Mainstream Media Still Rules Online


Still the most influential website based on links
Just had a quick glance at the Technorati Attention Index from Technorati's blog.  This is a list of the 50 top sites with the highest number of blogs linking to them in the past 30 days.  

Other than YouTube, which has continued to surge ahead largely due to the immense interest in its ever growing pool of user-generated videos, it is interesting to note that mainstream media related websites are still the most influential in the list.  While American websites have dominated the list, several British content providers like the Guardian, Telegraph and BBC News have received attention.  Many of the media firms are also concentrated on a few cities (or megacities) in the United States like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Washington DC, and Houston.
This shows several things about social media influence:
1) The lure of sight, sound and motion (sisomo according to Kevin Roberts) is still influential, whether online or offline.
2) Mainstream media players still wield incredible influence on social media debates and discussions.
3) Majority of the news which get disseminated online are highly concentrated on mainly American and some British cities.  
4) It is a spiky world after all (ala Richard Florida).
I wonder how the rankings of Asian news providers are like online in terms of links and influence?  I am sure that many of those aren't captured by Technorati somehow though.
Here's the full list of the top 50 websites and blogs by links:
Overall Rankings and Attention
 1.   YouTube 60,644
2.   
The New York Times 17,374
3.   
guardian.co.uk 8,039
4.   
The Wall Street Journal 7,513
5.   
The Washington Post 6,891
6.   
CNN 6,330
7.   
Telegraph.co.uk 5,380
8.   
Yahoo! News 5,070
9.   
MSNBC 5,036
10. 
The Los Angeles Times 4,536
11. 
Reuters 4,314
12. 
FOX News 4,001
13. 
The Boston Globe 3,838
14. 
USA Today 3,619
15. 
Daily Mail 3,530
16. 
Time 3,524
17. 
BBC News 3,399
18. 
NPR 3,189
19. 
NY Daily News 2,588
20. 
Forbes 2,534
21. 
San Francisco Chronicle 2,420
22. 
Slate 2,187
23. 
CBS News 2,156
24. 
Google News 2,093
25. 
Wired 2,062
26. 
Financial Times 2,056
27. 
PBS 2,053
28. 
NY Post 2,025
29. 
San Francisco Examiner 1,968
30. 
BusinessWeek 1,949
31. 
The White House 1,929
32. 
Salon 1,928
33. 
Chicago Tribune 1,924
34. 
Newsweek 1,880
35. 
CNNMoney 1,712
36. 
CBC 1,696
37. 
Yahoo! Finance 1,642
38. 
The Economist 1,565
39. 
New York Magazine 1,550
40. 
philly.com 1,288 
41. 
The Houston Chronicle 1,120
42. 
Science Daily 1,093
43. 
MarketWatch 1,076
44. 
People 1,066
45. 
Miami Herald 1,049
46. 
The Seattle Times 1,049
47. 
Yahoo! Sports 1,047
48. 
The Dallas Morning News 939
49. 
San Jose Mercury News 879
50. 
Star Tribune 877

Source: Technorati.com

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