Tony Law (ITasITis blog) was in touch today, following up on his very first contribution here (that head-to-head competitors to Gartner’s Hype Cycle report include Forrester Research, with their TechRadar reports). He’s just posted a comparative assessment of TechRadar and Hype Cycle. Start-ups, VCs and enterprise early adopters will appreciate the comparison. Check it out. Well done.

The only point I would add to Tony’s analysis, is take care if you decide to track TechRadar reports via Google/RSS/Technorati alerts. Despite the Forrester mark tacked onto “TechRadar,” you’ll need to filter out monster results pointing to Future media’s consumer tech news and review site, TechRadar.com.

The report he evaluates, “Forrester TechRadar(TM): The Extended Supply Chain Application Ecosystem, Q2 2008,” lists at $279. I would compare to current Gartner Hype Cycle pricing, but their public site is down until tomorrow.

BTW, Tony is a scholar and a gentleman in my eyes. He made Tekrati history last month, by becoming the first person to send me a detailed assessment of the free Tekrati firms directory — including some outdated links, links/nomenclature we disagree on, and links/companies I hadn’t heard of.

Jonny Bentwood, an Edelman employee who blogs at Technobabble 2.0, has issued his quarterly ranking of the “Top 100 analyst blogs”. The ranking is based on his own system of points, applied to the Tekrati analyst blogs directory plus additional blogs that he identifies.

This time around, the top honors went to Jeremiah Owyang’s blog, Web Strategy by Jeremiah. This is the first ranking published since Jeremiah joined Forrester Research.

In browsing the rankings, I’ve spotted 3 blogs not listed in the Tekrati directories:

The Net-Savvy Executive by Nathan Gilliatt, of Social Target (ranked 31)

Greenmonk, an open source / cleantech community founded by James Governor, Redmonk (ranked 65)

Holway’s HotViews by Richard Holway, until recently an active icon in the industry analyst community (not ranked)

The Top 100 also includes some blogs no longer appearing in the Tekrati directory.

Props to Jonny Bentwood for outstanding work! Props to every blogging analyst, on the list or not!

During November, 19 blogs written by analysts were added to Tekrati’s Directory of Analyst Blogs, a freely available directory. Those with valid feeds are included in the OPML. Some are “new” blogs, some are well established and only recently came to my attention.

The November additions are:

Company: Common Sense Advisory
Localization Industry 411
Global Watchtower

Company: Enderle Group
The Real Truth about Technology and IT

Company: Forrester Research
Annoying Design (I’m having problems validating the feed)
Forrester Applications and Program Management Council (Forrester restricted access after this blog was listed)
Forrester Infrastructure and Operations Council (Forrester restricted access after this blog was listed)

Company: Freeform Dynamics
Open Reasoning

Company: GT&A Strategic Marketing
NewMediaWise

Company: Illuminata
The Pervasive Datacenter

Company: iLocus Research
iLocus

Company: Info-Tech Research Group
Attic Dust (I know, need to give Michael his own listing.)

Company: JupiterResearch
Zia Daniell Wigder
John Lovett

Company: Longhaus
The Naked Chief Blog (I’m having problems validating the feed)

Company: Security Incites
Security Mike’s Blog
The Mike Rothman Security Report

Company: TEC
The TEC Blog
Foro Empresarial

Company: Wikibon
Storage Takeaways

Heads up: In 2008, “stealth” deletions from the Tekrati Analyst Blogs Directory come to an end. Instead, inactive and disappeared blogs will roll over to an archive (purgatory?) of sorts.

There’s always another tech provider trying to pull a fast one on you — whether you’re a rich man, poor man, analyst or thief. In these situations, industry analysts can be invaluable. Today’s example: Josh Chalifour, and his post Microsoft Flunked Comparing 101. (This is his personal blog, not a TEC blog.) With an analyst’s eye, he points out some of the logical problems in the latest Microsoft marketing comparison of Windows with Linux. It’s a good read for IT decision makers trying to make sense of these Microsoft assertions.

For the rest of us, there’s more to the story. Adding irony to obfuscation: InformationWeek is reporting that this new comparison effort is a replacement for the old, legally challenged, and internationally maligned Microsoft analyst-reprint program, Get the Facts.

I suspect the Microsoft AR team had little if any control over the new “Comparison” program. Nonetheless, this program continues to top the list of Things Not To Do with Analyst Relations.

If you want a critique of the technology claims, contact Josh directly or post a comment at his blog.

