Thanks to Minyanville for publicizing this study by MindfulMoney on the nature and reach of social conversations in the investment arena. But even bigger thanks go to loyal readers and contributors for their frequent comments, leads, and critiques. The success of a blog depends on its community and I am very grateful for all the input so many of you have generously provided.
Perhaps the most interesting finding (boldface ours):
The research confirms the existence of a network of investment super-connectors with extraordinary media influence and reach. These super-connected new influentials are, for the most part, not well established voices in the media but individual bloggers who fiercely champion their independence….In the US, the network functions as the unofficial voice of Wall Street & the US federal bank with no mainstream media players at the centre of the network.
Given how many of these top blogs are critical of the status quo, this map may be hopeful sign that the blogosphere is beginning to become a important channel of discourse outside the reach of the PR machinery of major corporations and government entities.
The top 20:
1. Naked Capitalism
2. Infectious Greed
3. The Big Picture
4. Jesse’s Cross Roads Cafe
5. Zerohedge
6. Mish’s Global Economic Analysis
7. Calculated Risk
8. Paul Krugman’s Blog
9. FT Alphaville
10. Ludwig von Mises Institute
11. The Market Trader
12. WSJ Blogs
13. The Epicurean Dealmaker
14.Credit Writedowns
15. Dealbreaker
16. China Financial Markets
17. Max Keiser
18. The Angry Bear
19. The Economist
20. Jr. Deputy Accountant
66 comments
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Congrats Yves – very well deserved! And congrats to our other friends on the list!
Number One!! WOOT!
(OK, I am only a daily lurker here, but it is quite enjoyable to be the first commenter on this most gratifying news)
Congratulations Yves and Loyal Readers/Commenters!
Naked capitalism. Number one. Not surprised.
Congrats!
This honor is an ‘attagirl’ from the Universe for what you posted at 4:46 am this morning:
‘Yves here. So a banking industry that creates global crises is negative value added from a societal standpoint. It is purely extractive.’
————
And as in uffish thought she stood
The Banksterwock, with eyes of flame
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
She left it dead, and with its head
She went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Banksterwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish girl!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
‘Twer a brillig comment, Jim H.
Mimsy, even ;-)
Interesting approach the makers of the slideshow are developing toward finance; it almost makes me hopeful for the (long-term) future ;^)
Well deserved, Yves.
Very cheering news.
Even Humpty Dumpty wouldn’t be able to spin that!
Congratulations, of course, but… what is with that list? Where’s Brad DeLong? Felix Salmon? Ezra Klein? Clusterstock? Mark Thoma? The Baseline Scenario? Economix (NYTimes)? Interfluidity? Kid Dynamite? Even The Atlantic Business Channel, while we’re here?
How can they claim this is a list of “new influentials… not well established voices in the media” and then list Krugman???
Um, but once again… congratulations!
Ezra Klein is probably seen as more political than financial. Baseline Scenario was included in the analysis if you look at the slides, it shows up repeatedly. Economix has a lot fewer readers than Krugman, if NC outdoes Krugman, it certainly outdoes Economix. Salmon does seem like an oversight, but NC usually ranks higher than Salmon on Technorati.
This is all a standard type of analysis and has to do with the number of links and I think the volume of traffic of the site linking too. Any low volume blog like Interfluidity won’t rate, no matter how good each post might be. Clusterstock may be read, but it appears not to be linked to much. Look at how NC outrates higher traffic blogs like CR and Ritholtz. It’s about the number of articles other high traffic blogs deem useful enough to be worth linking to.
Funny thing Dan,
Even if you included Brad DeLong, Felix Salmon, Ezra Klein, Clusterstock, Mark Thoma, The Baseline Scenario, Economix NYTimes, Interfluidity, Kid Dynamite, I still think Yves’ NC blog still stands head and shoulders above them all.
There is a certain je ne sais quoi about Yves Smith’s NC blog that trumps all others. If I were to put my finger on it, I would have to say that it is her relevancy on a day to day basis that ranks far higher than all others.
