No. 8 of The 10 Most Powerful Women In Blogging Is A Man

I think “No. 8″ would make a good nickname for Mr. Ito.

“Sorry about having a ambiguous name, but I’m not a woman. I’ve been mistaken for a women by various bloggers, but this is the first time I’ve made it on a 10 most XYZ Women in ABC list. ;-P ” — Joi Ito

The list goes like this: From Jack Of All Blogs. Sometimes I have the same problem. Godzilla was a woman. Zilla ends with an “a”. Hey can’t blame ‘em. I’m all man though. Bright side: JOAB should create a men’s list and add a lady there. Nice!

Keeping to our policy of being controversial and well just plain silly. We rank the 10 most powerful women in the blogging industry

1. Ana Marie Cox (http://www.wonkette.com) of Gawker Media has done everything right in her blogging career. Starting with working for the Blogger Don himself Nick Denton. It appears in some circles that Ana Marie is eclipsing Nick Denton, and well she is a damn good writer too. Sometimes a writer can be bigger than her publisher.

2. Heather Armstrong (http://www.dooce.com) is a sleeper pick for number one for next year. She seems so average and yet she is so damn popular. She could take over one spot if she set her mind to it, and joined up with a blog network.

3. Jen Chung of the Gothamist Empire (http://www.gothamist.com) is a strong candidate to become the net’s leading lady in 2006 as she sits atop one of the net’s fastest growing blog empires. She doesn’t work for Nick or Jason which gives her added points from our secret panel of judges.

4. Xeni Jardin of BoingBoing (http://www.boingboing.net) has just snuck on this list by being linked to so many websites we can’t even count them all. She secretly desires to be much more powerful according to some of her closest allies. She could be a heavy player if she ever decides to leave BoingBoing behind.

5. Wendy Cheng (http://xiaxue.blogspot.com) has one of the largest internet followings for a twenty-something from Singapore. While none of our adult panelists even had ever heard of her, our teenage panelist all gave her number one votes to catapult her way into the middle of the top ten. If she ever decided to get into this on a more professional level she could rise to number one overnight.

6. Elizabeth Spiers, formerly of Gawker Media could have been numero uno had she stayed with Nick. She had a huge bunch of potential instead she sold out for instant success. Rumors have her returning to start her own network to take on Nick. We’ll have to watch and see. Just this rumor makes her powerful enough to hang out in the top 10.

7. Jessica Coen of Gawker Media (http://www.gawker.com) has made a name for herself as a skilled writer who can talk about more than Paris Hilton. Although that’s not always good for business. She was Nick’s handpicked succesor for a bunch of nobodies, and she is starting to eclipse Elizabeth Spiers as the new queen of Gawker. Longevity pays off in this business. And rumor has it Jessica is a Gawker lifer.

8. Joi Ito of Technorati (http://joi.ito.com ) has her hands in a lot of Web 2.0 companies, some you might not even know about yet. This makes her damn powerful. Often times the one you don’t know that well is the most powerful. My personal favorite because she seems to help people get shit done.

9. Mena Trott of SixApart (http://www.sixapart.com), she runs a good company, does it quietly. Doen’t piss people off, and does it well. She sneaks on to this list because so many people love to hate her.

10. Shai Coggins of B5Media (http://www.b5media.com) is a hot commodity she singlehandely built a small sized blog network merged it with another small sized network to create one of the largest blog networks overnight. She seems to be making a positive name for herself by making some smart moves here at the end of the year. Look for her to be a mover and a shaker for a long time to come.

A Few of My Sleeper Picks for 2006

Katie Getz of the Gothamist Empire ( http://bostonist.com ) is a passionate writer, and was really fun to party with when I went to the Patriots Super Bowl party with Tom Brady and Co. She took down more shots than Tom’s O-Line, and still was able to blog afterwords. Any woman that can do that deserves a shot in 2006, especially now that the Patriots suck.

Rachael Bohrer of the Gothamist Empire ( http://miamist.com ) is a party girl. I am in Miami on business when I meet up with her in a South Beach bar and she totally drinks me under the table. She gets a shot on the list just for that.

GirlSpoke.com( http://www.girlspoke.com )in the 9rules Network, yep the entire staff. The other day I am reading their site at work when I almost cream my pants. They write with passion and are totally hot. They sneak into my sleeper picks for next year just because their cool, and sexy.

About Our Algorithms:
We want to thank Technorati,BlogShares, and Google for their help. We also wish to thank Jason,Nick,Paul,Darren,Jordon,Ben,Mena,Kottke, and Andrew for turning down our invitation to join our judges panel. It really made it easy to find some unbiased panelists that were affordable.