del.icio.us tags 12.11.06

I've heard a couple of challenges to Technorati's ranking of influence. Elisa Camahort from BlogHer came to the office today to speak to my colleagues about women bloggers and made a point about how inbound links are not a very good measure of mom bloggers. Why? Because moms don't necessarily make references to each other in their posts, instead waxing poetic about their lives and children and experiences. But to suggest that they are not influential is nonsense. Check out their comments. They have regular -- and many -- readers who are commenting day after day after day. Those moms are influential.

Elisa's comment is echoed by Tim Finn at eBiquity Group who says, "Influence also has to be measured with respect to the community you want to influence."

Do you want to influence moms (who have tremendous economic power)? Forget the Technorati rank (or don't worship at the altar of the Technorati rank, at least). Look at those comments. Look at who they're coming from, look at what they're saying, look at how often they're coming back (their commitment to the blogger).

I found a new blog to add to my aggregator featuring some amazing nonprofit advertising/social campaigns, Houtlust. Some terrifyingly intense HIV/AIDS ads were what led me there in the first place. I am a HUGE fan of this one in particular (not terrifying, just extremely cool).