What is a blog? How would you define an industry analyst blog? What separates blogs from the other online destinations and channels published by the ICT analyst community? Is a blog still a blog without an RSS feed? comments? Is an analyst blog tied to his or her expertise? Yesterday, I asked ten or so analysts and consultants in the US and UK to share their thoughts on what is a blog. They responded with free-range thinking on that and beyond: what is an analyst blog, why do analysts blog, and why does anyone care. Good stuff. Here’s a rough cut of my notes.

Background

My intent is to overhaul the criteria for the Tekrati analyst blogs directory. Already, the conversation offers a rich perspective on grounds for deciding which blogs are listed and why they might be tossed out down the road.

I queried analysts and consultants that are successful bloggers: each has a track record as an individual blogger, and has earned credibility as a thought leader within a professional community of practice.

The analysts are: Carl Howe of Blackfriars Communications, Mike Gotta of Burton Group, Alan Pelz-Sharpe of CMS Watch, Charlene Li or Josh Bernoff (Josh responded) of Forrester Research, Dale Vile of Freeform Dynamics, James Governor of RedMonk, John Blossom of Shore Communications, and Stowe Boyd of The Brannan Street Irregulars.

The consultants are: Jen McClure of the Society for New Communications Research, Jonny Bentwood of Edelman, and Erik SR of Tech for PR.

Again, what follows is a rough cut of the discussion threads. I’m pulling excerpts out of the conversational flow, to make for faster reading. More, and perhaps a little more polished, next week.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Tekrati directory of analyst blogs is easier to use, offers more information and is better integrated with its sister directories, on analysts and analyst firms. What’s more, we migrated the OPML to the latest rev and did an extensive housecleaning on the listings. Richard handled the programming effortlessly, as always. I, on the other hand, am still wrestling with a content issue: new rules for separating a blog from any other form of online journal or commentary. I’m asking for help.

You might be thinking that I’m a little slow on the draw, given that I’m just now pondering the universal truths of Blog, some two and half years into publishing a directory of blogs.

Since the 2005 directory debut, my rule has been this: there must be evidence of blog publishing software and/or blog coding and format standards. That’s what split the blogwashers — my term for analysts using web pages that mimic a blog in a cosmetic way — from the bloggers. Only the bloggers that passed this test made it into the directory.

Fast forward to 2007. I’m feeling increasingly self-conscious about this technology-only premise, and that’s not a good thing. More web content seems to be a hybrid, a blend of blog and other content publishing applications. This results in too much dithering on my part. And, I don’t like to guess. Whether a blog is in or out of the directory should be a simple decision. It should not be subjective. (Other elements are subjective, as it is, like who is and who is not an analyst. That’s another conversation.)

What to do? I don’t think that adding more technology to my filtering criteria is the right approach. After all, any kind of page can be turned into an RSS feed, lots of publishing systems allow reader comments, lots of blog templates perform like traditional websites, and lots of analyst blogs don’t accept comments or have feeds that don’t validate.

Read the rest of this entry »

An independent ranking of the top 50 ICT industry analyst blogs shows the blogosphere to be a level playing field for analyst bloggers. The ranking was produced by Jonny Bentwood, who blogs as possible at Technobabble 2.0 and works by day as a PR consultant for Edelman. The top 50 blogs hail from one-man consultancies as well as multinationals. The brands gracing the top ten slots are Redmonk, Security Incite, Hitwise, Forrester, Shore Communications, and JupiterKagan’s JupiterResearch.

Mr. Bentwood credits his inspiration and approach to Todd And’s Power 150. He uses a combined score based on Google PageRank, Bloglines subscriber totals, Technorati authority ranking, and his own Technobabble scale.

The top 10 blogs as ranked by Technobabble (”Top 50 analyst bloggers - updated“) are:
Read the rest of this entry »

The Tech for PR blog offers an insightful tip for leveraging Tekrati Industry Analyst Reporter for storylines — particularly for PR professionals with tech industry clients. This is a solid “how to” on using research findings as a launchpad, whether as a hook in pitching a story idea or the basis for an entire article. While freelance writers and editors visit Tekrati on a regular basis with this in mind, I suspect that many public relations professionals feel that they don’t have time to explore these avenues. Erik shows the process can be fast and easy.

In fact, he illustrates that creative pitching can leverage a single Gartner press release or whitepaper for several different articles. This is much more mileage than citing a statistic in a press release.

Naturally, it’s imperative to follow the citation policies of each research company when preparing the final submission.

Check out the complete post, “Use Tekrati to come up with ideas for bylines”, and browse more tips while you’re there.

This summer has seen computer battery recalls affecting consumers and professional users alike, and in record-setting numbers. One manufacturer acknowledged investigations were already underway before one of the incidents took place. Yet, I’ve found only one analyst group criticizing these recalls and advocating higher standards at the source: Ontario-based Info-Tech Research Group.

Read the rest of this entry »