According to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 64% of online teens ages 12-17 (or 59% of all teens) have participated in one or more online content-creating activities, up from 57% of teens in a similar survey at end 2005.

• 39% of teens share online their artistic creations (e.g. artwork, photos, stories, or videos), up from 33% in 2005.
• 33% create or work on webpages or blogs for others, including those for groups they belong to, friends, or school assignments, basically unchanged from 2005 (32%).
• 28% have created own online journal or blog, up from 19% in 2005, with girls leading the charge.
• 27% maintain own personal webpage, up from 22% in 2005.
• 26% remix content found online into own creations, up from 19% in 2005.
• 47% (more girls) have uploaded photos where others can see them and 14% (more boys) have posted videos online; with many restrict access to the photos/videos in some way at least some of the time. Most receive some feedback on the content they post online.
• 55% have created a profile on a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace.
• In the midst of the digital media mix, the landline is still a lifeline for teen social life.
• Multi-channel teens layer each new communications opportunity on top of pre-existing channels.
• Email continues to lose its luster among teens as texting, instant messaging, and social networking sites facilitate more frequent contact with friends.

(Photo: CC Joshua Davis.)

In particular, the growth in China is the most impressive, growing by 53% (an addition of 73,000 users) since 2007 and yet its penetration rate is only 16 percent. For the others:

• Brazil grew by 17% (7,400) with a penetration rate of 26%. 
• Pakistan grew by 46% (5,500) with a penetration rate of only 11%. 
• Columbia grew by 80% (5,395) with a penetration rate of 25%. 
• India grew by 7% (5,000) with a penetration rate of only 7%. 
• Iran grew by 28% (5,000) with a penetration rate of 32%. 
• Russia grew by 17% (4,311) with a penetration rate of 21%. 
• Germany grew by 10% (3,900) with a penetration rate of 52%.
• France grew by 12% (3,553) with a penetration rate of 55%.
• Vietnam grew by 22% (3,188) with a penetration rate of 21%.

• 87% (21 million) of U.S. teens aged 12-17 use the internet (online teens), up from 73% (17 m ) in 2000. By contrast, 66% of adults use the internet, up from 56% in 2000.
• 45% of U.S. teens have cell phones and 33% are texting.

Of the 21 million online teens:

• 89% send or read email.
• 84% get information on movies, TV shows, music groups, or sports stars
• 81% play games online (52% growth since 2000), compared to 32% adults.
• 76% seek information on current events (38% growth since 2000), similar to adults.
• 75% send or receive instant messages (IM), compared to 42% adults. Of these, half use IM daily and have included a link to an interesting article or site in an IM; 45% have sent photos or documents; and 31% have sent music or video files.
• 57% seek information on schools they might attend, compared to 45% adults.
• 55% seek information on politics and the presidential campaign.
• 51% go online every day, up from 42% in 2000.
• Half lives in a home with a broadband connection.
• 43% have purchased online (71% growth since 2000), compared to 67% adults.
• 31% seek health information (47% growth since 2000).
• 30% seek job information, compared to 44% adults.
• 26% seek religious or spiritual information.
• Older girls are power communicators and information seekers.
• Asked about communication modes, teens consistently choose instant messaging (IM) over email and viewed email as medium for talking to “old people,” institutions, or sending complex instructions to large groups. However, 51% usually choose the landline telephone when they want to talk with friends.
• Face-to-face time still beats phone and screen time.

(Photo: CC Joshua Davis.)

FOR SOME TIME I’VE BEEN WONDERING: What’re the best ways to encourage comments on one’s blog? And not just any comments, but those that promote meaningful exchange of insights and experiences. I’ve found 10 techniques and 10 plugins through a Google search. Could you add a tip or two here please?

