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The Top 50 Classical Blogs, Using 4 Different Methods

April 5th, 2008 Posted in classical music

Some of you will probably have noticed that a couple of days ago ACD decided to release his own list of the 50 top classical music blogs (which incidentally should more properly be called the top 53, using his current dense-ranking method) based on the number of incoming links according to the god of the internet, Google. In the process he somewhat pissed off a few people, notably Scott over at Musical Perceptions who has been compiling his own rankings for the last couple of years (using the Technorati authority number) but whom ACD neglected to credit with prior art (there is a rather bitter exchange in the comments over at Musical Perceptions here). Also myself (though I’d say it’s irritated then pissed off) due to refusing to use the URL which everybody actually links to in their blogroll to determine the number of incoming links. However, it is his blog, his screening choices, his rankings list.

Well, it occurred to me that since I spend every day managing large chunks of data and automating stuff I could probably whip up a script which automatically calculates my own classical blog rankings, according to my own choices. So I did exactly that. There may be a couple of bugs still, if you find anything in error please let me know so I can patch it up. I was particularly interested in trying to perform this in the most scientific way possible, so I’ve used four distinct methods of ranking. There is the Google incoming links method (as ACD uses), the Technorati authority method (which Scott uses) but additionally I use Bloglines RSS feed subscribers (which Chris Foley did once) and a completely new method, which is the number of Google Reader subscribers.

Now, I’m considering this a bit of a beta-test since I probably missed a few blogs which should have been included (I tried to combine ACD’s list and the Musical Perceptions list, along with a bunch of others, the complete list I used is here, add yours if I’m missing it please!) and there might be a couple of mistakes. While the program I use obviously has a larger chance of having a bug then a human does (depending upon caffeine ingested), the huge advantage is that it only takes around five minutes to collect and analyze all the data for about 100 blogs. What I’d like is for people to suggest improvements, for example, should I combine the results together to produce a super-ranking? Should I combine the RSS feed data with the Technorati authority to give a “current readership” number? If people are interested I’ll polish it up and analyze it differently.

So without further ado, here are the “top” 50 blogs as of yesterday using four different ranking methods, the first number next to each blog is it’s rank, the number in parentheses is the total number of subscribers, number of incoming links, etc.

Google Reader Subscriptions

1 (946) The Rest is Noise
2 (168) Sequenza21
3 (162) Think Denk
4 (161) Jessica Duchen’s Classical Music Blog
5 (140) Dial “”M”" for Musicology
6 (134) About Last Night
7 (127) Opera Chic
7 (127) Terminal Degree
9 (117) Musical Perceptions
10 (110) Ionarts
11 (105) Chicago Classical Music
12 (97) The Rambler
13 (93) Soho the Dog
14 (76) ANABlog
15 (72) Classical Music
16 (65) Aworks
17 (60) Sounds & Fury
18 (53) Deceptively Simple
19 (49) The Standing Room
20 (48) Slipped Disc
21 (47) The Concert
21 (47) CSO Bass Blog
23 (46) The Collaborative Piano Blog
24 (44) Parterre Box
25 (40) A View from the Podium
26 (37) Renewable Music
27 (34) Wolf Trap Opera
28 (33) The Iron Tongue of Midnight
28 (33) Musical Assumptions
28 (33) My Favorite Intermissions
31 (29) Sieglinde’s Diaries
31 (29) On a Pacific Aisle
33 (28) Mostly Opera
34 (27) Thirteen Ways
35 (26) Oboeinsight
35 (26) The Well-Tempered Blog
35 (26) An Unamplified Voice
38 (25) Mad Musings of Me
39 (24) Sandow
40 (23) PostClassic
41 (22) Daily Observations
41 (22) Classical Convert
41 (22) Felsenmusick
44 (20) On an Overgrown Path
44 (20) Prima La Musica poi le parole
44 (20) Roger Bourland
47 (17) Mmmusing
48 (16) Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog
48 (16) The Omniscient Mussel
48 (16) Wellsung

