It was a gray winter morning in CMSland and here's how we decided to spend it: we packed down a block of fresh soda bread and headed over to Chez Technorati to have a gander at their 100 most linked-to (popular) blogs. With that list in hand we skipped about through viewed source, many emails and some kindly conversation. In the end we had ourselves a nifty little list consisting of website name and the blogging technology or Web CMS platform said site ran on. Simply put, we found that WordPress dominates the list, that Movable Type comes in with a respectable second, and the rest are either custom jobbies or a smattering of other platforms which are, relatively speaking, eating dust. We enclose the full list here for your consideration, but first a couple of notes on the results.

Notes from the Field

  • WordPress wins -- it is used by a whopping 34 percent of the 100 blogs on Technorati's Top 100 linked-to.
  • Movable Type is used by 16 percent. So WP and MT between them provide the platform for half the surveyed blog sites.
  • This proportion would be higher, but for the amount of platforms which started out as either Movable Type or WordPress (usually MT, near as we can judge), only to be hacked beyond all recognition. These we classify as 'Custom'.
  • The "Big 2" blogging networks are neck and neck in terms of representation. Gawker has 8 blogs on the list, each using Gawker's own custom publishing platform (with a hacked Movable Type UI). The Weblogs network, also with 8 sites on the list, uses Blogsmith.
  • I'm not certain that Metafilter, Little Green Footballs, Crave|cnet and Daring Fireball are all categorized correctly. There could possibly be other gremlins lurking within this opus. Scornfully fill me in, if you know better.
  • Wider scope Web CMS technologies are not used much by the top blogs. Drupal scores 5 sites, with Plone used by 1. Other popular Web CMS platforms are conspicuous only by their absence.
  • Most of the custom systems built are legacy jobs used by websites for years (e.g., Drudge Report). No-one is crazy enough to build their own blogging platform these days...except maybe Gawker Media.
  • Judging by the list, the blogosphere is still at an immature stage. The list is dominated by gadgets, Web news, SEO, and general geekiness. Is that really all people want from a blog?

The Raw Numbers

Technorati Top 100 'Most Linked to' Blogs as of Jan, 2008 by publishing platform.
CMS/Platform Count
WordPress34
Movable Type16
Custom CMS11
Blogsmith/Weblogs8
Gawker CMS8
TypePad7
Blogger/Blogspot6
Drupal5
Plone1
Scoop1
Expression Engine1
Community Server1
City Desk (Fog Creek)1
technorati top cms graph
And here's the full list of Technorati Top 100 Most Linked-to Blogs, as of 17 Jan 2008.
1)Engadget Blogsmith
2)Gizmodo Gawker
3)Techcrunch Wordpress
4)Huffington post Movable Type
5)Boing Boing Movable Type
6)Lifehacker Gawker
7)Ars Technica Custom
8)Mashable Wordpress
9)Blog di Beppe Grillo Movable Type
10)icanhascheezburger Wordpress
11)Daily Kos Scoop
12)TMZ Entertainment BlogSmith
13)perez Hilton Wordpress
14)postSecret Hosted: BlogSpot
15)Seth Godin Hosted: Typepad
16)ReadWriteWeb Movable Type
17)proBlogger Wordpress
18)Official Google Blog Hosted: BlogSpot
19)treeHugger Movable Type
20)Smashing Magazine Wordpress
21)Kotaku, Gamers Guide Gawker [MT]*
22)Gigazine Expression Engine
23)Dosh Dosh Wordpress [Thanks Maki]
24)CopyBlogger Wordpress
25)Think progress Wordpress
26)The Consumerist Gawker
27)Valleywag Gawker
28)GigaOM Wordpress
29)ShoeMoney Wordpress
30)Crooks and Liars Wordpress
31)Scobleizer Wordpress
32)at0mica Wordpress
33)TUaW - Unofficial apple Blog Blogsmith
34)uthink plone
35)Gawker Gawker*
36)Search Engine Land Movable Type
37)Joystiq Blogsmith
38)a List apart Custom (Happy Cog)
39)Drudge Report Custom
40)Talking points Memo MovableType [with 'limited customization' -thanks Josh Marshall]
41)Neatorama Wordpress
42)O'Reilly Radar Movable Type
43)Threat Level- Wired Typepad
44)How to Change the World Typepad
45)Microsiervos Movable Type [thanks Nacho]
46)Lifehack.org Wordpress
47)dooce Drupal
48)Engadget Japanese Blogsmith
49)Zen Habits Wordpress
50)Blogoscoped (unofficial Google) Custom [Thanks philip and Haochi]
51)autoblog Blogsmith
52)NewsBusters.org Drupal
53)Xiaxue Blogspot
54)“43 Folders” Drupal
55)Download Squad Blogsmith
56)The Daily Dish/andrew Sullivan Typepad
57)ancora Imparo CommunityServer
58)Secret Diary of Steve Jobs BlogSpot
59)TheWrongadvices.com Wordpress
60)Jauhari Wordpress
61)Google Operating System blog BlogSpot
62)Noscope Wordpress
63)Matt Cutts Wordpress
64)The Superficial Custom
65)The Corner/National Review Custom
66)The Sartorialist BlogSpot
67)Deadspin Gawker*
68)antbag.com Wordpress
69)Hot air Wordpress
70)kottke.org Movable Type
71)SEOBook Drupal
72)Crunchgear Wordpress
73)Freakonomics NYTimes Custom
74)Vacuous Virtuoso Wordpress
75)SlashFilm Wordpress
76) stereogum Movable Type
77)Gothamist Movable Type
78)Fanhouse aOL Sports Blogsmith
79)TorrentFreak Wordpress
80)Joel on Software CityDesk (Fog Creek)
81)Dlisted Drupal
82)Instapundit Movable Type
83)Make: Blog Movable Type
84)podbean Faq Wordpress (podbean runs off Joomla!)
85)Coding Horror (“..an ancient form of..”)Movable Type
86 incorporated suberversion Wordpress
87)podbean News Wordpress (podBean runs off Joomla!)
88)Jalopnik Gawker *
89)Global Voices Online Wordpress
90)Yanko Design Wordpress
91)Go Fug Yourself Typepad
92)Mac Rumours Custom (Thanks Dr. Q)
93)Techdirt MovableType
94)Gadget Lab Typepad
95)Meta Filter Custom
96)Bad Behavior Wordpress
97)Little Green Footballs Movable Type (I think)
98)Dilbert Blog Typepad
99)Crave |Cnet Wordpress
100)Daring Fireball Custom

A Few Thank You's

We do owe some thanks to everyone who tolerated our persistent pestering: people like Dennis at Techdirt and Maki at DoshDosh, in addition to the many names mentioned above. We have a particularly big thank you for Haochi of Googlefied, who had a list compiled of the top 75 popular blogs by platform, and was good enough to give us access to it. This saved me and my hamsters a nice block of time -- though not as much as it would have done had we stumbled into this man's lair a day earlier!