I'm the 16th most _______ beer blog in the country!

I mentioned yesterday that we'd get back to beer talk today. Just one more administrative detour before we do such things.

I lost track of this little goodie amidst the Philly Beer Week hoopla. The title is sort of Mad Lib-ish. Feel free to fill in your own adjective.

Thing is, with Wikio, I don't know if I should assume that their ranking means that I'm the 16th most popular, most smart, most clever, most hard-working, best linked, ....or whatever beer blog.

Of course, those of you who know me well enough know that I cringe just hearing the word 'blog', period. Nonetheless, Wikio is taking a stab at ranking the blogosphere. Not just beer, but all blogs categorized by industry or at least topic of interest.

They presumably use some criteria and algorithms which then get applied against all blogs without bias. So, in that sense, being compared against peers becomes an interesting thing. However, with each of the many hundreds (nearly 700 at last count, according to Beer Bloggers Conference) of us writing a different message intended for different audiences in different geographic regions with different styles and desired end games, I (and we all should) take this with a grain of salt.

I can tell, for near certain, that if all that was being measured was simply site visits/page views, there's no way I'm in the top 20, probably not even top 50 judging from other company in the top 50.

Since I'd been lobbying the admin folks at Wikio for nearly six months to include me in the 'beer' category (and since there oddly seems to be a growing number of folks "out there" who are insatiably curious about my site traffic), I figured now that I am being properly classified for the past two months, I should at least make mention of it.

They even supplied me with a "badge" that I can put on The Brew Lounge for proper display and recognition (you'll see it over there somewhere on the right side of the screen), though I must admit it feels a bit odd to do that and draw attention to it -- sort of like a Sports Illustrated cover in Spring Training, I'm bound to go down next month!

So to the extent that you all play a role in boosting me up to #16, I thank you and will do what I can to continue providing beer information worthy of the ranking.

Now let's all get back drinking some great beer :)