Tuesday, October 23, 2012

A Blink of the Eye:03.25.12

The big election is a scant two weeks away. While your LakeCountyEye is preoccupied with stealing collocating yardsigns, please enjoy this encore presentation of a post from earlier this year:

Sunday, March 25, 2012
We're Number #67!

Most blogs are content to publish an occasional Internet Top Ten List. These skimpy unidecimal lists, however, pale by comparison against THE iLLINOIS OBSERVER's annual Top 67 Top Ten List:
THE iLLINOIS OBSERVER today released its second Illinois blog survey since 2009 in which it ranks 67 independent or "mom and pop" Illinois-based blogs that cover Illinois politics and local government news, and we found once again that the Chicagoist headed up the top 10 list.
New Survey: The Top 10 Independent Political and News Blogs in Illinois
Operatives are directed to scroll to the bottom of the list, reproduced here. Pay no attention to Team America's 10th or McHenery County Blog [sic] or any of those other blogs. Keep scrolling all the way until you get to the bottom of THE iLLINOIS OBSERVER political blog list.
  1. Chicagoist: 9,554
  2. Gapers Block: 31,074
  3. Windy Citizen: 52,817
  4. Chicago Progressive Talk: 82,267
  5. Illinois Review: 99,9387
  6. The Illinois Observer: 117,789
  7. Capitol Fax: 118,745
  8. Progress Illinois: 128,165
  9. Beachwood Reporter: 142,124
  10. Marathon Pundit: 149,827
  11. The Chicago Phoenix, 157,519
  12. The Expired Meter, 174,686
  13. McHenery County Blog, 195,789
  14. Center Square Journal, 209,732
  15. Illinois StateHouse News, 226,701
  16. Publius Forum, 238,467
  17. Evanston Now, 249,304
  18. Peoria Pundit, 265,288
  19. Roscoe View Journal, 297,945
  20. Bean Soup Times, 298,465
  21. Chicago Daily Observer, 325,252
  22. Illinois Policy Institute Blog, 369,186
  23. Welles Park Bulldog, 465,635
  24. Catalyst Chicago, 466,491
  25. Better Government Association Blog, 466,491
  26. Civic Federation Blog, 565,004
  27. Sloopin Chicago's South Loop, 587,175
  28. Chicago Talks, 598,501
  29. Community Media Workshop Blog, 631,349
  30. OpenlineBlog, 645,726
  31. Fred Klonsky, 727,246
  32. First Electronic Newspaper, 740,259
  33. Southwest Observer, 1,141,010*
  34. Chicago News Bench, 2,065,730*
  35. Metropolitan Planning Council, 2,671,137*
  36. Illinois Issues, 3,195,513*
  37. Edgeville Buzz, 3,16,315*
  38. Live Here Oak Park, 3,724,700*
  39. The Sixth Ward Chicago, 4,598,735*
  40. Respublica.typepad.com, 4,681,096*
  41. Grand Old Partisan, 5,047,428*
  42. Area Chicago, 5,054,293*
  43. Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, 5,501,779*
  44. Tenth Congressional District Democrats, 5,693,695*
  45. Chicago Argus, 5,817,926*
  46. IADDA Blog, 5,906,493*
  47. TASC Blog, 5,977,847*
  48. Backyard Conservative, 6,148,868*
  49. A-Ville Daily, 6,415,169*
  50. Team America's 10th, 7,313,059*
  51. Bill Baar’s West Side, 7,979,023*
  52. Hyde Park Progress, 8,208,673*
  53. Archpundit, 8,935,012*
  54. 600 Words Esther Cepeda, 9,340,765*
  55. Prairie State Blue, 9,874,483*
  56. Sierra Club Illinois, 10,163,002*
  57. SallyDuros.com, 10,269,091*
  58. Rogers Park in 1000 Words, 10,467,406*
  59. Chicago Radio and Media, 13,191,324*
  60. The Daily Whale Chicago, 13,430,229*
  61. Latino Policy Forum, 16,138,227*
  62. Progressive Advocacy, 20,206,745*
  63. The Decatur Navigator, 20,958,663*
  64. Quincy Pundit, 22,612,489*
  65. Russ Stewart, 23,072,761*
  66. Laura Washington, 23,549,183*
  67. Lake County Eye, 24,132,409*
Hawkeyed operatives will spy with their eagle eyes, your LakeCountyEye!

Coming in dead last and at number 67, your LakeCountyEye sends many thanks to THE iLLINOIS OBSERVER. If they hadn't expanded their annual Top Ten List into a Top 67 List, your LakeCountyEye would never have come in dead last. Or at number 67.

And no, those other, big numbers by the blogs don't represent unique pageviews or even that blog's annual monetization return. Sadly no. Those numbers represent each blog's Alexa score. This is how the list is ranked and goes a long way to explaining why your LakeCountyEye is number 67. And dead last.

Well it's a well known fact that those other blogs -- like McHenery County Blog [sic] and Team America's 10th -- juice up their Alexa scores by driving traffic to their sites with promises of pictures of Internet Kittehs and wardrobe malfunctions, made to confused AOL subscribers.

Absolutely those other blogs are going to surpass your LakeCountyEye in quantity. But your LakeCountyEye promises to make it up in quality. Expect nothing less than all the important local political news as soon as it breaks, and sometimes even before, here.

That would be a tall order for a blog like the McHenery County Blog [sic] -- which couldn't be expected to post a story like THE iLLINOIS OBSERVER Top Ten Political Blogs until a good 6 months from now -- look for it maybe sometime next October:
McHenry County Listed 13th in Illinois Political Blog Ranking
And as for Team America's 10th, expect it to be gone by next October and replaced by a largely unreadable blog, penned by one of the trainees:
Common Sense in Illinois' 10th
All of which goes to show that sustaining a quality political blog in Illinois is a damn sight harder than it looks!

Posted by Barney Baxter at 11:00 PM 121 comments

Labels: 24,132,409

Your LakeCountyEye: keeping an eye on the past since 2011.

Posted by Barney Baxter at 11:00 PM

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