According to usability guru Jakob Nielsen, one needs to:

• Make it easier to contribute. The lower the overhead, the more people will jump through the hoop.
• Make participation a side effect. For example, Amazon’s “people who bought this book, bought these other books” recommendations are a side effect of people buying books.
• Edit, don’t create. Let users build their contributions by modifying existing templates rather than creating complete entities from scratch.
• Reward — but don’t over-reward — participants. Although money is always good, you can also give contributors preferential treatment (such as discounts or advance notice of new stuff), or even just put gold stars on their profiles.
• Promote quality contributors. …give extra prominence to good contributions and to contributions from people who’ve proven their value, as indicated by their reputation ranking.

According to problogger Darren Rowse, one could use these techniques:

• Invite Comments...new readers that are unfamiliar with blogging don’t always know about comments or how to use them.
• Ask Questions. I find that when I include questions in my headings… you set a question in their mind from the first moments of your post.
• Be Open Ended. While you don’t want to purposely leave too many things unsaid there is an art to writing open ended posts that leaves room for your readers to be experts also.
• Interact with comments left. If you’re not willing to use your own comments section why would your readers?
• Set Boundaries. I noticed that shortly after I set the rules for my comments section (with a comments policy) that my comment numbers jumped up a little… and that comment threads generally stay constructive as a result.
• Be humble. I find that readers respond very well to posts that show your own weaknesses, failings and the gaps in your own knowledge rather than those posts where you come across as knowing everything there is to know on a topic.
• Be gracious. There are times where you as the blogger will get something wrong in your posts… spelling or grammar… crux of your argument or some other aspect of your blogging… a graceful approach to comments where you admit where you are wrong and others is right can bring out the lurkers and make them feel a little safer in leaving comments.
• Be controversial? …it doesn’t always work (and I personally avoid it as much as I can these days) – but there’s nothing like controversy to get people commenting on your blog.
• ‘Reward’ Comments. There are many ways… that range from simply including a ‘good comment’ remark through to highlighting them in other posts that you write.
• Make it Easy to Comment. …there is one situation where I rarely leave a comment – even if the post deserves it – blogs that require me to login before making a comment. Keep your comments section as simple and as easy to use as possible.

According to Caroline Middlebrook, we could use some of these WordPress Plugins (comments in [] brackets are mine):

• DoFollow plugin: [I've stopped using this because this attracts visitors who drop in just to add some inane comments and a plug for their sites.]
• Top Commentator plugin: [I'm using this. Useful.]
• CommentLuv plugin: [I've installed and activated this. But it's not working on my blog. Probably incompatible with some existing plugins.]
• Most Commented Posts plugin: [Maybe I'll use this too.]
• Recent Comments plugin: [I'm using this. Useful.]
• Subscribe to Comments plugin: [I'm using this. Useful.]
• Threaded Comments plugin: [Hey! How many plugins does one need to use?]
• Gravatars plugin: [ditto]
• Custom Smileys plugin: [ditto]
• Edit Comments plugin: [ditto]

.

As of today, the Top 20 (most read) posts in Ping.sg (2008) are (tags appended in the list below are my comments):