I think that it may be relevancy, but I read a lot of the other blogs and from my own perspective, it is a lot more than relevancy that makes this blog great. Yes, Yves is relevant and prolific, but to me, it is more the stunning intelligence and incisiveness of her arguments that makes this my go-to place for discussion. I’m sorry, but she relays actual reality and takes no prisoners. I really have no patience for anything else. Kudos to Yves. It could not be more well deserved.
Congratulations to you, and to numbers 4, 6 & 9 from whom I also take instruction.
But a boo and a hiss to number 8 – Krugman seems to me to be a man of poor character.
Having met Krugman and seen him in person several times I can’t agree that he is of poor character. He was an extremely valuable voice during the Bush years. But ironically his value is more political than economic!
Yes, congratulations Yves
Congrats Yves.
I do however miss on the list this good one:
http://baselinescenario.com/
Congratulations! And thank you for doing so much to deserve it.
Krugman? God that sucks
I’m surprised Denninger, theautomaticearth and Giordano Bruno are not on the list.
Congratulations. Your graceful and perceptive hostessing is beginning to garner its many merited rewards. Your perceptive selection of topics doesn’t hurt, either.
Not to mention the antidotes…
Hearty congratulations to you Yves for this well deserved recognition. I am also a daily reader of Jesse, Mish and Ed Harrison, so I send salutes to each of them as well.
BIG CONGRATS!!! GOOD NEWS INDEED!
fabulous!
new voices must be heard – look what the existing cabal dragged us to – so here’s one reader whose happy and grateful you are doing this, Yves (and Richard), thanks
(even if the morass of corporate financial fascist bullshit you have to trawl through does not make for easy reading much of the time)
but the unexamined life &c &c not worth it
Good news indeed. Keep up the good work Yves. Here’s to greater social and collective awareness in 2011!
You deserve it spades, Yves! Congratulations, and thanks for your great site. The colors may suck a bit, but all else is wonderful! ;o)
Number one—impressive!
This is well-timed to your shredding of Barclays’ Bob Diamond this morning with the wicked passage from ECONNED. Your book deserves broad exposure as an autopsy on the bankster created crisis, a disaster far from recovery.
Congratulations,well deserved!
congratulations. always thought you had it right. lol. i’ve learned so much and appreciate all the wonderful pictures/antidote du jour.
thanks again.
Many congratulations!
Congratulations — You deserve the honor.
My favorite “in your face” Zero Hedge (although sometime over the top) and NC are my daily required reading.
Thanks for your hard work and diligent reporting.
Happy New Year
Well the problem with ZH is that Tylers are Austrian school on steroids and cocaine.
Mixing cocaine and steroids might be hazardous to your health.
Congratulations! Well deserved!
But no slacking now. There is still no one in jail and the criminals are still in charge of the hen house.
Onward!!!!
Of course you’re number one. We knew that. And, running a close second in my book, is Max Kaiser and Stacy Herbert who provide the laughs without which I would go out of my economoniac mind.
Great way to start the new year Yves.
Beyond cool. But I truly do not believe you run this blog for self-aggrandizement. You wish to increase awareness, to gain influence, so that you might, just might, affect policy in a beneficial way. Let us know when Obama asks you to head his council of economic advisors. And, oh yeah, you had better accept! I can hardly express how much better I would sleep at night if you and Elizabeth Warren held the titles now held by Timmothy Geithner and Benjamin Bernanke. On the other hand, I suspect Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, etc. would rather that not happen.
Well deserved!
Please keep at it until the money center banks are splintered into a thousand pieces!
ftm
Congrats and well deserved.
Just think, eight to ten years ago there were very few sites to go to find the truth. I read Fleckenstein and still do, but there is much more to supplement now.
Zerohedge and Mish? Really?
Thank God Denninger isn’t on there. Not every day is the end of the world (or stock market).
Denninger is there at number 11, they just put “Market Trader” instead of “Market Ticker”.
