Newest on the scene is JBlog Central, a promising JBlog aggregator with ratings. (As if we JBloggers weren't under enough pressure already!)
It allows readers to rate postings on a scale of 1-5. For some reason, it adds together all of those scores as well as averaging them. Averaging I understand, but the summation score just ensures that popular blogs get higher ratings. And they rank based on total score, not average.
It would be nice if they showed how many people voted for any particular article so viewers can get a level of confidence in the ratings they are seeing.
It also rewards blogs who syndicate their entire content and not just the beginning of the articles, because the page where you can rate blogs shows all the content that is syndicated. It is less likely that people will click to read the entire entry, go back to JBlog Central and then rate the article.
A corollary is that people can read the blog entries on JBlog Central and never click on the actual blog, skewing readership statistics.
And not to be nit-picky, but they need their own domain name.
The idea is very good; it is nice to surf through the JBlogosphere with a guide to quality, however flawed it might be. This is definitely worth watching, although I am frankly worried that it will affect my postings to be more oriented towards what's "popular" rather than what's on my mind.
Anyway, it is well worth checking out.
Hat tip Chaim