Technorati Authority

1 (775) Sequenza21
2 (699) The Rest is Noise
3 (266) About Last Night
4 (160) Opera Chic
5 (133) Violinist Diaries
6 (129) PostClassic
7 (121) Ionarts
8 (109) Night after Night
9 (108) Think Denk
9 (108) Parterre Box
11 (107) Sandow
12 (97) Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog
13 (90) Soho the Dog
14 (88) Jessica Duchen’s Classical Music Blog
15 (87) Adaptistration
16 (85) Dial “”M”" for Musicology
17 (82) Deceptively Simple
18 (81) Musical Perceptions
19 (75) The Collaborative Piano Blog
20 (67) Sounds & Fury
21 (66) On an Overgrown Path
21 (66) The Rambler
23 (64) The Standing Room
24 (58) The Concert
24 (58) Oboeinsight
24 (58) Roger Bourland
27 (54) Mostly Opera
28 (51) The Iron Tongue of Midnight
29 (43) Renewable Music
30 (42) Sieglinde’s Diaries
31 (40) Aworks
31 (40) A View from the Podium
31 (40) Musical Assumptions
34 (38) CSO Bass Blog
35 (36) Chicago Classical Music
35 (36) Thirteen Ways
37 (35) Mad Musings of Me
37 (35) My Favorite Intermissions
39 (33) Wolf Trap Opera
40 (32) Daily Observations
41 (30) Terminal Degree
41 (30) ANABlog
41 (30) Classical In Seattle
44 (29) The Well-Tempered Blog
45 (27) Classical Music
45 (27) Classical Convert
47 (24) A Monk’s Musical Musings
48 (23) An Unamplified Voice
48 (23) On a Pacific Aisle
48 (23) Prima La Musica poi le parole
48 (23) The Omniscient Mussel

Google Incoming Links

1 (7670) About Last Night
2 (6910) The Rest is Noise
3 (3590) On an Overgrown Path
4 (3080) PostClassic
5 (2830) Ionarts
6 (2800) Sequenza21
7 (2790) Sounds & Fury
8 (2780) Jessica Duchen’s Classical Music Blog
9 (2600) Sandow
9 (2600) Night after Night
11 (2220) An Unamplified Voice
12 (2210) Mad Musings of Me
13 (2100) Classical Music
14 (1940) Musical Perceptions
15 (1900) The Iron Tongue of Midnight
16 (1680) The Concert
17 (1660) The Standing Room
18 (1620) Soho the Dog
19 (1550) Opera Chic
20 (1480) Parterre Box
21 (1420) Vilaine fille
22 (1410) Think Denk
23 (1380) Aworks
23 (1380) On The Record
25 (1370) Oboeinsight
26 (1360) Deceptively Simple
27 (1260) ANABlog
28 (1200) The Rambler
29 (1180) Dial “”M”" for Musicology
30 (1110) Slipped Disc
31 (1100) The Well-Tempered Blog
32 (1090) Sieglinde’s Diaries
32 (1090) Violinist Diaries
34 (1080) Mostly Opera
34 (1080) Twang Twang Twang
36 (969) Terminal Degree
37 (966) Prima La Musica poi le parole
38 (956) Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog
39 (800) Musical Assumptions
40 (763) Wellsung
41 (761) Thirteen Ways
42 (747) Roger Bourland
43 (739) Renewable Music
44 (697) A View from the Podium
45 (680) My Favorite Intermissions
46 (672) Felsenmusick
47 (633) Intermezzo
48 (625) Adaptistration
49 (554) Daily Observations
50 (532) Out West Arts

