VentureBeat

After two weeks at VentureBeat, I’ve finally made the very bottom of the latest blogger A-list. Too bad BTS411 editor Tom Blue’s Top Bloggers/Twitter Users/Authors for Traffic chart doesn’t make me feel statistically relevant. Here’s why:

• Blue’s list is restricted to “bloggers/writers/Twitter users that regularly discuss Web startups and profile them.” That’s a mere tidal pool next to the big sea of the Internet. If you run or invest in a startup, your PR contractor is trying to get you into the Wall Street Journal for a reason.
• The list’s napkin-math methodology assigns Compete.com traffic for entire domains to individual authors. This leads to New York Times tech bloggers being credited with the entire news site’s readership. At the same time, the list omits Times tech superstar David Pogue. He doesn’t regularly write about startups, but you wouldn’t want to leave Pogue off your pitch list. The guy has nearly 350,000 followers on Twitter. Less Networks CEO Rich MacKinnon told me yesterday that getting into a Pogue column in 2006 was a big deal for him.
• How does TechCrunch writer MG Siegler, with 7,700 followers and 1.8 million visitors, come out ahead of CNET long-timer Rafe Needleman’s 13,000 followers and 6 million visitors? MG is highly regarded at VentureBeat, that’s why I’m picking on him. But the list’s numeric rankings aren’t adequately explained for me to take them more seriously than the “Hottest Men Under 30″ lists that New York magazines whip up every month.

I can’t shake the feeling that the sole agenda of this list is to get me to post it and link back to BTS411. At least on that front, it worked.

[Image from RealEstateInvestor.com]

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Tags: co:venturebeat, self-referential, too insidery