Intellectual Property Law

Short Note On "Top Patent Blogs"

By Peter Zura

?There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it?

-- Mark Twain

While these lists pop up from time-to-time, the IP Watchdog recently compiled a list of the "top 25 patent blogs." The list places yours truly at number 13:

Certainly a respectable number, but not one to inspire vanity. When I went to verify the ranking on Technorati, I discovered that the rank in the "top blog" listing was considerably different from what Technorati was showing me:

Apparently, my ranking (84,457) was cut in half for the listing. When I checked the other blogs, the numbers were different too (although not to this degree). What does this mean? I don't know. While I track readership like any other blog or website, anyone who blogs in a highly specialized area (i.e., you're not competing with Drudge or Gizmodo) knows that, after a certain point, the rankings become fuzzy. And depending on the rank methodology used, the rankings can become distorted.

I don't usually make hay out of such issues, but given that the list has been widely distributed, I thought I'd set the record straight (at least to the readers of this blog).

Full post as published by Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog on February 24, 2009 (boomark / email).