Top VMware Bloggers

A few weeks ago Eric Siebert decided it was time to update his list of top VMware blogs.

Eric has been running his top 20 list on vLaunchpad which he based on the following criteria.

1. The first is posting frequency, if a blogger has not posted in many weeks or months I generally disqualify them. I’m looking for bloggers that post at least 2-3 times a month.
2. Next is posting quality, if a blogger is generally just repeating news and things other people have written I also tend to disqualify them. I look for the bloggers that produce quality, informative posts and aren’t afraid to share their own opinions
3. Next is post length, short posts are OK for some things but the really long posts that contain lots of information score more points with me.
4. Finally the length of time that the blogger has been posting, I generally don’t include ones that have been around for less than 3 months until they’ve established themselves.

You would have to agree thats a solid criteria list.

Well for the update to the top 5 Eric decided a survey of the community was the way to go, after all its the community who reads them, why not have them choose. Of course this prompted a rash of "Vote for me" posts by people like Vaughn, Scott Lowe, Steve, Cody Bunch, Jon Owings, Rich Brambley and Erik Scholten. Even Chad (obviously in the top two) got in on the act soliciting votes on some Canadian national pride agenda. Duncan posted a pointer to the survey but did not actually call for votes, he probably figured he had no need! Me, well I was just stoked to be in the top 20 in the first place back when the original list was created. I wanted to wait until after voting was closed before posting anything.

So with the results coming out any day now I wondered what my top list would be (I voted off gut feeling).

I thought a great way to see who was worth reading, was to analyse the Top 5 Planet V12n blog posts put out by VMware each week. Duncan puts the list together by the looks of it.

I was able to find the last 11 weeks of data which gave 55 entries. Doing a frequency of who got a top post of the week the top 5 VMware bloggers are :

• Duncan Epping (5)
• Chad Sakac (3.5)
• Scott Lowe (3)
• Rodney Haywood (3)
• Steve Chambers (3)

Chad got a half point because he had a joint post with Vaugn, that's fair. Scott is no surprise, the guy is a gun. Must admit, totally surprised to see myself and Steve there (no offence to Steve). Just goes to show, you can do anything with statistics. Congratulations to the other top 5.

Strangely there were five people who shared two each.

• Rich Brambley (2)
• Greg A. Lato (2)
• Robert Patton (2)
• Steve Kaplan (2)
• Jason Boche (2)

So now all you need to do is wait for Eric to collate and post the results at http://vsphere-land.com/. Who is going to win the popularity contest!

Good luck everyone! However I think the bloggers will mozy on just as they always have posting their thoughts, tips and ideas.

Rodos