This article was originally posted on WomenLearnThai.com.
The top 100 Thailand blogs: accept no imitation…
UPDATE: Matt’s Top 100 Thailand blogs list is no longer available.
Matt Crook, formerly of Thailand and now of East Timor, is the writer/blogger for The Lost Boy.
One lost boy wandering aimlessly, fighting the tanks, looking at the ladyboys, running round the city. This is a 24-year-old expat’s take of life
in the City of Angels, with more than a few sinners.
Matt also lists an impressive range of bloggers on his dedicated ‘Top 100 Thailand blogs’ page (no longer being served).
The top 20 of the top 100 Thailand blogs…
Going off on holiday and leaving (most) everything behind is fine. The not so fine part is knowing that you can’t post right away when something great happens, like WLT making it to Matt’s cherished top 20.
I’m way down at the bottom of the pile (hoping to make my way up… hint… hint…)
So finally (apologies for being tardy Matt), I give you the top 20 out of the top 100 Thailand blogs.
1) New Mandala
New Mandala was established in June 2006 by Andrew Walker and Nicholas Farrelly. Hosted by the Australian National University (ANU), it provides anecdote, analysis and new perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia. Since its inception the site has devoted its attention to the politics and societies of this region, and especially Thailand and Burma.
2) Bangkok Pundit (no longer online)
The main purpose of this blog is to post on issues related to Thai politics and primarily the situation in the Deep South. Only on very rare occasions which the author will stray from Thai politics into international politics (i.e my recent series of posts on Burma). This blog will be primarily focusing on current events and will try to use only open sources.
3) thai-blogs.com: Thailand Blogs (no longer online)
Stories about culture, language and small-town travel are posted by various expat and Thai contributors.
4) Thailand Land of Smiles (no longer online)
As I add more to the blog I hope people planning their first trip to Thailand or their tenth trip can maybe learn something new or at least smile in agreement with some of the stories, tips, and information I’ve learned and if nothing else there will be lots of great pictures to look at.
5) 2Bangkok
2Bangkok is daily Thai news you won’t find anywhere else. Since 1999, 2Bangkok has featured background and perspective on local news with summaries of the Thai-language press. These stories are often quite different than ones that appear in English. 2B also has the latest on politics, mass transit, infrastructure, Thai history (such as the Bangkok trams), and updates on gem scam store locations.
6) Absolutely Bangkok (no longer online)
About: Absolutely Bangkok.com is like a wild garden, an other, more subtle, no copycat take on lifestyle, politics, travel, food & events in Bangkok. An insider’s take on this wildly poetic city, which deep in its heart remains a wildly charming village.
7) The Pattaya Ghost (no longer online)
About: This is a quick summation of the blog and some links to get u started. We wanted to create a Bangkok Nightlife blog with a twist – we wanted to keep u up to date on what is happening and what we are actually doing.
About: Daily news and travel photographs from Thailand. This blog is part of the Paknam Web Network.
9) ThaiCrisis (no longer being updated)
About: The purpose of this blog is to help foreigners (us, farangs) to avoid the propaganda, to try to correctly assess the situation. Many of us have interests and affection for this country.
10) FACT
About: Freedom Against Censorship Thailand กลุ่มเสรีภาพต่อต้านการเซ็นเซอร์แห่งประเทศไทย.
About: Wise Kwai is a Bangkok-based journalist and film fan who’s been writing about Thai cinema since 2003.
12) The Bangkok Bugle (no longer online)
About: News, views and opinions from Thailand’s media industry.
13) Thailand Informationen (German) (no longer being updated)
About: Thailand Thai News and Information. Everything about Thailand and Thai culture.
14) Thai Eyes (no longer online)
About: Thailand Lifestyle Blog.
15) Travel Happy
About: Backpacking And Travelling In Thailand and South East Asia: A Personal Guide.
16) Thailand Jumped the Shark (no longer being updated)
About: Documenting the Shark Jumping activities of the Thai people: Thai media watch, Thai society, Thai politics, farang.
17) Phuket Vogue
About: Phuket Vogue is a resource dedicated to bringing you up-to-date information about restaurants and nightlife in Phuket. This website is constantly expanding to bring you the most vogue clubs and eateries on the island. Whether you want to party in Patong or dine out in Phuket City, we have the info for you.
18) Women Learn Thai… and some men too 😉
About: Expat making her way through Thai language and culture.
19)Bangkok Dazed (no longer being online)
About: Don Gilliland’s Bangkok Weblog.
20) Bisean
About: All about South East Asia, hot Eurasians and having fun on both sides of the fence.
There are wonderful blogs listed in the top 20 (and more), so please take the time to vote for the blog of your choice. And Matt, thank you MEGGA for the adding me to the group.
A great selection of blogs, been reading Thai Eyes ever since my first trip, love the culture and it’s great to get the inside knowledge from people who actually live there.
Follow the link that says ‘Top 100 Thailand blogs’… 🙂
Hi Cat here is a cheer for your great blog! hope it moves up!where do we vote? Cheers Greg
Thanks Lana! I found his ‘Introducing the top 100 Thailand blogs’ just this morning.
It really shows in Matt’s posts just how much time and effort he put into creating that list. And not just the blog gathering, which is a huge job – he had to upgrade his hosting package to make it all work together.
Q. How is the top 100 determined?
A. A combination of Technorati rank, Page rank and user voting determines how the list is ordered. In the future, Alexa rank will be incorporated into this metric.
