Linkology: how the top 50 blogs are related to one another

New York Metro has posted up a Technorati-fuelled analysis of the interconnections between the top 50 blogs, plus a description of each blog, split into categories "technology", "politics", "gossip" and "other". It's a good visual snapshot of the linking patterns over the past 90 days.

What surprises me most about the analysis is three things:

1. the top five blogs are two tech, an "other" and two political blogs (in that order) - all Amero-centric.
   
2. the blogs are at the top-end of the list are all heavily-interlinked, from which has emerged - I would argue - a self-referential culture. This has future (and current) implications for the perception of credibility and truth from these sources, as these blogs become/have developed into established brands. Underneath their reportage, however, are still agendas which hide under the moniker "citizen journalism" and may lack a critical reading of the issues at hand.
   
3. that the author says "Some top-50 sites don’t have any links from the others shown here, usually because they are big in Japan, China, or Europe—regions still new to the phenomenon" - which is a) a fallacy and b) ignores the fact that most bloggers only speak one language (English) and therefore may not be able to read the non-English blog to link to them. I refer to point 2 above.

Worth a look to see the makeup of the top ranking, however.