Bloglines Subscribers

1 (301) About Last Night
2 (299) The Rest is Noise
3 (97) PostClassic
4 (84) On an Overgrown Path
5 (81) Jessica Duchen’s Classical Music Blog
6 (80) Ionarts
7 (78) Sandow
8 (73) Opera Chic
9 (70) Night after Night
10 (62) Terminal Degree
11 (54) Dial “”M”" for Musicology
12 (50) Sequenza21
12 (50) Musical Perceptions
12 (50) ANABlog
15 (49) Think Denk
16 (44) Sounds & Fury
17 (43) The Concert
18 (42) The Well-Tempered Blog
19 (41) Mad Musings of Me
19 (41) Aworks
21 (40) The Iron Tongue of Midnight
21 (40) The Standing Room
23 (36) The Rambler
23 (36) Classical In Seattle
23 (36) The Short Road to Nirvana
26 (32) An Unamplified Voice
27 (31) Deceptively Simple
27 (31) On a Pacific Aisle
29 (29) Sieglinde’s Diaries
30 (28) Parterre Box
30 (28) The Collaborative Piano Blog
32 (25) Soho the Dog
33 (24) Vilaine fille
33 (24) Wellsung
33 (24) CSO Bass Blog
36 (23) My Favorite Intermissions
37 (22) Slipped Disc
37 (22) Chicago Classical Music
39 (21) On The Record
39 (21) Prima La Musica poi le parole
41 (20) Twang Twang Twang
42 (19) Renewable Music
43 (18) Classical Music
44 (17) Thirteen Ways
44 (17) Felsenmusick
46 (14) Mysteries Abysmal
47 (13) Roger Bourland
48 (12) Mostly Opera
48 (12) Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog
48 (12) A View from the Podium
48 (12) Classical Convert

28 Responses to “The Top 50 Classical Blogs, Using 4 Different Methods”

  1. Chris Foley Says:

    This is probably the classical blogosphere’s most relevant ranking list and thanks for taking the time to compile it.


  2. Roger Bourland Says:

    Roger Bourland is nr. 27 in the Technorati authority with 58, tied with oboeinsight


  3. Ben Says:

    Hi Roger, thanks for the catch, it’s been updated.

    Chris, thanks for your kind words.


  4. Scott Spiegelberg Says:

    Cool! For the Bloglines subscriptions, can you alter the program to grab numbers from alternate subscription types (e.g. Atom vs. rss2) and add them together? That’s what Chris did in his original list. I think one good combination would be to add the Google
    Readers and Blogline readers for a total number of readers (at least for those two major rss readers). Have you looked to see if other readers’ numbers can be grabbed, like Kinja? Or also add the number of favorites from Technorati, since those are basically using Technorati as a reader.

    One interesting combination would be to normalize each value and then calculate an average. This would acknowledge that some blogs are more influential by the number of regular readers, and some by the number of links from fellow bloggers.


  5. Anna Says:

    Hi Ben,

    Well done for putting in such a lot of work. It sounds like a good way of doing it to me, but I’m not to clued up on all this technical stuff.
    Thanks for including me in the blogs used for calculating the top 50, maybe next year we’ll make the list.
    I’ll have to get Robin to go and do something outrageous just to pull a few more readers in….

    Anna


  6. Lisa Hirsch Says:

    Excellent.

    Ben, were you able to run a script on Google for incoming links or did you have to separately search for each blog?


  7. Ben Says:

    Scott,

    Great suggestions! I’ll have a look into extracting both of the bloglines scores. In principal I can add other rankings as well, I just have to work out a way to programmatically retrieve the rankings. Kinja unfortunately looks like it might be a bit awkward. If there are any good sources you can think of let me know.

    I kind of like the idea of coming up with two combined rankings. One would be the “establishment” score (maybe an average of Google incomings, total technorati links) while the other could be a “readership” type score (maybe both RSS feeds and technorati authority) but I wonder if certain ranks should be given more weight in the averages.

    Ben


  8. Ben Says:

    Anna,
    You’re welcome, thanks, and good luck forcing Robin into doing something outrageous :)

    Lisa,
    The script does it automatically. I just feed in a file containing the blog names and URLs, and it conducts a search for each in turn, extracts the score and outputs it to a spreadsheet. I just do a few manual checks afterward to make sure things aren’t going awry, and patch up the ones which didn’t work perfectly for one reason or another.