1. v1.80 is Here: More Community Features | 81 pongs, 408 reads | by uzyn at Ping.sg Blog – community
2. Going into Ping.sg is now so stressful (see picture) | 79 pongs, 248 reads | by simplyjean at Simply Jean – curiosity
3. My Cousin Saw Mas Selamat! | 78 pongs, 399 reads | by jussaemon at The Original Juice – curiosity, piggybacking (post is not there anymore)
4. Xiaxue gets flamed on high-profile USA blog | 76 pongs, 222 reads | by sheylara at Sheylara.com – curiosity, piggybacking
5. Sex blogging can ruin your offline reputation | 75 pongs, 554 reads | by themediaslut at the(new)mediaslut – sex, advice
6. 15yrs old girl had sex for 300 times.. | 74 pongs, 466 reads | by ylva 2 at missYLva =D – sex
7. EDISON CHEN SEX PHOTOS: Another 200 are leaked online, with possibly more to come | 73 pongs, 1666 reads | by publiceducator on February 10, 2008 at Public Education – sex
8. Tammy NYP – Sex Scandal That Would Not Die. | 73 pongs, 597 reads | by ahpek at Malaysian Blogger – sex
9. Last blog entry | 73 pongs, 274 reads | by dk99 at Decay On Net – curiosity
10. [Living in Sin] Maia Lee is Fucked | 72 pongs, 274 reads | by nocturne at fruit of the poisonous tree – sex
11. Going to Geylang with DK… and he went too far! | 67 pongs, 462 reads | by simplyjean at Simply Jean – “sex”, curiosity
12. How to Pong Cheat Properly? | 67 pongs, 314 reads | by hendribudi at A Better Title – humor, curiosity
13. Something FISHY outside LT10, NUS. POLICE TAKING PICS. | 67 pongs, 309 reads | by estee at Geek Goddess – curiosity
14. Edison Chen sex photo scandals – latest blowjob photo leaked! | 66 pongs, 3683 reads | by jialat at Jialat dot Com – sex
15. My new girlfriend | 66 pongs, 358 reads | by adamzhang at AdamZhang.com – sex appeal
16. UPDATES on POLICE outside NUS LT10 | 66 pongs, 254 reads | by estee at Geek Goddess – curiosity
17. Very awkward Ping.sg gathering? | 65 pongs, 193 reads | by simplyjean at Simply Jean – community
18. Top 10 Singapore Babes in 2007 | 63 pongs, 899 reads | by chioeves at ChioBlog – sex appeal
19. Straits Times boo boo | pongs, 588 reads | by simplyjean at Simply Jean – curiosity, controversy
20. cute ntu girl: “oh my god” | 63 pongs, 448 reads | by chillycraps at department of crappy engineering – sex appeal

.

ON THE OTHER HAND, the Top 20 posts in Tomorrow.sg (2008) are (tags appended in the list below are my comments):

1. Oppositions to be blamed for Mas Selamat’s escape | 6721 reads | by Lucky Tan – piggybacking (current issue of interest), controversy, politics, sarcasm
2. Local Comedian, MC King (???) is dead! | 5531 reads | by Alvinology – piggybacking, minor celebrity, death
3. Singapore JI terrorist leader escape = Black magic? | 3841 reads | by Slutty – piggybacking, controversy, safety
4. Singaporean girl sells her used lingerie on her website | 2944 reads | by IZ Reloaded – sex
5. Maid Abuse of 2 month old baby in Singapore! | 2856 reads | at YouTube – controversy
6. Possible Appearances of JI Fugitive Mas Selamat Kastari | 1559 reads | by AEN – piggybacking, controversy, curiosity
7. I won a battle against Nokia | 1550 reads | by xiaoyun – controversy, individual against organization
8. Ah Meng died this morning | 1535 reads | by Alvinology – piggybacking
9. My Last Post as an NSF… | 1412 reads | by farter – farewell, NS
10. MC King (???)’s Funeral Video | 1362 reads | by Alvinology – piggybacking, death, video
11. Singapore team wins Amazing Race Asia 2 | 1205 reads | at AXN Asia’s Amazing Race site – Singapore vs the world, news (community)
12. Chinese New Year exodus exposes Singapore generation gap | 1155 reads | at Reuters – Singapore vs the world, news (community)
13. size 8 – 10 = fat | 1124 reads | by sg_ljers at ST Life Forums – beauty, friendship, community (dumped for being fat)
14. Taiwanese poking fun at Singaporean English | 1010 reads | by Xiong – Singapore vs Taiwan, news (community)
15. Singapore’s Better Kept Secret – A North Korean Embassy | 994 reads | by Oikono
16. Quan Yi Feng slapped husband in public? | 978 reads | by Alvinology – local celebrity, controversy
17. Rich foreigner complains ERP is still too low | 962 reads | at ST Forum, flagged by Pavin Limanont – community, money
18. Comfort Cab – Yishun to Tanjong Pagar = $40.60!!!!!!! | 951 reads | by my secret garden – community, money
19. Singapore Toy & Comic Convention 2008 | 932 reads | by One – Singapore, toys, comics
20. Blatant discrimination in advertisements in SG | 921 reads | by Ridzwan – community, controversy, money

.

