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The Q1-2008 MQ and Q2-2008 MQ saw some good traffic and excitement and the idea has had a lot of publicity and interest generated with a healthy dose of new entries from folks wanting to get in. I figured out a more in depth way to go about evaluating each blog in the realm with BETTER efficiency and deeper analysis of each…

The Recap

So I’m still looking for ways to automate this process, and I’ve come up with a few scripts, but at this time I’m still doing it manually - if you’ve got any programming/background experience with writing apps, ping me and we may be able to come up with a quick and dirty way to kick it off automated in the future!

Anywho, the whole point of the Magic Quadrant is to give an overall picture based solely on measurable statistics. Gartners Magic Quadrant is a term acquired by Gartner, but Wiki says it is:

…a proprietary research tool developed by Gartner Inc., a US based research and advisory firm. It is designed to provide an unbiased qualitative analysis of a “markets’ direction, maturity, and participants.

The Rules

Each Personal Finance Blog (minus MyInvestingBlog - details below) in the mix needs to have at least THREE months of posts and needs to have had at least ONE post in the last week; based on that initial information, they are then rated based on the following metrics:

Hard Metrics:

* - new metric added to the list since last run.

• Technorati authority
• Alexa ranking
• How much is their blog worth?
• Load time from iwebtool and Pingdom*
• Google PageRank courtesy of DigPageRank and Blogflux*
• Link Popularity*
• Search Engine Saturization*
• Backlink depth*
• URL fan*

Soft Metrics

• Blogging frequency - how often do they post?
• Commenter involvement - I randomly choose 10 posts on their blog to see how responsive they are to readers and the comments left on their blogs
• Site Design
• Readability/Grammar
• Post Originality - How unique are the posts?

The List

(IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER):
* - new site added to the list since last run.

AllFinancialMatters.com
ALongLongRoad
Bargaineer.com
BeingFrugal.net
BibleMoneyMatters.com*
BripBlap.com
CashMoneyLife.com
ChanceFavors.com
ChristianPF.com
ConsumerismCommentary.com
CreativeInvestor101.com
CubeFarmer.net
Debt-FreeRevolution.com
DoughRoller.net
FireFinance.com
FiveCentNickel.com
FreeFromBroke.com
FreeMoneyFinance.com
FrugalDad.com
FrugalForLife.com
GatherLittleByLittle.com
GirlsJustWannaHaveFunds.com
GenXFinance.com
GetRichSlowly.org
GrowingWallet.com
i-endeavors.com
LazyManAndMoney.com
LegalAndrew.com
MDMProofing.com
MilkYourMoney.com*
Moneyning.com
Moolanomy.com
MrsMicah.com
MyDollarPlan.com
MyMoneyBlog.com
MyTwoDollars.com
OnFinancialSuccess.com
PaidTwice.com
Plonkee.com
PrimeTimeMoney.com*
RemodelingThisLife.com*
SenseToSave.com*
SevenMillion7Years.com
Shauna26
SingleGuyMoney.com
TheDigeratiLife.com
TheSimpleDollar.com
YoungAndBroke.com
20sMoney.com*

MyInvestingBlog.com is missing, why?

Well, I figured this would be thought of as a “democratic process” if I included myself. If you really want to know where I fell, I’m happy to tell you, contact me.

The Graph

Click the image for a larger view (or right click and “Save As” to save for later):

The Movers

It was brought up that I should chart who moved up and who moved down on the list. In response to that, there really is no bad place to be. It’s a matrix just showing where sites have fit in the niche.

Think of it kind of like a mutual fund index, there is no bad place, just “other” places. That being said, the top right corner of most Magic Quadrants are generally considered the “the place to be” because of the Large/Growth idea, but by no means puts any less value on the other squares. Look at the metrics by which I’m judging, it’s a big pool!

The Forgotten

Know somebody I left off? Leave a comment on the post here, or contact me and I’m happy to throw them in the matrix for the next run of the “Magic Quadrant of Personal Finance Blogs”!

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