  9. Jason Heath Says:

    Talk about a comprehensive project! Very cool. I need to check and see how many of them I’m following in Google Reader. It seems to be the only way I scan the blogosphere these days.


  10. oboeinsight » Blog Archive » Kinda Funny Says:

    [...] Drew feels that some are being overlooked (you have to read the comments at ACD’s place). Classical Convert put together his own list because he felt ACD didn’t do right by him and some others. Due to these last lists I’m [...]


  11. Lisa Hirsch Says:

    Ben, could I possibly see your script? I’ve tried to find information on using scripts to query Google off and on over the years without success.


  12. Ben Says:

    Hi Lisa,

    Sure! The collection and processing are broken up into two separate scripts, but I guess the piece you are interested in is the one that actually grabs the data from Google, the relevant section is:

    import urllib2  
    import re
    import string

    
    def get_google_incomings(blog_address):
     try:
          request="http://www.google.com/search?q=link:%s" % blog_address
          opener = urllib2.build_opener()
          opener.addheaders = [('User-agent', 'Mozilla/5.0')]
          usock = opener.open(request)
          f=usock.read()
          return string.replace(re.search("of\ about\ \<b\>(.*)\<\/b\>\ linking",f).group(1),",","")
       except:
          return "-"

    Which is a function in Python that takes an address as argument, crafts a header to not look like urllib2 is requesting the page (as Google replies with a 403 if the user-agent doesn’t look like a browser for “link:” searches) requests the page and extracts the number using a regular expression. It’s not terribly elegant, but it works!


  13. Top 50 « The Gathering Note Says:

    [...] 7, 2008 by Zach Carstensen The old site, Classical In Seattle, has made the top fifty classical music blogs under a couple of different calculations.  Daily Observations down in Portland also cracked [...]


  14. Lisa Hirsch Says:

    Ben, thank you so much.


  15. daily observations » blog rankings 2008 Says:

    [...] stumbled upon a post over at Classical Convert which has published lists of the Top 50 Classical Music Blogs using four different metrics – most [...]


  16. Gabor Says:

    By all four of your measures, Nico Muhly’s blog (nicomuhly.com) would make the top twenty, when not the top ten.


  17. Ben Says:

    Gabor,

    Thanks, I’ll add Nico to the list for the next iteration.

    Ben


  18. Chip Clark Says:

    Wow… I’ve been a programmer for years (albeit, not a very good one) – used to work for Netscape when it ruled the WWW up until AOL let us all go…

    …and yet it never ceases to amazing me the lovely little gems (like what Ben posted) for scripting all sorts of ways to more effectively use the internet.

    Not only a nice list, but a new way of compiling my own..


  19. A List of 25 Lists | Soft Tech Reviews Says:

    [...] Top 50 Classical Blogs, Using 4 Different Methods [...]


  20. Classical Music Videos Says:

    Very nice blog! This is very informative. Keep it up!


  21. Bob Hooper Says:

    Excellent, I have now added this to my Bookmarks.

    Best

    Bob


  22. Ludwig Says:

    Excellent collection! Thank you for sharing!


  23. Free Classical MP3s Says:

    This is a vital collection of cultural links. The greatest composers may long be dead, but their music sounds on!


  24. Mr. Blue Says:

    This is a very convenient and informative list. I’ll definitely revisit some of the blogs listed. Also check out the classical music website http://www.musicride.org.


  25. Matt Mclaughlin Says:

    Sounds like lot of effort. Managing lot of data and rankings sure needs lot hard work.


  26. Walt Ribeiro Says:

    As an orchestral composer, this is an amazing list. There’s tons of great material out there. Great Post!


  27. Can We Have Brahms Without Raisins? | Air & Sea Battle Says:

    [...] Here, now, is an entertainment-quotient blog roundup, semi-based on this terrifyingly scientific roundup of classical blogs: [...]


  28. Eric Henderson Classical Guitar Says:

    Thanks for complilng this list. Im a Classical Guitarist and am always looking for interesting sites. Thanks!


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