Note: Like last year, finding the Top 20 posts for 2008 in Tomorrow.sg took some effort because:

• Unlike Ping.sg, Tomorrow.sg has an archive but not a Top Posts for the Year (or Month, Week, Day) page.
• Only five 2008 posts are displayed under the Popular section on the main page. It’s curious how three posts with low reads (not any of the above 20 top posts) are displayed: namely, “First Lungless Frog” (39 reads), “scammers pick on the wrong person” (238 reads), and “NUS Hostel Problem” (315 reads).
• Two 2007 posts (”Comparison between Singapore’s and Malaysia’s Ministers”, “Singapore Escort Ads on Yellow Pages”), one 2006 post (”Swingers swap sex partners in prudish Singapore”) and two 2005 posts (”Singapore Sex Scene”, “Taking upskirt photos – and tio caught!”) are still displayed under the Popular section on the main page.
• If honesty matters, the Popular section should be renamed Featured instead.

Related Articles:

• Top Posts in Ping.sg & Tomorrow.sg (2007)
• Alexa Ranks Ping.sg Above Tomorrow.sg (2007)
• Uzyn, The Next Kevin Rose?

And the Geo Locations for this blog in May were:

IN TERMS OF NUMBERS, membership in the directory, the map and the network now stands at 16, 30 and 45 respectively. Quite modest numbers really. However, I’m proud to say that we have quite a number of prominent and/or interesting bloggers among the members from various countries. For example:

• Chris Smith, whose Shambles Forest of Theme Blogs currently supports international school communities (teachers, support staff, administrators, students and families) in 17 countries in South East Asia!
• Keso, a top 10 blogger for China-related posts (according to Technorati)
• Keven Lw, founder of the Chinese Library 2.0 network and a library R&D leader in Shanghai, China
• Liew C.F., a top 10 blogger for Malaysia-related posts (according to Technorati)
• Pinoyblogosphere (Philipppines) – blog aggregator, directory, ranking, etc. for Pinoy blogs.
• And many others. (My apologies if I’ve left someone important out inadvertently. :-p)

Recently, to encourage ownership, I started inviting some of the more prominent bloggers to become admins/reps for their countries. Invariably, they also started to ask me what an admin/rep is supposed to do? I’ve no clear answer.

I know that I want to promote more exchange among social media users in Asia, possibly (especially?) in the areas of education and business. I also know that I’d like to have more visitors from Asia (other than Singapore). As for specifically where and how the network should be heading, I certainly welcome suggestions, ideas, etc. Could you give me some please?

.

As of today,the Top 20 (most read) posts in Ping.sg (2007) are:

1. Exclusive: $99 Internet Marketing giveway including Robert Allen book (1097 pongs) <- money
2. BAK2u.com – Exclusive iPhone images (504 pongs) <- gadgets
3. Mighty N80 (430 pongs) <- gadgets
4. Make $2,000 a WEEK or your money back! (402 pongs) <- money
5. FHM Girls Next Door – No Bras Day (394 pongs) <- sex appeal
6. Why 90% of Internet Marketers fail (313 pongs) <- money
7. Miss Singapore Universe 2007 (308 pongs) <- sex appeal
8. Leah Dizon (299 pongs) <- sex appeal
9. BAK2u in Top 10 Life-Hacking Business Ideas in 2006! (268 pongs) <- money
10. Is This the End of WhoIsAndrewWee.com? (244 pongs) <- money? curiosity?
11. Misa Campo (232 pongs) <- sex appeal
12. Video Clip: BAK2u.com interview (14 Feb 2007) (231 pongs) <- money
13. Jfoll – hot girl in bikini (213 pongs) <- sex appeal
14. Ewen Chia’s crazy profitable blogging offer (204 pongs) <- money
15. Minister Pay Hike (198 pongs) <- ministers, salary hike
16. Admiralty MRT Suicide Video (188 pongs) <- community
17. Maria Ozawa (188 pongs) <- sex appeal
18. My first $908.69 Clickbank check! (184 pongs) <- money
19. Ping.sg 1st Meet-Up (Please RSVP) (180 pongs) <- community
20. Britney Spears Bikini Striptease (178 pongs) <- sex appeal

