There's a new list in town: Junta42 must-read blogs

There certainly isn't any shortage of "top blogs" lists designed to stroke marketing bloggers' egos.  That's not necessarily a bad thing -- aside from the ego stroking, I've discovered more than a few great blogs just by surfing the rankings.

Junta42 is the latest publisher to launch a top marketing blogs list (42 top blogs plus another 40 runners up), this time focused specifically on blogs that deliver valuable information, insights and tips for 'content marketers.'  What's content marketing, you ask?  Read this article for a full explanation, but in a nutshell, Junta42 defines content marketing as "the technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action."  In other words - content marketing is all about brands delivering value on their own, rather than just cramming their interruptive ads into someone else's content offering.  That's certainly a topic I've written about before.

There has been some scuttlebutt over whether a list like this, which uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative measures, is valuable at all.  I'm no expert on Junta42's methodology, but I've already found a couple of great new (to me) blogs on the Junta42 list -- so I've already gotten some value out of it.  Maybe you'll do the same.

Here's the complete list, where I rank at #24 (below).  There's also an interesting alternative ranking that takes into account user votes (or "hitches" as Junta42 calls them) so if you're a regular reader of this blog, show your love by giving me a hitch.

The Inaugural Top 42 Content Marketing Blogs

	1	Straight Talk with Nigel Hollis
	2	web ink now
	3	Conversation Agent
	4	Marketing Interactions
	5	Buzz Marketing for Technology
	6	ContentMarketingToday
	7	Copyblogger
	8	Web Strategy by Jeremiah
	9	Daily Fix
	10	Influential Marketing Blog
	11	Logic+Emotion
	12	CK's Blog
	13	Rexblog
	14	BeTuitive
	15	Consumer Generated Media
	16	Diva Marketing Blog
	17	The Origin of Brands
	18	The Viral Garden
	19	What's Next
	20	Bernaise Source
	21	Drew's Marketing Minute
	22	Made to Stick
	23	Writing White Papers
	24	Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog
	25	Writing on the Web
	26	Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020
	27	AttentionMax
	28	Brand Autopsy
	29	Branding & Marketing
	30	Eat Media Blog
	31	Passion2Publish
	32	Think Tank - King Fish Media
	33	The Lonely Marketer
	34	Custom Publishing Council Blog
	35	ExperienceCurve
	36	Marketing Whims
	37	Seth's Blog
	38	THINKing
	39	Inspire Action
	40	Pandemic Blog
	41	Relevant and Valued
	42	The A-Ha! Blog