by the unwashed masses.

Back to the question of how on earth did this list of finalists come about?

My guess is that we (you and me) were all too complacent and didn’t bother to nominate anybody. Or we did nominate somebody but didn’t canvass for votes to help bring that somebody to the finals. In a worst case scenario, you’ve only just found out about this 2006 awards from reading this post (ha-ha).

In any case, my vote goes out to Simon World, but India Uncut is also excellent and you might want to check it out.

Good point about Technorati, but you’re not really comparing like with like. Simon’s site is emminently more linkable than an ultra niche site like noodlepie. I’m not sure if Technorati really offers much for a blog like noodlepie. The food content is more of a resource than a subject for debate – and therefore mucho linking – by Technorati users. Plus, Technorati fails to aggregate both site URLs into one stat.

TBH, I can’t make much sense out of site stats. I’ve tried three. All give quite varied results. For now I stick with statcounter – dunno how reliable it is – but it tells me I currently have around 2,500 hits per day and climbing. Therefore it’s not a massive site, but big enough to earn a few hundred dollars from Adsense & BlogAds every month.

I can remember thinking not too that long ago that getting 1,000 hits a day would be quite something. But, there’s only ever *so many* people who regularly read a streetfood (and occasionally) journalism blog :)

Sorry to burst to your bubble, but from Cowboy’s summary of his own site’s traffic for last year, he got 5.2million hits. That translates into an average of 433,333 hits/month and 14,444 hits/day.

And he doesn’t even run any ads on his site apart from that one ad from his host.

Actually the hits do not matter. Only unique pageviews matter. Hits are an inaccurate representation of web traffic.

Hunh? No bubbles. No bursting. 1,000 hits, visitors, subscribers, gnomes, windowshoppers… yada, yada… is about as much as any ultraniche blog could ever expect.

I agree with what Pieman said about the Technorati ratings. I would also like to add that I did not canvas for nomination neither did Tokyo Times, certainly not on his website; I was not familiar with the other sites until Monday, so have no idea if they canvassed or not. With only five finalists, it is clearly impossible to have a finalist from each country in Asia, irrespective of the size of the blogging community in these countries.

Despite my sites apparently abysmal Technorati rating, I clearly had enough of an audience to get nominated.

All the blogs in the Asian category are very different: One about politics, one about food, one about humorous things in the Japanese media, and a personal blog about life in Tokyo. So a comparison between them is hardly valid, just vote for the one that YOU like best, trust YOUR judgment — you don’t need to turn to Technorati for reassurance. This is about YOU and YOUR preferences and not about what other people think.

caleb, there is a singaporean website nominated in the Best Teen Blog category. raining noodles is singaporean, no?

“Now I am not saying that popularity equals good blogging. … My guess is that we (you and me) were all too complacent and didn’t bother to nominate anybody. Or we did nominate somebody but didn’t canvass for votes to help bring that somebody to the finals.”

Then what does it matter – if, especially as you have already observed, popularity does not always equate ‘good blogging’, the numbers game really should not be taken seriously.

Who cares if anyone wins some blogging award.

It’s like getting ‘link of the day’ award in 1999 during early internet.

Totally pointless

Hey, I was one of the panelists selecting finalists, but not in the Asian category. To be honest, I was looking for writers that were interesting, and screw popularity.

Cowboy Caleb: Bloggies Analist. hahahaha!