.

ON THE OTHER HAND, the Top 20 posts in Tomorrow.sg (2007) are:

1. Singapore ministers set for million-dollar pay hike (1559 reads) <- ministers, salary hike
2. 我的朋友 My Friends Kawanku (894 reads) <- community, rant, video
3. Distasteful 98.7 FM Shock Jocks* (838 reads) <- community, sex, video
4. Airport Thugs (822 reads) <- civil service, rant
5. Organ Robbery, the truth (727 reads) <- hota, police, abuse
6. You spin me right round, baby…right round..like a record…round round round round… (679 reads) <- media, propaganda
7. NMP Siew’s speech on ministerial salaries (647 reads) <- ministers, salary hike
8. Singapore in the Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time (436 reads) <- community, humor
9. Sprice.com.sg (376 reads) <- money, airfare
10. Insight to NTU’s Allocation System for Students Attachment (323 reads) <- institution, policy, rant
11. Fiscal finagling in Singapore (315 reads) <- ministers, salary hike
12. Short & Sweet 2007 Tracie Pang, KK Seet, Tan Kheng Hua, Lim Kay Tong, Samantha Scott-Blackhall, Loretta Chan (304 reads) <- theatre
13. If All People were of the Same Race, Would there be Discrimination? (298 reads) <- community, what if
14. STFU (289 reads) <- ministers, salary hike
15. MICA bans film on former political detainee (288 reads) <- government, film censorship
16. Europe MPs ‘gagged’ by Singapore (286 reads) <- government, speech censorship
17. The MPAA’s Singapore lie (269 reads) <- media, propaganda
18. Meet Singapore’s F1 representative who will be racing in Europe (257 reads) <- car racing
19. Latest Internet Surveillance System reborn in Singapore (245 reads) <- politics, privacy
20. Yahoo Answer! teaches Singapore how to reserve tables (219 reads) <- Yahoo, answer, humor, video

.

Note: Finding the Top 20 posts for 2007 in Tomorrow.sg took some effort because:

• “Distasteful 98.7 FM Shock Jocks” above is the only 2007 top post displayed under the Popular section on the main page.
• One 2006 post (”SEX Party” with 48879 reads) and five 2005 posts (namely, “Sarong Party Girl Un-saronged”, “Singapore Sex Scene”, “Legs Wide Open”, “Taking upskirt photos – and tio caught!”, “The Bloggers.SG T-Shirt Design Competition”) are still displayed under the Popular section on the main page.
• It’s very curious though how three posts with low reads (and not any of the above 19 top posts) are displayed under the Popular section on the main page: namely, “To Join or Not to Join” [the civil service] (172 reads), “bad feng shui in farrer court” (108 reads), and “Lift-Upgrading Projects in progress are dangerous” (73 reads).

Related Articles:

• Uzyn, The Next Kevin Rose
• Alexa Ranks Ping.sg Above Tomorrow.sg
• A video guide to the Ping.sg anniversary celebration – by an absentee
• Top posts in Ping.sg & Tomorrow.sg – one year later

In China, Ya.IYee came up with a list of “Top 40 Chinese blogs” based on stats given by RSS reader Zhuaxia抓虾 (apparently most popular in mainland China right now, with around 30% or 60,000+ users).

