Web Measurement
OK, so everyone thinks that they’ve nailed the art of measuring emerging media. No one has. And personally, I don’t think that anyone ever will.
If I suggested you read the Hunter S. Thompson biography written by Johnny Depp, and we’re pretty good friends, would you calculate how likely that is to happen on a scale of one to ten? No, you wouldn’t. And if you don’t know how much I influence you, how is someone who doesn’t know you supposed to decide how much you’re influenced by, or influence, other people. Exactly.
So, on that note (drum roll please and please place your tongue firmly within your cheek), I present to you my new way of measurement. This does not take into account influence, nor does it indicate popularity or expertise. This highlights how involved someone is within their community – it is then down to the reader to decide how influential, popular and savvy that individual is. And it’s my way.
The basic premise is simple; the closer you are to the centre, the more established you are within that sphere.
| Centre Web Stuart Bruce, Stephen Davies, David Brain and Stephen Waddington.Level One Neville Hobson, Drew Benvie, Ged Carroll, Simon Collister, Joel Cere, Colin Byrne, Jonathan Hopkins, David Cushman, Chris Applegate and Brendan Cooper. Level Two Etc… |
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Let me explain the theory. The social sphere of, say, PR bloggers is just that, a sphere. It cannot be defined by a traditional list, because online isn’t a traditional medium. I think the best way to display how the echochamber operates is to use a spiderweb system. So, the people at the centre of the web are usually the most established in the echochamber, and those at the outer layers are either new to the sphere or cross over from another echochamber.
So the people at the centre of the UK PR bloggers web are likely to be Stuart Bruce and Stephen Davies. Then, as you can see, as the web expands the numbers of people on each layer increases, this serves a purpose (see, it’s really clever)… I believe that it’s no longer possible (and will become increasingly more difficult) to identify one blogger over the other – and it rarely matters anyway, if blogger A and blogger B have a similar level of presence, why should one be adjudged above the other based on metrics that are likely to be unimportant to the majority of readers and bloggers?
This measure can then be expanded upon greatly by adding in other spheres;
| Geographical | Sector Specific |
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This diagram has been heavily influenced by Dom Whitehurst and the only reason I have chosen to do it again is because he liked my last effort ever so much.
This is a rather link baiting post, but I don’t usually do it and I don’t plan on doing it in the future. I’d like the opinion of all of the people that I linked to and bar emailing them all, this is the only way to make them aware of my post. And most of the people that I have linked to are my friends. Except Chris Norton (!).
(With acknowledgement to Jacorre design studio for providing the original picture that I drew my web from.)