1. Find all relevant blogs (bloglines, newsgator, technorati, del.icio.us, Google blog search, relevant blog rolls)
a) Note down all of these blogs into the "long list", except the following - (i) abandoned blogs, (ii) blogs which don't appear to produce any original content whatsoever and (iii) blogs whose content is quite buried by external or internal advertising (the site is really about selling X goods/services and the blog is just an extension of that with no other redeeming value).
b) Arrange the long list alphabetically and keep it, it is important
2. Make a short list of five blogs - the three best ones, plus two others which don't suck, chosen randomly from the long list [why the random element? although it is necessary for me to devise and use some system for evaluating blogs, such systems are always subjective and flawed and aren't to be relied up without reservations]
3. How to choose the best blogs? Rate each blog in the long list according to the following criteria, scoring from 1-3
- Advertising (a blog with zero advertising scores a 3, a blog with instrusive and annoying advertising scores a 1)
- Conversation (are there helpful & interesting comments and trackbacks, or nothing or just a lot of spam?)
- Frequency (don't update too often or too infrequently to score a 3 here)
- Originality (is it just saying "me too" or does the blog seem to add something different to the conversation?)
- Quality (whether it be quality of research, argument, writing style, links, design)
- Bonus points. Anything else relevant not already taken in account? Add or subtract up to 3 points
If there's a tied total score and the tie means the difference between inclusion or not, prefer the blog with the highest quality score, if that's tied, decide the "winner" randomly.
This is just for finding a short list of blogs in an unfamiliar area, if I were forced to evaluate blogs in a known area, I would use a different criteria.
