European Political News

Iain has come out with a list of 75 top political books with links through to Amazon. This is probably the most widely use way of earning pocket money on UK Political Blogs. Nearly everybody does it - including me.

The way the Amazon affiliate programme works is that if a person purchases anything from the Amazon website within 24 hours of a click through on an affiliate link, then the affiliate receives between 4% and 10% of the purchase value.

Further to my previous post about the new front end design for the Wardman Wire, I've tried it with a "light" stylesheet rather than a "dark" one.

Here is a screenshot which also includes a "video" module, showing Tim Ireland's video in support of the Campaign for the Iraqi Interpreters.

Is over at Liberal England.

The roundup is a compendium of last week's outstanding posts in the British Blogosphere.

This week there is no podcast as it was a Bank Holiday.

Over the weekend I've been playing with a new alternative front end for the blog. It is designed to give a more "newsy" view than the "time-based" view of the traditional blog format, and to help make it easier to keep track of the amount of material that we are now publishing. The idea is that there will be a more "magazine" style page on www.mattwardman.com, and the existing design will stay on www.mattwardman.com/blog/. Here is a screenshot of the prototype

Today I’m planning to attend the Jeecamp in Birmingham, which I only spotted (via Martin Stabe) last night. This is an unconference (i.e., a self-organising workshop - an intellectual Potluck Supper, if you will) around the theme of: JEEcamp is an opportunity for a range of people to get together to talk about how on earth journalists and publishers can make a living from journalism in the era of free information, what the challenges are, and what we’ve learned so far. It is also an opportunity for people with different skills and experiences to network, share those experiences, and perhaps suggest partnerships or new projects. The plan is that 2 and 2 will make more than 4. I’ll report back during the day, or at the weekend. Tags: jeecamp, martin stabe, unconference

It’s Sunday, it’s sunny and I’m at the computer typing because I’m grumpy. This morning the Grobserver has another “top bloggers” list - the most powerful 50 bloggers in the world. This one is as self-absorbed as all the others, being a (drum roll, hold breath, straighten shoulders, salute the Grobserver) list of (taran-tara): The world’s 50 most powerful blogs I hate this sort of list in the national media. The last one I looked at was the Evening Standard’s moronic “New Media London Top 50” list in October 2007. That included Tom Coates, Iain Dale, Tim Montgomerie and Alex Hilton. They are all good bloggers, but the “well informed media people” who compiled it had missed out Pete Cashmore of Mashable who was no. 8 on Technorati at the Time. They may say: but we didn’t know, he’s geeky and we’d never heard of him. Precisely. Now you know why such lists should not be compiled by individuals of species homo-sapiens-sapiens genus metropoli-mediatartus. Some Features of a List of Top Blogs Quotes measurements as if they mean something, but instead just succeeds in looking ill-informed by using different measurements in different places. So what if “Page Views”, “Hits”, “Visitors”, “People”, “Unique Visitors” all sound different - it doesn’t matter, ya? Geographical blinkers, like some racehorses and George Bush. 16 of the 50 most powerful blogs by Brits or based here? I don’t think so. Quotes blogs that have usually previously appeared in the MSM (apart from the “author’s darlings” selection included). The Grobserver List While I’m being grumpy, I note that only one of the authors of this list appears to have a blog. Hmmm. (For the record, Anna Pickard. Hi Anna.) A few questionable inclusions Marbury is in - it is a 3 month old British commentary blog on the US Election. PoliticalBetting, perhaps Britains best political website with much US Election coverage, a specially organised night during one of the primaries, and 1 million page views a month, is not in. Nor are blogs such as the Daily Kos or dozens of other top US Political Blogs. The FWord is in. An excellent niche blog - but the world’s most powerful 50? Come on, boys and girls. Private and Secret Diary. It’s a one man Norfolk version of the Archers, which isn’t even in the Technorati top 50,000. Why? Bean Sprouts. Good blog, but technorati ranking of 27,000. 409 visitors a day (OK call it 800 as Sitemeter misses around half). 84 RSS subscribers. Most powerful 50 in the world - what are you on? These 4 shouldn’t feel got at if you find this list. All damn good blogs that are being misdescribed by the Grobserver (as are about 20 others). If you’d said “50 blogs which we find interesting” you’d have no problem - but why all this “world’s top 50 most powerful blogs” self-puffery? “Power Bloggers” List Recipe for people with Contacts Here’s my recipe for the next list. Keep the list down to 50 or so (don’t exhaust the meme). Take a few (say 20-25%) obviously top blogs (careful to leave a different equally good selection out for next time). Add in an eclectic selection from the Technorati Top 1000 (or top 50000+) - need to be able to do different lists for next year/next month/next week/this afternoon. Add a sprinking of niche blogs very few people have heard of but which the compilers think deserve to be influential. If it’s for the Grobserver, remember to spell at least one blog incorrectly to fit with editorial policy - for example “Peteite Anglaise“. Wrapping Up Next time please save the money, save the administration, save the hassle, and save me the stress. Four suggestions: Try (just once) my algorithm above. Don’t use such an idiotic headline. Give the byline to Max. Don’t mention hills in north London. OK. You can go out to play now. Tags: guardian, observer, grobserver, Jessica Aldred, Amanda Astell, Rafael Behr, Lauren Cochrane, John Hind, Anna Pickard, Laura Potter, Alice Wignall, Eva Wiseman