Storage Monkeys

The voting in the Top 10 Storage Vendor Blogs ended at midnight on Friday PST and we have our new Top 10 list. I want to thank everyone who participated. We had 606 unique votes submitted which was higher than the 462 that voted in the Non-Vendor Blog vote in July. I have received no complaints about the voting (well, except for some snarky comments from vendors that were apparently upset that they couldn't get around the security of the vote). While some will quickly point out that the largest vendors got the most votes, the largest vote for the top blog was only 205 - not an unsurmountable number for any reputable blog with a strong following regardless of the size of the vendor they represent.

Before I list the winners, let me state something that should be pretty obvious: These types of polls are not scientific - they are intended to promote the industry, to have some fun and maybe stir some banter between vendors. Of course, the traffic to the site was great too and I'm hoping we get more vendor participation on the different groups on the site. I hope everyone understands the spirit of these polls.

We tried a "Top Ten Storage Vendor Blogs" back in July with some questionable results based on how we set up security for the poll. When we tweaked the security for the Top Storage Blogs (Non-Vendor) the feedback was much more positive. So... we are giving this another try BUT... this time every voter needs to be a registered Storage Monkeys user.

If you would like to add a blogger to the nominee list to vote on, simply comment here with a link to their blog.

Although myself and others here at Storage Monkeys have been railing about the need for transparency and honesty among bloggers, surprisingly few have adopted any ethical standards for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. The lack of disclosure is bad for the storage industry, it's bad for vendors,  it's bad for the bloggers and it's real bad for the commercial publications that refuse to develop any standard for disclosure.

To start, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I want the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) to succeed. We all (users, vendors and everyone in between) need a group like this to work. It's in our collective best interests.

My concern is that SNIA is going through the motions of it's mission, but it is failing and it's only kidding itself if they they believe they are relevant outside of their bubble. On their web site, they claim that "SNIA is truly the voice of the storage industry on a worldwide scale".

It shouldn't be a shock to anyone in the storage industry that there are analysts who blog about vendors who also happen to be paying clients. It also shouldn't be a surprise that these financial connections are almost never disclosed... but that's going to change in a hurry.

In a refreshing move, the Federal Trade Commision issued new rules requiring bloggers and those who pay them to disclose the relationship. In the storage industry (and for the tech industry as a whole) there has been a serious lack of disclosure for some time in the blogosphere. The new rules, which take effect on December 1, may not change this behavior right away but it will have an impact.

Steve Duplessie has an interesting take on Storagebod's recent blog post on FUD - the art that vendors and solution providers have perfected that creates Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt about a competitors solutions. Rarely is it useful as a sales tactic and it commonly backfires horribly if the information doesn't hold up.

Duplessie makes reference to the recent stories around "Alpine" (the highly speculated combination of Cisco and EMC) as an example of FUD. I'm not so sure that "Alpine" falls into the FUD category... yet.

We made some pretty significant updates to the Storage Monkeys web site this weekend and one of the more significant updates is a unique interface for the iPhone for Storage Monkeys members. To access the interface, login to StorageMonkeys.com through the Safari browser on your iPhone. Here is a screen shot for what you should expect to see:

Congratulations to W. Curtis Preston's "Mr. Backup Blog" for winning the Top Storage Blog (Non-Vendor) and a big thank you to all of the nominees. The top ten finished as follows:

1. W. Curtis Preston - http://www.backupcentral.com/content/blogsection/4/47/ - 239 ( 21.04%)
2. The Storage Architect - http://thestoragearchitect.com/ 109 ( 9.6%)
3. Devang Panchigar - http://storagenerve.com/ 85 ( 7.48%)
4. Stephen Foskett - http://blog.fosketts.net/ 80 ( 7.04%)
5. Greg Schulz - http://storageio.com/blog/ 73 ( 6.43%)
6. Robin Harris - http://storagemojo.com/ 72 ( 6.34%)
7. Gestalt IT - http://GestaltIT.com 69 ( 6.07%)
8. Storagebod - http://storagebod.typepad.com/ 68 ( 5.99%)
9. Jon Toigo - http://www.drunkendata.com/  67 ( 5.9%)
10. Scott Lowe - http://blog.scottlowe.org/ 63 ( 5.55%)

 

The voting has started for the Top 10 Non-Vendor Blogs. Nominees were submitted on an earlier blog post and our nominees are...

• Scott Lowe - http://blog.scottlowe.org/
• Robin Harris - http://storagemojo.com/
• Curtis Preston - http://www.backupcentral.com/content/blogsection/4/47/
• Greg Schulz - http://storageio.com/blog/
• Jon Toigo - http://www.drunkendata.com/
• Stephen Foskett - http://blog.fosketts.net/
• Beth Pariseau/Dave Raffo - http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/storage-soup/
• The Storage Architect - http://thestoragearchitect.com/
• Storagebod - http://storagebod.typepad.com/
• Chris Preimesberger - http://blogs.eweek.com/storage_station/index.html
• Gestalt IT - http://GestaltIT.com
• Howard Marks - http://www.byteandswitch.com/profile/hmarks/
• Devang Panchigar - http://storagenerve.com/
• Preston de Guise - http://nsrd.wordpress.com/
• Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) - http://esgblogs.typepad.com/
• Wikibon - http://wikibon.org/blog/

The first place winner will receive an iPod Touch and the runner up will receive an iPod Shuffle compliments of Aprigo.