Monday, April 23rd, 2007...2:12 pm
The Blogosphere In 3D
Ever wanted to know what the blogosphere looked like? Me neither, but Discovery Magazine has provided a picture nonetheless.
Even though the vast majority of blogs are either abandoned or isolated, many bloggers like to link to other Web sites. These links allow analysts to track trends in blogs and identify the most popular topics of data exchange. Social media expert Matthew Hurst recently collected link data for six weeks and produced this plot of the most active and interconnected parts of the blogosphere.
Looking at the picture below, each white dot represents a blog, with the larger white dots being the most popular blogs - having more incoming and outgoing links. Green lines indicate one-way links and blue lines show reciprocal links.
- The big white dot is DailyKos. They don’t like to show much link love.
- The king of off-beat news BoingBoing shines the brightest in this area.
- Here we have the Livejournal community. They tend to keep to themselves, much like a leper colony.
- The blue blob apparently represents a balanced sociopolitical discourse, with Michelle Malkin’s blog being the brightest spot in the area.
- On the outer edge is were the porn industry gathers to chat over milk and cookies.
- Separated from the main pack are the sports enthusiasts. Unlike the perverts and Livejournal folk, they do have some links back to the larger community.
9 Comments
April 23rd, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Quote: “Many bloggers like to link to other Web sites.” Is that true?
Wow, thank you for that article - I feel like a part of an endangered species now. Where is my little abandoned spot on that graph? *sigh*
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Holy, wow. That’s amazing. I’ve seen a 2D wanna be schematic, but this is really cool. Nice find.
April 24th, 2007 at 2:08 am
very, very interesting… tsk, tsk, if only i could find my tiny (sometimes) abandoned spot somewhere in the blogisphere you’ve created… hehehe.
;) 
April 24th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
LOLLLL
good one*
i’d like to see a 3D visualization of the vaunted “Long Tail” too* My “TOP SECRET” plan is to collect a Penny from each of those Blogs in my Quest to be the First Web2.0 Billionaire*
;))
p.s. thx fer Faving my Blog on Technorati*
April 25th, 2007 at 9:57 am
Abandoned blogs? Technorati says it’s tracking over 70 million blogs…wouldn’t it be nice to know how many are inactive. A look at the trend may also show that the explosion that we so love to talk about is losing steam….I wonder…
Very nice visual representation though…and nice find.
April 25th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
wow! that’s amazing! love how u refer to livejournal as a leper colony…
April 26th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Very cool graphic. Your commentary on it was funny.
Are those really the places you mention or just guesses?
April 26th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
They are the actual places.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
That makes it even funnier.
Great post.
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