Ann Marie Cox is top blogger on Bing - but no blog!

You know what gets me? How some people in media new and old really play fast-and-loose with the truth. Take Bing x-Rank. In fact, you should.

Bing x-Rank has a listing for "top bloggers", which caught my attention for obvious reasons. TBing x-Rank lists the following bloggers in the order presented (as of this writing):

Gizmodo
Michelle Malkin
Perez Hilton
Aaron Gleeman
Alex Ross
Ally Carter
Ana Marie Cox
Andrew Keen
Andy Stern
Arianna…

Huffington.

Ok. Now, one would expect some kind of ranking system, right? One would also think each blogger had a blog they were editing or at least writing on, right?

So it was interesting to me that Ana Marie Cox, who's certainly a legendary blogger in history, was listed as a "top blogger" without any numerical data to defend the choice for a person who's not with the blog she's listed as writing for!

Wonkette.

Yes, she's the founder, but I mean everyone knows it's not her blog anymore and she's not writing on it. Ana Marie will tell you herself she's a "Wonkette emerita". She's tops on Twitter - in part because someone at Twitter put her on their "Suggested Users" list, which caused her follower count to just zoom.

For that reason, in part, Twitter's "Suggested Users List" is no more.

Now I'm not picking on Ana Marie Cox - this could have been true for any blogger who did not have an active blog.  (In fact, note that I'm not picking on Michelle Malkin, ok?)  When I see "top bloggers" I don't expect a list just made up from the whim of the web master, even if it's Bill Gates.  

Especially if it's Bill Gates.

I expect to see a numbers graph.  I expect to see displayed traffic measures.

Think about this. Some of the people responsible for this arbitrary selection would be the first to say they're not biased at all. Yes, I'm going there. I'm pretty hot about this. In New Media the idea is for the best or top of whatever to get their because they have measurable traffic and readership. When the numbers change, the blogger's ranking changes. Right?

Keep prejudices out of it.

This display of arbitrary selection of "top bloggers" on the part of Bing is no better than it was over at Twitter.

It's really got to stop.