I read Karl Denninger daily… I have to. Who else but Karl can complement Yves’ Vulcan detachment?
Wow, I read 1 – 7 (except #2) every day.
I guess I should start reading Infectious Greed now, too!
Congratulations! And thank you for running such an interesting blog. Thank you also for allowing a diversity of viewpoints to be expressed by readers.
You know you guys really deserve more than just congratulations! Thought those are certainly well-deserved!
If I’m understanding how these things work that means you are getting something like a couple of million hits a month!
Do you think that if people could push a button once in a while and give you guys a quarter they’d do that? Something requiring no additional hassle? And if it was voluntary? Something small enough that it was painless?
I’m not claiming to know the answer to how frequently or how generous readers might be… though I believe I do know how to make it practical as an operation and enterprise. There’s reason to think there could be a viable model there… and inducements are possible for a user to make that decision on a regular basis.
Speech IS, after all… a core element of the Commons!
The Commons-dedicated Account!
Catalyze the Network!
In the spirit of USEFUL financial innovation.
Congrats on a well-deserved #1!
Just sign in to say u are the best, Yves.
Congrats, and thank you for all of the educational work you have done to break open the world of finance to us proles out here in the flyover.
Congrat’s!
Yves, Mish & ZH are my daily need-to-reads.
I don’t always understand the technicals but the gist is clear & the writing is good enough to make me want to slog though.
I am surprised at jrdeputyaccountant though; I just started reading that one about a week ago. I guess my tastes are not quite as eccentric as I thought.
At last, Yves gets the recognition she deserves!
Great job!
Quite an interesting mix they’ve got there. Krugman and Mish for instance. *evil grin*
Congratulations, Yves! Excellent news. But it comes as no surprise that readers keep flocking here. After all, where else can one read comments about the banking industry that are so true, as the line already noted above by Jim Haygood:
“….negative value added from a societal standpoint. It is purely extractive.”
Hi, I am without a computer that has Flash. What were the measures that determined the ranking? Or is this on YouTube also? Thanks. (Congrats though since by any measure you are number one.)
Either I missed the link on my first pass or thanks for adding it.
I know it’s hackneyed, but “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” and that is you my dear YVES!!! Of course, congradulations–but most of all THANK YOU for your unwavering efforts, epecially, as one noted above, since you have to wade through the daily finacial mass-media BS, wich is a mile wide and an inch deep.
I dig Max K and Stacy, but nobody can top your penetrating steel-trap mind and wit, Yves.
I’d love to see you hook up with Max and Stacy a little more, but, hell, just keep up what you’re doing–that’s great and a tremendous boon to those of us who read you daily. Make sure to get some exercise, eat well, and get propr rest, ’cause most of us know the finacial storm is going to get nasty real soon. Onward into the fray!!
As an afterthought, I hope those journalists in the establishment media notice how much erudition is displayed among your regulars–they could take on anybody!
Hi Yves
Sorry, my French is terrible. I thought you were a woman :-) mea culpa.
I’ve found you a good read. And just to share a little from my experience of the New Zealand scene, I’ve found nothing to compare with the US’s energy and critical zest when looking at economic/political commentary and analysis.
We in NZ suffer many similar problems as other countries worldwide – from the export of US policy, theory, and agressive financial capitalism.
But of course, inside the US there are tremendous and valuable critics like yourself. We learn from you!
And we also take a share of the blame for our own misery. Our central bank, banks, financiers are our own, as is our government and political parties. We have still got the fight to fight against our two party economic consensus.
But we can also take heart from all of you bloggers. I’d add Demandsideblog because of the analytical tools and general lesons it gives to people outside of the US. And also BeatThePress and New Economic Perspectives likewise offering lessons for those outside the US.
And of course, our own antipodean great – Steve Keen – on http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/
Many thanks and best wishes!
I must also add that I try to share what I learn from the US via http://twitter.com/economicsnz
Thanks again,
Jim
Recognition for honest, excellent work – counter to the usual paradigm! Well done and congratulations Yves.
