Blog Influence Index: A Measure of Influential Weblog

Abstract

Although weblogs are a popular medium of communication, their influence on society is unclear. In particular, studies that investigate the impact and influence of blogosphere on the community and government have not been fully exploited. Such studies are important especially to the government in reshaping and realigning the policies related to new media. This article presents the outcomes of a study to identify measures on how to assess the influence of weblogs. At least four dimensions are critical for measuring weblog influence, which are recognition (number of in links and number of visitors), activity generation (number of comments and number of posts), novelty (number of out links), and credibility of a blog (number of information presentation type, number of factual errors, and number of hyperlink citations). It is hereby proposed that these dimensions make up a measure called the Blog Influence Index.