Robert French absolutely destroys the idea that “authority” when it comes to online media is something that can be objectively measured.
In reality authority is all about relationships. It’s not something that can be gleemed from Technorati or Google or any other algorithm. Those tools can help you find things and certainly have their place but it’s not the end of the discussion. Search uses authority to deliver results but after you see what’s returned you have to turn on your brain. See what’s there and then judge for yourself.
The funny thing is that most of the voices now calling for things to be ranked by some objective measure of authority are the same ones that have benefitted most from the tearing down of the old measurement system. It used to be you were an authority only if you made your way past the gatekeepers of the traditional media world. If you hadn’t published an article in a respected journal, if you hadn’t been quoted by the New York Times, if you hadn’t appeared on “Meet the Press”… all of these were used to judge whether what someone had to say was worth listening to.
Then all these new media upstarts came along and were breaking down these walls. But as they see themselves become more and more irrelevant and see more and more challengers on the horizon they want to build their own set of walls to make sure that people are paying attention to their stuff but not that of the new new influencers.
Decide what you want to pay attention to yourself. Judge who really knows what they’re talking about by what they say, not by some ranking system that you don’t know the basis of. Subscribe to everything and then pare it down from there.
Chris Thilk 