After having written about the German blogosphere in general, this post is a ranking of the Ten most relevant German blogs. There are several different ways to compile such a list: There are the German Blogcharts for example which are based on Technorati numbers, or the ranking of the most leading and quoted websites by a German Memetracker or the top Feedburner-subscribed blogs… But I found a website on which all these numbers are put together and the resulting ranking mirrors the German Blogosphere very well. So, here I’ll explain Germany’s Top Ten Blogs. Let’s begin at the back… after the jump:

German Blog Top 10

10. Indiskretion Ehrensache

One of the blogs by Germany’s leading commercial economy newspaper “Handelsblatt”. This Blog however has just very little to do with the topics of the newspaper. Blogger and Handelsblatt-reporter “Thomas Knüwer” writes often about Web 2.0, the internet and how journalists have to change to get along with this new medium.

Indiskretion Ehrensache - Screenshot

9. medienlese.com

A blog by a well known Swiss blog company called “blogwerk AG”. Medienlese.com is a blog about Media. Since August 2006 they observe developments and innovations in the German-speaking media landscape. It’s a professional Blog by a Team of four bloggers. 

medienlese - Screenshot

8. Spreeblick.com = “spree-view”

Is one of the best known Blogs within the German blogosphere. It was founded in 2002 by Johnny Haeusler and his wife Tanja Haeusler. The actual success came with a post in which business practices of Germany’s mobile content provider “Jamba!” (in English-speaking countries “Jamster!”) were disclosed. In 2005 these two founded the first German blog publishing company to support professional German bloggers. 2006 Spreeblick was honored with the renowned Grimme online award.

Today, many of Germany’s Top-Bloggers are also blogging on Spreeblick.com. They have 13 authors by now and 7000 visitors daily.

Spreeblick - Screenshot

7. netzpolitik.org = “net-politics”

Is about topics of the digital society like governmental control, Open-Source software, telecommunication laws, Creative Commons, a free knowledge-based society… It was founded in 2002 by Markus Beckendahl. It was honoured with several awards. Among others they got the “Freedom Blog Award” by “Reporters Without Borders” in 2005 and the Grimme Online Award in 2008.

netzpolitik - Screenshot

6. Nerdcore.de

Subheading: “This Blog About Very Cool Stuff. Und So.” (“Und so” = “And stuff like that”) It is indeed a very cool blog! It’s made by Webdesigner René Walter who blogs about freaky, weird things he finds on the internet in an indescribable hilarious way! It’s so much fun to read it! He writes 8 to 9 posts every day (for all non-Bloggers: that’s kinda much)! There’s a live visitor-counter in the footer of his site on which you can see how many visitors are with you on the site at the very moment  - and the counter often shows a number beyond 100 – so, Nerdcore is quite visited!

Nerdcore - Screenshot

5. netzwertig.com = “net-worthy”

Another blog by the blogwerk AG. It’s like medienlese, but about Internet economy. Apart from news about current developments on the internet, they also analyze how the internet affects our society and present new internet-start-ups from the German-speaking World.

Netzwertig - Screenshot

4. GoogleWatchBlog

Is a Watchblog about Google and Google’s acquisited companys (like YouTube). It’s not writing in a critical way (as it’s actually common for watchblogs), but rather in a pro-Google way. Nevertheless the blog is independent from Google Inc.! It’s one of the most read German Blogs, but it’s definitively the most subscribed German blog: It has over twenty-five thousand feed-subscribers!

Google Watch Blog - Screenshot

3. Stefan Niggemeier

Stefan Niggemeier is a German mediajournalist. He’s an editor at the notable Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He’s well-known for co-founding the famous “BILDblog” (see below) on which he’s still blogging today. On his personal Weblog he comments and criticizes on processes in the Media landscape. His posts have a very high journalistic quality. In 2007 he recieved the Grimme Online Award for his Blog.

Stefan Niggemeier - Screenshot

2. BILDblog

The BILD-Zeitung is the most read German daily newspaper. It’s a tabloid – comparable to “The Sun” in Britain and, uhm, “The Daily News” in the USA?! …Anyway! The BILD is known for straining the truth often times and having a low journalistic quality. That’s why in 2004 Stefan Niggemeier and Christoph Schultheis founded the BILDblog as a watchblog to disclose mistakes, insufficient investigation and product placement in the BILD-Zeitung. BILDblog has become the best known blog in Germany, it’s even known to people beyond the German Blogosphere. Everyday 50.000 people visit the site! The ad revenues are so high that the BILDblog-bloggers (skilled journalists all together) work at their own little BILDblog-office in Berlin (a former butchery)! Since the BILDblog got so much attention, the BILD reacted on it and introduced a corrective slot on page 2 in which they correct themselves every day. In a screenshot that appeared in the BILD-Zeitung you can see that BILDblog is a “favorite” in their browser:

BILDblog is a favorite in BILD's browsers

BILDblog - Screenshot

1. Basic Thinking Blog

This Blog was originally Robert Basic‘s personal blog (That’s why “Basic thinking”). He blogged about technical stuff, the internet and so on. And because there are many other tech-oriented Blogs out there, he became the most linked Blog in Germany’s Blogosphere. This however caused attention and with it a rising number of readers and subscribers. That’s how he became number one of several of those Blogosphere rankings. But suddenly, at the 6th of January 2009, he announced that he wants to sell his blog, because he got bored of it! So, he auctioned it on eBay. This caused a stir and he was interviewed by several Newspapers and TV channels. On 15.1.2009 basicthinking.de was sold for 46.902 Euros to a company called “Plusserver”. They continued blogging about tech-stuff with a whole Team of bloggers now. However, the topics are not as interesting any more as they were in the time when “Robert Basic” was blogging. Nevertheless, they made a very cool campaign three weeks ago when they gave away 1000 free CeBit tickets.

Basic Thinking - Screenshot

So. Now you’ve got an overview of the German Blogosphere: A lot of media-related blogs, a lot of tech-related blogs and some others in between.