A few weeks ago I wrote a post about SocialRank, which seems to be a new blog search engine that identifies which blogs entries are currently generating a lot of interest. These entries are categorized by subject matter and daily ‘top 15′ lists are created for the top blogs and top blog entries. The result for each category appears under its own domain name, and for math blogs the end product is MathBloggers.
At the time I last wrote about this, the SocialRank sites were all password protected while under development, but an anonymous commenter has pointed out that as of today SocialRank is now live. The first 30 blog categories are now open, and this includes MathBloggers.
So how good of a job did MathBloggers do on its first outing? Well, in addition to several blog entries that I had already read and might expect to see on a ‘top 15′ list, there were several entries (and blogs) listed that I was not familiar with. So MathBloggers succeeded in broadening my reading. The MathBloggers list also included a nice mix of pure math, math ed, mathematical physics, and theoretical computer science blogs. The blog Good Math, Bad Math, while being a very good blog, seemed to be over-represented on the list, so SocialRank may need to fine-tune their ranking system to keep very popular blogs from overwhelming the little ones. There was also one noticeable bug: blog URLs only contained the actual domain name and not any path info. As a result, Good Math, Bad Math shows up as ScienceBlogs, for example, and Jacques Distler’s Musings appears simply as the host server name Golem. (This problem did not affect the URLs for individual blog entries, only for the blog home URLs.)
Overall, it seems like an interesting effort, and I’m going to keep checking MathBloggers on a regular basis to see how it develops.
Update
Hmmm, maybe I spoke a little too soon on this. There is definitely something a little “off” about the Top Blog Posts list. A couple of entries currently listed there are from Skrentablog, which is a tech blog with practically no math content. The other blogs represented on the list seemed to fit the category better, but some of the particular entries seemed like peculiar choices. Vlorbik wonders how his own blog got so highly rated. His particular entry that made the list was about the Excel number formatting error that was a big news item last week; maybe the overall blogosphere interest in the story somehow rubbed off indirectly on his post. In any event, the SocialRank ranking algorithm seems to be doing some weird things. It will be interesting to see how well it tracks blog interest later this week when the next Carnival of Mathematics comes out.
I deleted their comment a while ago… looked strange, and vaguely spammish.So now it looks serious? I will check back a few times. I’m curious if the upcoming Carnivals are enough to jostle the lists…
Link | October 1st, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Hi GuysI’m the co-founder of SocialRankLet me explain why the Top Math Blogs ranked you Vlorbik highly. That list has nothing to do with Top Math Blogs of All Time. if so – it would be fairly unchanging and static.Instead what we do is point out Math Blogs that had a sudden boost in attention, comments or number of posts in the last few days over their usual average. It could be a top blog – or it could be a newbie.This way we help math fans identify new blogs that might never have been on their radar.Thanks – pls keep writing more about us. And contact me if you need any questions answered.
Link | October 2nd, 2007 at 2:13 am
Hi Vishen, thanks for commenting. I’d be interested in hearing more about how your ranking algorithm works–perhaps you could write about that on your company blog sometime. (I realize that you want to protect your intellectual property, but maybe you could talk about it in general terms.) I am particularly interested in how you decide what the subject matter of a post actually is.In the meantime, I do have a couple of feedback items for you. First, you <>really<> need to fix the bug with blog URLs not containing any path info. A lot of academic blogs are hosted on department servers, and without the path there is just no way to find what you’re looking for. Second, a lot of “non-math” type posts are getting included in the mix–I think you need to fine-tune the way you determine the subject matter.
Link | October 2nd, 2007 at 11:44 am
Like Jonathan I had some contact from Socialrank before the official launch, and couldn’t tell if it was spam or not- although they negotiated the captcha, they seemed unable to find my email address (hard but not impossible). Perhaps the waves of comment spam I’ve had in the past just made me cynical. Ironically, the only post they picked up on from my site for mathbloggers had the (accurate) title < HREF="http://maths.straylight.co.uk/archives/93" REL="nofollow">a non-mathematical post<>, so there are definitely some kinks to be worked out. But I’ll be interested to see how it progresses; although right now the site doesn’t even respond!
Link | October 3rd, 2007 at 11:33 am