Your instructional and corrective writings are the perfect retort to the drivel dished up by the cowed media wage-slaves.
You and your cohort have provided me with the technical backgrounding that I needed and wanted. A heart felt thank you.
This is a great great blog that reads like the old school blogs used to read. This rating is very well-deserved. Thank you!
Congratulations! Well earned!
So Yves, you know from our conversations that I see you at the top in value-added, for currency, for clarity, for fairmindedness, and for the diversity of your interests. I’m glad to here that the ‘eyeball count’ conforms to a superior presentation. I _do_ believe that clear, informed voices matter, that they have disproportionate impact. NC is always my first stop.
And it is indeed significant that _no_ major media source makes that list. Krugman is a qualified example because while he has a regular column in a major media source, he has his own blog and perspective (for whatever value one gives it): he speaks for himself. But really, the major media has NO value added for analysis on financial or social matters at this point: that is a role that they abdicated, and one would be a fool to look to that strata of content for an informed perspective. What we have here are informed individuals, as much as they can be, stepping forward to keep facts current and have a reasoned discourse on current affairs. The blogosphere has taken up the slack dropped by slack corporate advert-placement machines.
This is definitely the best blog.
1. The exploration of Foreclosuregate is both innovative and definitive. (I’ve sort of been assuming that would be the subject of your next book. It seems logical.)
If that issue turns out to have the monumental importance it ought to have, this blog will have been ground zero for propagating it.
2. In general, Naked Capitalism has the most sustained and comprehensive counterattack on the banksters which is based in humanistic principles rather than some merely technical objection. (Most other econoblog critics seem anti-bank only in the same way as the German conspiracy against Hitler – they objected to him not based on principles, but only when he started to lose, and they thought he would lead them to disaster.)
3. Everything’s well written for the general audience.
Yup, NC deserves to be number one. Good work, Yves.
thats even more weight on your shoulders…
Yves, Jesse and Ed Harrison – a new committee to deliver us from the evil one.
To Yves with love.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbLs80cuots&feature=related
Does the world stop turning when Miss Yves takes time out of her busy schedule to celebrate her various successes? It does not.
Time to get back to work. Every nanosecond is crucial.
Note: In the off hour(s?), red wine, dark chocolate, pasta, veggies, power naps and a satisfactory sex life are the acceptable inputs for maintaining the perfect multi-tasking brain (not necessarily in that order). Gloating is irrelevant and time-consuming, in other words, counter-productive.
Congratulations, this is the by far the best blog out there, financial or otherwise. Keep exposing the Great Banking Lie, the one that gives cover for all their crimes and billion dollar bonuses, all paid for courtesy of the taxpayer.
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell
Sincere congrats! I wasn’t exaggerating when I said you were the best!
Yves,
Along with Barry Ritholtz, you have the ability to express moral outrage from a sensible, traditionally “middle class” American point of view, in which equality of opportunity and a level playing field are held as sacred requirements of what makes America *work*, and which are so rapidly disappearing today.
Best wishes for continued success, and with hopes that the truth will set us free.
Cheers,
Benign
This is great news, for a blog that treats posters, including those phil-neo/paleolithic ones, like humans, unlike some other blogs where readers’ comments are hidden somewhere behind the all-too-significant host/hostess.
Hopefully, you are also the most widely read…among humans and animals.
Finally, and most importantly, this is for sure the most therapeutic economic blog, day in and day out, thanks to the antidoting wildlife.
Let the healing begin!
Yves
Just to add my congratulations. Thoroughly deserved. The future will be grateful to you, as are your readers.
Congratulations Yves! Seen from Europe, your blog is a bit of fresh air every day. Nothing at all compares with NC. And the standard media (excepting FT) are so totally ignorant of even the basics of economy, it is not even funny any more.
What always astounds me is how you can do so much at NC and still do the work that earns your daily bread and yet have a little time for sleep! When do you read good books or go to lovely concerts? There must be two of you, at least!
Once again, jolly well done!
My sincere congratulations. Well deserved