What’s Your Blogging Style? Use FriendFeed Likes/Comments Ratio to Find Out
June 26, 2008 14 Comments
Julian Baldwin asked a question today on FriendFeed: “Roughly speaking, what is your comment to like ratio here on FriendFeed?” Based on the responses, a lot of folks are doing more commenting than liking, but I suspect the responses aren’t totally representative. Still you can see a lot of emphasis on commenting.
Which made me wonder about turning this around a bit. Instead of looking at each person’s ratio of Likes to Comments, what could be gleaned from figuring that ratio out for a blog?
I selected several blogs, and totaled the number of Likes and the number of Comments for the last 30 posts of each blog. I then calculated the ratio of Likes to Comments, and mapped the bloggers to roughly one of four blogging styles:
- Stir it up
- Can we talk?
- Observing the scene
- Stuff you want to know
There are some adjustments and limitations related to this; they follow below. But first, the map of bloggers to blogging styles. To reiterate, the ratios you see below are calculated this way:
# Likes / # Comments = blogging style
So for instance, Dave Winer’s ratio is actually below 1.0. He gets more Comments than Likes. Here’s the map:
As I put this together, the analysis does seem to ring true from my perspective.
Here are the adjustments and limitations:
- Some bloggers are really active at responding to comments on FriendFeed. This tended to drive their number of Comments up. For instance, Alexander van Elsas could put on a clinic in terms of engaging commenters on FriendFeed. I should be so good. So I gave the number of Comments a haircut for several bloggers.
- Alexander van Elsas – 33% haircut
- Myself – 25%
- Mark Dykeman – 25%
- J. Phil – 25%
- Colin Walker – 25%
- The analysis only applies to the main blog for each person (listed below)
- No Toluu activity updates
- No Qik videos
- No side blogs that augment the main one
- Etc.
- Only the blogger’s own feed was used in this analysis. This is imperfect, as it does not include Likes and Comments for other ways thr blog post gets into FriendFeed:Google Reader shares, tweets, direct posts, del.icio.us, etc.
- Some great new bloggers aren’t here, as they build out their blogs with posts.
- The 30 blog posts per author only included entries with at least 1 Like or Comment.
And quickly, here are the links to the blogs used in the analysis:
- Dave Winer – Scripting News
- Cyndy – Profy.com
- Robert Scoble – Scobleizer
- Alexander van Elsas – Alexander van Elsas’ weblog on new media and technologies
- Duncan Riley – The Inquisitr
- Colin Walker – colinwalker.me.uk
- Mark Dykeman – Broadcasting Brain
- Frederic – The Last Podcast
- J. Phil – scribkin
- Hutch Carpenter – this blog
- Louis Gray – louisgray.com
- Corvida – SheGeeks
- Steven Hodson – WinExtra
- Fred Wilson – A VC
- Sarah Perez – sarahintampa
What do you think? Does the Likes/Comments Ratio make sense as a blog style indicator?
*****
See this item on FriendFeed: http://friendfeed.com/search?q=%22What%E2%80%99s+Your+Blogging+Style%3F+Use+FriendFeed+Likes%2FComments+Ratio+to+Find+Out%22&public=1
About Hutch Carpenter
I'm Not Actually a Geek 
Really interesting stuff Hutch. Must try harder to be stiring it up 😉
I grow a bit concerned anytime I see myself sandwiched between Dave Winer and Robert Scoble. 😉
But I’d agree with your analysis, at least for me. I tend to have a very different view of many of the popular topics on FriendFeed, which would naturally result in fewer likes.
I get a 0.5 *haha*
No place for me in this scale 🙂
Wow, very cool idea! Thanks for including my blog. I didn’t know I’d end up in the middle of the pack, but it makes sense. Some of my articles get a discussion going, some only garner a couple of likes.
Cyndy – I am trying hard not to take your first sentence out of context.
@Colin – you’re starting to stir it up more. I’m starting to see and Alexander van Elsas as the European realists in social media.
@Cyndy – fewer lLikes, and more comments. I mean, how can you not reaction to posts such as the Apple iPhone haterade and whether people use Google for porn?
@Sebastian – if I could read German, I’d be able to understand your “stir it up” blog. Do you blog with a stir-it-up style?
@J. Phil – I enjoy your blog. I’m like you. Often observing the goings-on, sometimes getting a good discussion going on things.
Hutch, could you elaborate on your four categories a bit?
* Stir it up
* Can we talk?
* Observing the scene
* Stuff you want to know
Mark – here’s what I was thinking:
1. Stir It Up – positions which will fire up many people and make them want to weigh in. Some will agree, some won’t. I’m thinking of that cartoon where some guy is on the computer, not going to bed “Someone is wrong on the Internet”.
2. Can we talk? Blog posts which are more one big question. Not necessarily as in “I don’t know the answer to something”. They can also address larger questions many of us consider. Chris Brogan is good at this, I think.
3. Observing the scene. Blog posts which describe things that are going on. Readers will get a sense for what’s going no for a given topic. The observing posts can also get analytical.
4. Stuff you want to know. In my mind, the posts that describe new companies and products are very much in this category.
I’m STILL confused about using Google for porn. Maybe I need to publish a guide for how to find porn or something.
@J. Phil That’s even MORE frightening. That’s the stuff nightmares are made of. 😉
@Cyndy – LMAO. Also, if I published an article on finding porn, it would only be a single word: thehun
interesting enough …