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Top 100 Scottish blogs

Scotblogs Awards - Top 100 blog

First of all, a huge congratulations to all blogs that were involved in the Scotblogs Awards. Whether your blog secured a high position or not, this entire exercise has been a great way to discover new blogs — and it is because of every one of the 140-or-so blogs that were nominated.

A massive thanks must go to everyone who nominated a blog, all of those who contributed to the over 1,500 votes cast, and the panellists.

The great thing is that even more blogs have been submitted to Scottish Roundup since the deadline for entries closed. Each of them will be featured in the roundup in the coming weeks.

The wonderful diversity and the high quality of the blogs, right the way through the field, bodes well for the health of blogging in Scotland.

Below is the main list you have all been waiting for — the top 100 blogs. For information on the voting process, visit the Scotblogs Awards 2010 page. View the winners in other categories.

In the interests of full openness and transparency, I have decided to make all the data available for anyone who wishes to look at it. You can download them below in PDF or Excel format.

Bonus award: Critics’ choice

Scotblogs Awards - Critics' choice

One of the things that really struck me as I was gathering votes was the large differences between the choices of the panellists and the choices of the voters. As such, I thought it was worth mentioning those blogs that scored particularly well in one of the rankings, but ended up with a moderate overall ranking due to doing poorly in the other one.

A wee bit of cooking is an attractive food blog. It caught the eye of panellists, five of whom gave it the nod. This made it the second most popular blog among the panellists. Staggeringly, only one person voted for it in the poll, placing it joint 121st in the readers’ ranking. This has left it 75th overall.

Two panellists gave Pining for the West their vote, placing it 19th among the panellists. Again, just one person voted for it in the readers’ poll. This left it in an overall position of 92nd. (Disclosure: This is my mum’s blog, and I helped her set it up!)

Four blogs received one vote from a panellist, but got no recognition from the readers at all: Bigmout Strikes Again, Shirl’s Gardenwatch, Skip Cottage Curling and Southside and Newington Newsblog.

A further seven blogs received the same number of votes from panellists as from readers overall: Better Oot Than In, Smashing Mirrors, Jim Millar, Mid-Life Bassist, Sea Kayaking with SeaKayakPhoto.com, Type face a week and Scotland in the Gloaming.

Bonus award: Readers’ choice

Scotblogs Awards - Readers' choice

One of the things that really struck me as I was gathering votes was the large differences between the choices of the panellists and the choices of the voters. As the overall ranking depended on doing well on both lists, plenty of popular blogs ended up losing out.

As such, I thought it was worth mentioning those blogs that scored particularly well in one of the rankings, but ended up with a moderate overall ranking due to doing poorly in the other one.

The runaway winner of the readers’ poll was We Know SFA, with over 50% more votes than the second most popular blog. But just one panellist voted for it, sending the blog down to 16th place overall.

Likewise, music blog Peenko came second in the readers’ rankings, but only 33rd in the panellists’ rankings.

Three blogs were in the top ten in the readers’ rankings, but did not get the nod from any of the panellists: Newsnet Scotland, Scots Law News and What’s in Kelvin’s Head.

Additionally, four other blogs finished in the top ten among readers, but only garnered one vote from among the panellists: Gerry Hassan, Indygal goes to Holyrood, Subrosa and Ian Hamilton QC.

Top newcomers of 2009

Scotblogs Awards - Top 25 newcomer of 2009

This category contains blogs that were set up during 2009. For information on the voting process, visit the Scotblogs Awards 2010 page. View the winners in other categories announced so far.

Top personal / general blogs

Scotblogs Awards - Top 25 personal or general blog

This category contains blogs that primarily focus on a topic other than politics or current affairs.

For information on the voting process, visit the Scotblogs Awards 2010 page. View the winners in other categories announced so far.