How exactly the combination works to come up with the total is a bit of a mystery.
WLT raising to a higher level at ‘Top 100 Thailand Blogs’ corresponded directly with the hits on my site increasing, so Matt’s method does work. For WLT anyway.
I found two posts by Matt on how he designed the list.
See
http://whatismatt.com/faq-for-top-100-thailand-blogs/
and
http://whatismatt.com/introducing-the-top-100-thailand-blogs/
Thanks Amy! I have other blogs, but WLT is a true labour of love 🙂
A well deserved ranking, Cat! You’ve put a lot of hard work into Women Learn Thai and I could not be happier. Hope it gets you tons more traffic to your site!
Hi Mike.
I don’t have all the answers. You asked in WLT’s comments so I gave it a shot.
What I meant by our readers voting is this: Stats. They are not hidden, they are shown on topofblogs.com and elsewhere (for some blogs anyway).
Btw, topofblogs.com also has the name of your blog wrong so maybe that is where Matt got it from?
‘since MTF has a higher page rank and Alexa figures than many of the top 10’
If you look at Facebook.com, you’ll see that FB has a traffic ranking of 4 so this means that Alexa.com uses a reverse structure. The higher the ranking, the lower down the site.
As for how Matt mixes all of this and more to come up with the total, I’m not exactly sure, I can only surmise (as I’ve done here).
Thai Stars – you aren’t on TS.
Anyway, you’ll have to excuse me if I come across fuzzy as I’m carlagged on top of jetlagged… (two weeks going crazy in UK/Europe, then the last two days running around Thailand snapping and taking notes).
And being tired, when I was whooping it up about my page rank going up, I was wrong. It’s the same. Sigh.
Cat thank you for you detailed reply but applying your theory, please, if you can explain to me why MTF is at 164 in the list?
If voting is the key I wonder how do my readers vote since I do not have a link to Matt’s blog list nor did I ask to be included on the list in the first place. The same applies to Thai Stars.
Anyway I hope BKK is treating you well and not too hot and humid.
Ah… scratch the comment about page rank as I just checked and google has corrected the oversight… thanks google!
Lana,
Thanks for the congrats. Like everyone else here, I’ve worked hard on my blog, having fun along the way.
Mike,
Rating blogs…
There are many ways to rate blogs (just look at Thai-stars.com as a for instance).
I not sure, but I believe what Matt has done is take a balance between stats and voting. While it’s difficult to see what Alexa is doing until you get to a page rank 5 or so, I can show you via topofblogs.com.
When you sign up at topofblogs.com, you add their html code to your blog so they can check your stats. And if you look at your blog, Talen’s blog and mine, you’ll see that they are placed pretty much how Matt has them in his ranking system.
So basically, Matt is not choosing the top blog, he’s having our readers vote. Note: it does confuse things when a blog is part of a unit (like New Mandala).
For Matt getting your name wrong…
Why don’t you drop him a line? He’s a really nice guy.
Anyway, thanks for stopping by as I haven’t seen you at WLT for awhile.
Congrats, and it looks like you’ve moved up another notch since you wrote this post! Your site is well designed and informative, so no surprise it’s become popular.
Mike, I believe there’s an article somewhere on Matt’s site that explains how he compiled it, but yeah, some of the rankings are a bit mystifying. Anyway, I appreciate the work he took in making it because it’s a nice one-stop shop for Thailand bloggers.
Hi Cat don’t you just love lists? Sorry to say that I have a bit of a thing about this particular list since I would like to know how one judges a top Thai blog or any other blog for that matter.
Don’t get me wrong since I think your blog is quality, but I am not so sure about some of the others.
Sour grapes? Not really, but since MTF has a higher page rank and Alexa figures than many of the top 10 it does make me wonder how the list is generated. since they display these figures in the ranking. Mind it might help if they had the name of my blog listed correctly. Still 164 sounds quite cool really!
Excuse the rant but this is one can of worms that I couldn’t resist opening.
Ah, I feel for you. I arrived on Sunday and while I’m going the beerless route, I’m suffering three days in. Wait. I can’t count. It’s four.
Sleep well…
Live from Pattaya – I am now falling into a jet lagged/Tiger beer self induced sleep whilst sat at the hotel bar. Your blog deserves and will attain much loftier heights but right now my room seems like I have too climb to the top of the Baiyoke Tower and yet it’s a mere floor above. I wish you luck but I fear I need a wink and a nudge and a cockney rythmed tongue saying go to sleep my son. Chok dee krap.
Hey, Hey Martyn, welcome to Thailand! I hope your flight/s over was/were uneventful, and that you managed to stay away from most of the goodies on offer. OOFFF! I struggle, I truly do.
Since jumping into Thai blogging, I’ve become addicted to your zany posts on BTMG. So… with a click of my fingers, I’ve just brought ‘Beyond The Mango Juice’ to 100 votes.
(and I hope everyone reading this can see how easy it is to vote… tip: click on the furthest star to the right…)
Btw – thanks for the kind words re:WLT 🙂
Congratulations and the singer of that song made it to number one. You have an excellent blog that brings a different angle to the Thai blog scene. Learning Thai and everyday life makes it quite unique and all of it delivered in a very polished style. Best wishes from Pattaya.
Thanks Talen. While I hope to climb a little bit further, I don’t see getting as high as your blog, Thailand Land of Smiles, which is at #4. Congrats!
well deserved catherine and I’m sure you’ll only go higher!