In Malaysia (thanks, LiewCF), Gaman compiled a list of “50 Most Influential Blogs in Malaysia” based solely on Technorati rankings while Blog Webmaster Malaysia Alang created a list of “Strongest blogs in Malaysia” based on Page Strength, a combination of different factors, including Google PageRank, Technorati, Alexa, etc.

In the Philippines, a few dozen companies pooled resources to sponsor and to present “The 2007 Philippine Blog Awards” in 12 categories recently (end march) — based on the evaluation of 14 judges. I couldn’t help but wonder though: Who in turn has/have evaluated the competence and objectivity of these 14 judges?

Which evaluation criterion (or ranking) is most reliable (or not reliable) to you? Why or why not?

Afternote 14-04-2007: LiewCF.com, listed on Technorati’s Top 10 for Malaysia, is not among “the strongest of strongest blogs.” Somehow, Page Strength shows no result for his Alexa Rank and listing in DMOZ.

Afternote 13-04-2007: JUST FOUND this very interesting set of PinoyBlogosphere (”Pinoy” is equivalent to “Filipino”, I presume) sites:

• PinoyBlogosphere.Net allows you to submit a blog entry that will be reviewed by all readers and will be promoted (based on popularity) to the main page.
• PinoyBlogosphere.Org is a forum about pinoy blogging by pinoy bloggers for pinoy bloggers.
• PBS Ranking – ranks registered pinoy blogs according to average page views per week. Blog readers are also able to rate and give reviews on their favorite pinoy blogs.
• PBS Pinoy Videos is a collection of various pinoy videos uploaded by none other than by fellow pinoys.
• LiNK eXchange – using both manual and auto-links. Just enter Name/BlogTitle and URL or send requests via email.

By the way, in Malaysia, there are also several similar networks:

• Malaysia Bloggers Forum — a forum hosted by LiewCF, giving blog help and resources
• Digg Clone in Malaysia — all about Malaysian local content. Every article on digg is submitted and voted on by the digg community.

Also by the way, in Singapore, for those who might not know this, there are:

• Tomorrow.sg — Articles are submitted by the community and approved by a panel of editors.
• Ping.sg — All bloggers who ping this site have their posts displayed automatically for public reading.

Related Info:

• Asia Social Media Directory: China, Malaysia and Philippines pages
• FriedBeef’s Tech: How do you measure blog influence?

ACCORDING TO THE READ/WRITE WEB (RWW), also quoting World Internet Stats in World Internet Penetration Now 16% – Asia Growing Fast!:

• China, Japan, India, Korea (South), Indonesia and Taiwan are among the top 20 countries with highest number of users.
• English and Chinese are the top two languages of all Internet users, comprising almost 44 percent.

Extrapolating the second piece of information with the Chinese language growth rate of 346.7 % over a 5-year period: Would over 30% of world internet users be reading and/or writing in Chinese soon (say, in one or two years’ time)?

What would these extrapolations mean for you and me?

Note: RWW’s observations were made in September 2006, but they still hold true with the latest data compiled at the same site. The extrapolations here are based on intuitive projections, and not Mathematical calculations.

I know that Ping.sg is NOT competing with Tomorrow.sg. And I know that Alexa statistics are based on the visits of people who have installed and are using Alexa toolbar. Still, out of curiosity (and since Compete.com does not profile ping.sg yet), I checked the rankings and related stats for the two sites just now and was pleasantly surprised.

And the Web traffic meter on Alexa (via AttentionMeter) over the past six months reads:

Perhaps this is a herald of more good things to come for Ping.sg?

