Friday, September 12, 2008

Do Econospeakers Speak Science Journalese?

Palgrave's Econolog (http://www.econolog.net/stats.php?area=blogs) has just issued a ranking of econ blogs, on which Econospeak is 46, some sort of weird method based on links coming in to them plus their "econolog sauce," as we are 75 on Aaron Schiff, based on Technorati links and 63 on Brian Gongol based on visits. When Econospeak started about a year ago we were in the 90s on those last two, but got as high as the 40s briefly before drifting down to about where we are now (our predecessor, Maxspeak, was at about 12 on Schiff when Max pulled the plug). Of course there is a steadily increasing number of these blogs all the time.

Perhaps a more curious item is that they have done an analysis of "readability" of the blogs based on the Gunning-Fog index, which is supposed to measure the number of years of education one needs to read the blog intelligently (only 50 were measured). The bottom tier is 6-10, labeled "Dan Brown," with few known blogs there, the Big Picture being probably the most prominent. Next is 10-14 "Thomas Pynchon," where one finds Marginal Revolution, Brad Delong, and Econbrowser, among others. Next is 14-17, "Science Journal," where Econospeak is with a 15 along with Krugman, Economists View, Dani Rodrik, Meagan McArdle, and some others. Finally ther 17-20, "Manual for a Taiwanese DVD," which had only one I had ever heard of, Economic Principals. Anyway, this is near the first birthday of this blog, although I do not remember the precise date, so happy birthday everybody, and I do not know if it is good to be a 15 or lower on this scale.

4 comments:

Bruce Webb said...

Barkley you left the 'e' out of '.net'

http://www.econolog.net/stats.php?area=blogs

rosserjb@jmu.edu said...

Ooooops! Sorry. Thanks for noting this.

Myrtle Blackwood said...

This is ironic. I began to write very openly on today's political issues because I no longer cared what people thought...(of me, I mean).

I'm not sure how relevant ratings are, especially for a group of writers on one forum with diverse approaches and opinions.

rosserjb@jmu.edu said...

Brenda,

Everybody here just swings away, with some diversity of views represented, if generally on the progressive side of things. Actually, I was surprised that our number was so high on this, which is not necessarily a good thing as it suggests lack of clear writing by us.