NowPublic is one of the fastest growing participatory news networks in the world. Time Magazine voted it last year one of the top 50 websites and The Guardian UK declared it's one of the top 5 most resourceful news sites in the world. They have come up with a way to measure "news influence" on the web. They insinuated that traffic to one's site and/or blog is not one of the lead indicators, but how the people listed are connected to others (especially other influencers) through social media like YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and others. I honestly don't know what to makeof this list. I am at the same time amused and disturbed. For one, Arianna Huffington comes in at #2 but I thought she lived in California, not New York City. Then there's the grand daddy of the New York blogeratti, Nick Denton, coming in at #34. Yet the most disturbing data point of this list is that I come in at #9. Yup. I am, as per NowPublic, one of the "top ten" news influencers in the New York new media market.

NOWPUBLIC LAUNCHES THE “MOSTPUBLIC INDEX” IDENTIFIES THE WEB’S 50 MOST INFLUENTIAL INDIVIDUALS IN NEW YORK Vancouver, B. C. – July 21, 2008—NowPublic (http://www.nowpublic.com/), the world's largest participatory news network, today announced the launch of the MostPublic Index, a detailed barometer of the most public news influencers of today’s digital world, illustrating how a new breed of influencer is shaping the media environment and what’s heard by the general population. Today, news makers and reporters are increasingly indistinguishable. In fact, a teenage Twitterer may have as powerful a voice as the New York Times editorial board. Therefore, NowPublic has defined this new type as “news influencer.” The first MostPublic Index identifies the 50 most influential individuals in New York. “Visibility and connectedness define today’s elite,” said Leonard Brody, CEO of NowPublic. “Today, there are innumerable new ways for one’s voice to be heard. The goal of the MostPublic Index is to measure who is currently most effective in broadcasting their own personal brand online, as well as identify emerging players.” “Our ‘MostPublic Index’ is a leading indicator and benchmark of who is really changing the way in which news is being produced and distributed, a core goal of NowPublic and its army of reporters.” NowPublic created a formula to measure influence and “publicness” across four categories, including: o Online Visibility o Presence on User-Generated Content and Social Networking Sites o Interactivity and Accessibility o The “R” Factor: Presence on Microblogging Platforms (Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.) NowPublic measured statistics in each of these categories from Facebook, Flickr, Google, Technorati, YouTube, and various other blogs and sites, to create a list of New York’s leading influencers. NowPublic then narrowed the list to 50 by analyzing and documenting individuals’ presence and popularity in each of these channels, applying a weighted scoring system, determined by the strength of specific traits held in each online community. A detailed account of the scoring system can be viewed here: http://www.nowpublic.com/world/most-public-index. Without further ado, NowPublic proudly presents the MostPublic individuals in New York: 1. Fred Wilson 2. Arianna Huffington 3. Sarah Austin 4. Steve Rubel 5. Noah Brier 6. Anil Dash 7. Gary Vaynerchuk 8. Jeff Jarvis 9. Liza Sabater 10. Loren Feldman 11. Paul Allison 12. Tamar Weinberg 13. Alex Blagg 14. Greg Verdino 15. Jason Kottke 16. Rex Sorgatz 17. Alisa Leonard 18. Brian Morrissey 19. Eric Friedman 20. Jeffrey Zeldman 21. Natali Del Conte 22. Tim Shey 23. Kyle Bunch 24. Anthony Volodkin 25. John Hodgman 26. Nancy Scola 27. Jay Rosen 28. Jen Simmons 29. John Biggs 30. Jake Dobkin 31. Caroline McCarthy 32. Lindsay Robertson 33. Lockhart Steele 34. Nick Denton 35. Scott Kidder 36. Kelly Reeves 37. Rachel Sklar 38. Peter Kafka 39. Jill Fehrenbacher 40. Peter Rojas 41. Robert Lanham 42. Jen Chung 43. Meghan Asha 44. Amy Langfield 45. Josh Levy 46. Allison Mooney 47. Nicholas Carlson 48. Laurel Touby 49. Emily Gould 50. Brian Stelter The entire list can be viewed here: http://www.nowpublic.com/world/most-public-index. The MostPublic Index will issue periodic indexes across a variety of categories, including the MostPublic: American cities; European cities; Asian Cities; Indian Cities; musical influencers; political influencers, pop culture influencers and sports influencers, among others. The next MostPublic Index will identify the 50 most public individuals in Silicon Valley. About NowPublic NowPublic is a crowd-sourced, participatory news network that mobilizes an army of reporters to cover the events that define our world. In its short history, the company has become the largest news organization of its kind with contributing reporters in more than 5,500 cities and 160 countries. The Guardian has named NowPublic one of the top five most useful news sites on the Web and Time Magazine named it one of the Top 50 Websites for 2007. The company has received funding from Rho Ventures, Rho Canada, Brightspark, GrowthWorks and members of the New York Angels.