Afternote 04-04-2007: More charts from Alexa

Related Posts:

• Insight#4: Of Alexa, Dmoz & Technorati
• Lester Chan’s comment on the Alexa ranking of Ping.sg
• Top Posts in Ping.sg & Tomorrow.sg Reveal That…
• A video guide to the Ping.sg anniversary celebration – by an absentee

Afternote 01-05-2007: Traffic Rank for ping.sg is now: 73,025

“… I get about twice the pageviews of mattcutts.com, but his Alexa pageview ranking is about 25 times more than mine (I got this by looking at the 1 year, most highly smoothed graph, and then squinting to guess at the mean).

“What that means is that people with the Alexa toolbar installed are 25 times more likely to view a page on Matt’s site versus mine, but overall, all users view twice as many pages on my site.

“That’s a 50 to 1 difference introduced by the selection bias of Alexa. Presumably this is because Matt’s site is really appealing to a core group of SEO enthusiasts, many of whom also like the Alexa toolbar.”

IN A SIMILAR VEIN, John Chow wrote:

“Alexa is a tool that many webmasters and advertisers used to gauge the size of a website. The Alexa ranking is based on a three month running average. The number shown is where a site ranks on the internet… The main problem with Alexa is its rankings are based on users who have installed the Alexa toolbar onto their browser. If you do not have the toolbar running, you do not affect the rankings of the sites you visit. The next big problem with Alexa is it is very easy to cheat the system. Just get a few friends to install the toolbar and have them surf your site everyday. It does not take many people to break into the top 100,000. You can even do it all by yourself by refreshing your site over and over again. Get a dozen friends to do it and you’re break into top 20,000 easily.”

Alexa, by the way, works only on Internet Explorer. Now, perhaps all these explain why this blog’s Alexa ranking is 6,588,931? However, why two particularly trivial links which have nothing to do with this blog are listed in Alexa — they are totally different from the many links recognized by Technorati and 10,500 found via a Google search? Also, how is it that an empty blog such as one that’s created by default in an Elgg community blog and my Elgg profile could be ranked 64,954? Hmmm… just because both are on Elgg.net (also ranked 64,954)? Sheeeshh… no wonder! My test blog at Blogger.com has a rank of 15, just like Blogger itself!

When I scrolled to the bottom of an Alexa page, I found this statement, “Alexa’s directory listings are provided by Open Directory and enhanced by Alexa”. At the Open Directory (a.k.a. Dmoz) site, I read that it apparently has 75,151 editors and 4,830,584 sites listed in over 590,000 categories. According to one of its Help pages, “Depending on the activity level of the editors in your area, it may take up to 2 weeks or more for your site to be reviewed.”

However, I’ve tried for months and my blog is still not listed on this Open Directory. The oft-repeated reason given on support forum had been along this line: There has been a huge backlog and the editors couldn’t find enough time to clear that yet.

Likewise, I’ve tried for months to claim my blog on Technorati, but to no avail. The reason (given by Admin) looks familiar: My blog (along with many others) apparently could have been flagged for review, the support staff are facing a huge backlog and couldn’t find enough time to clear that yet.

I wonder. When I cannot claim my blog on Technorati, is my blog considered non-existent to Technorati? A search among the blog posts in Technorati yields 11 links, but a search in the blog directory yields this error message:

“Huh?

There are blogs, and then there’s whatever you just typed in. If it’s a blog, we don’t know about it. Maybe you made a typo. Or maybe it’s a blog that doesn’t exist. Maybe you don’t exist. (In which case, please ignore this.)”

While I truly appreciate the invaluable services that Alexa, Dmoz and Technorati provide, I also truly don’t understand what is meant by “flagged for review”. Who flags a bona-fide blog for review by Technorati and thereby stop it from being claimed even by its legitimate owner? In any case, is there a way to open up this listing of blogs that have been flagged for review, Digg-style perhaps, so that more people can comment on them and thus help the editors/admin guys speed up and clear this site-listing backlog?

Afternote on 2007-03-16: Please HELP ME claim my blog on Technorati. Add me as a Fave on Technortiat by clicking this -» and then feel free to delete it later.