The 25 most valueable U.S. blogs

24/7 Wall St. lists what they believe are the 25 most valueable blogs in the U.S. The latest ranking estimates that the top 25 US blogs are worth $729 million in total. That is a considerable increase since the previous ranking in February 2009 that valued the top blogs to a total of $482 million. For the analysis, the site has moved up the multiples assigned to blog revenue and operating profits because of the recovering economy, so that the blog value better reflects the increase in prices paid for online media properties.

1. Gawker Properties, $300 million.
2. The Huffington Post, $112 million.
3. Perez Hilton, $44 million.
4. Drudge Report. $42 million.
5. TechCrunch. $32 million.
6. PopSugar Properties. $26 million.
7. Politico. $23 million.
8. MacRumors. $20 million.
9. Boing Boing. $18 million.
10. Mashable. $17.5 million.
11. Seeking Alpha. $16 million.
12. GigaOm. $15 million.
13. Breitbart Sites. $11 million.
14. SB Nation Network. $8 million.
15. ReadWriteWeb. $7 million.
16. The Business Insider. $7 million.
17. Destructoid. $5 million.
18. Apple Insider. $4.5 million.
19. //film. (SlashFilm). $4 million.
20. SearchEnginLand. $4 million.
21. Smashing Magazine. $3.5 million.
22. Talking Points Memo Sites. $3.5 million.
23. VentureBeat. $3 million.
24. The Superficial. $3 million.
25. 24/7 Wall St. Network. $???.

Related: In 2007, an estimate by the media agency Wisely said that the top 20 Swedish bloggers had a potential combined annual advertising income of 100 million kronor (14.5 milllion USD). That turned out to be vastly exaggerated.

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Gawker sells Wonkette, and other stories

CNN reports that the U.S. blog empire Gawker Media is about to sell three of its sites: music site Idolator, the “urban travel guide” Gridskipper, and the gossip site Wonkette.

“In an internal e-mail obtained by CNET News.com, [Nick] Denton explained the sale: “To be blunt: they each had their editorial successes; but someone else will have better luck selling the advertising than we did.” The e-mail, and more, can be read here.

Tom Foremski writes that the European software company Autonomy launches a new software “that can identify illegal content in corporate communications such as blogs, emails, any document, and phone recording, and even in video files.” Foremski calls it “A Policeman Inside Your Computer And Inside Your Corporate Blog”. [Via BMdigital on Twitter]

• According to a press release from SocialMedia Networks, the company today launched “the first social-enabled advertising network. The SocialMedia Advertising Network gives advertisers the ability to target users based upon their social network profile and behavior using applications as an advertising channel.”

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Q&A with Nick Denton

PRWEEK.COM has an interesting Q&A; with Nick Denton of Gawker Media about how blogs influence the public relations profession.

Q. What is the biggest impact citizen journalism will have on the public relations practice?

– SR, New York A. Blogs provide a filter between PR professionals and journalists. Reporters have been increasingly overwhelmed by pitches. They don’t open their emails or answer the phone a lot of the time. Some of the more savvy journalists are looking at the web as a filter. Smart PR professionals need to start looking at indirect ways to reach reporters and subtle pitches to weblogs or the creation of weblogs for a specific campaign. That’s a good way for PR professionals to get an idea out there in the hopes that it will get to influential reporters.