How curious. Yes, it appears I’ve been ranked one of the 20 most visible web people in the country, in a bit of work by NowPublic, the social media website. The BBC’s Rory Clellan-Jones comes top of their list, along with a bunch of BBC folk and Guardian colleagues, plus Tom Coates, Stephen Fry and – infuriatingly – my wee brother, who has entered the list three places above me at number seven, and is now crowing.

The rather odd list appears to be driven by some kind of tallying of digital media output. Quoth the press release:

“The goal of NowPublic’s MostPublic Index is to measure—on a completely transparent, metric-driven basis—who has the greatest digital reach and is most effectively broadcasting their own personal brand online,” said Leonard Brody, CEO of NowPublic.

“Broadcasting” my “own personal brand online”? It all sounds a little vulgar. And there are some names from the UK I’m surprised to see are missing. I mean – surely Paul Carr doesn’t break wind these days without it being catalogued, photographed (drink in hand), measured and fired out across an RSS feed? [Later: Charles Arthur, also on the list, points out it's crazy that colleague Jemima Kiss isn't on there. She really should be.] And are we really saying the BBC’s Robert Peston – Britain’s blog sensation this year, having broken significant stories on his through the financial crisis – should be a place below yours truly?

Ah, feck it. The form would say maybe we are. It does seem I gained this distinction for this semi-opaque goldfish bowl of my own making – blogging, Twittering and Flickring, and doing so in such a way as to be read by you, gentle reader. I’d suggest NowPublic perhaps put too much weight on leftfield metrics and totting up what means of communication we use, rather than the content (and audience) itself, but let’s not look this one too closely in the mouth, eh?

So, rather than say anything more that is, by turn, curmudgeonly or egocentric, let me simply say something insincere and demonstrably untrue. Something like “this is as much an honour for you as it is for me”… and then I’ll leave it there.

“Blogging, above all else, is conversational. It is social. It is networked. There are two key features to the blog: links, and comments. Fail to include either, and you’re talking to yourself.”

I agree with Paul that blogging is social. But, by failing to include links and comments, are we really “talking to yourself”?

Nah. This seems a very technocratic definition. After all, journalist Paul Carr’s blog is undoubtedly a blog, but has no comments (for reasons he explained here). Marketing guru and author Seth Godin only does trackbacks, not comments, on his very popular (and influential) blog for reasons he explained here. One of the fathers of blogging, Dave Winer, hasn’t had didn’t have comments on his main blog for years. Winer, an often hectoring voice online, was left open to accusations of not taking what he dished out. [Update: as pointed out in a comment here, Dave does now have comments. Mea culpa.]

So what’s missing?

I’ve long said, without really explaining myself, that often blogging is, really, the first form of journalism born of the web. Blogging has changed both the way we think about creating a piece of digital journalism, and the way that piece of work is digested after we’ve clicked “publish”.

It’s probably time to explain myself.

You see, when we decide to use facts to describe or discuss an event, issue or idea, it’s reasonable to say we’re producing journalism. And I’d contend that bloggers often do just this. And I’d further contend that the best bloggers are going into this with their eyes open; they have a keen awareness of at least four factors (I’m sure you can think of more) which make their kind of work different from, say, print journalism, or broadcast, or anything else.

Let’s take a quick look at the four factors, and how they change the end product.

• A story will be commented on. Journalism has always been discussed, if it had any importance at all. But the internet brings together people who really know what they’re talking about, wherever they are. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, their thoughts will appear in comments under your article. And, if they do, you may be reminded of what Dan Gillmor said, five years ago, about readers knowing more than you.
If you’ve done well, they’ll only be debating finer points or offering more information or context. Even praise. But if you’ve written rubbish, they’ll be there to put you right.
You can turn the comments off, but you cannot stop that informed discussion taking place. It will simply move elsewhere. I think Paul and Seth, from my examples earlier, realise that.
The impact of this: stories may be more fair and less conversational (to avoid needless confrontation), may be more solidly researched (to avoid embarrassment), may be better sourced (to support an argument). Everything is written with an important truth in mind: the subjects of a story and the expert readers may bite back, and have the best tools in history to do so.

• A story sits within an ecosystem. Stories don’t live by themselves any more. There’s little excuse not to link to online sources, but even if content fails to include links it is not immune from links’ power. The best blogging shows us how links increase transparency and build trust by showing where a fact came from.
Linking confers authority on the linked-to – we all know how Google works, right? – but it’s less often noted that the linker gains authority too, in a less direct way. Example: not all readers will follow the link, but more savvy readers might simply be reassured it is there (and mouseover it, to see where it leads).
Linking out can also win new readers looking for a trusted guide to take them through the welter of information out there. This is as predicted in 1995 in what, as my regular reader knows, is my favourite digital journalism essay.
The impact of this: journalism becomes more accountable, as readers start to expect – and get – more precise attribution of facts and quotes. It’s no longer enough to tell us what you know; ideally, you show us how you know. Meanwhile, a new form of almost entirely link-based digital journalism, as energetically evangelised by Jeff Jarvis, Scott Karp and others, gains currency and audience. Link journalism should also be cheaper than other kinds. This may be a growth area through the credit-crunched journalism world in 2009.

• A good story will be debated elsewhere. Partly related to the ecosystem point above; bloggers know their best work will be the work that gets dissected across the web, point by point. That provides a strong incentive to make sure it’s correct or, at least, well-argued. It’s hard to retract, clarify or say sorry once your work has gone viral.
Blogging brought about the interest in tracking that conversation, and spawned some of the tools to help do so – for instance, Technorati and trackbacks. Two imperfect technologies, I know, but influential I’m sure – we can now see exactly what people are saying about our work, and gauge its reach.
The impact of this: stories have always had a life beyond initial publication, but that life has now become much bigger in scale and over time. It’s also more trackable even if we, in publishing, are still struggling to properly document it. But that’s another blog post, I think. For now, we need to be aware of that afterlife stories now have, intervene in debates hosted in places not our own, and on occasion use it to inform our work next time.

• Debate is imperfect. I’m being polite – rather than saying blogging brings a sudden awareness that some people are halfwits, or bullies who deliberately and dishonestly look to distort what you say. Let’s just say grand, open, public debate is sometimes an inefficient way to get to the truth of a matter.
The people brought together to comment on your work may not, of course, really know what they’re talking about at all. Indeed, they may be the least qualified buffoons ever to have opined on your given subject.
‘Twas ever thus, down the pub at least; it’s just that the web makes it very obvious to see all these imperfections, and that can appall those who have, somehow, managed to live in more civilised worlds until now. But there’s still an impact here; trolls have a chilling effect. Unregulated, this distortion can distract and dissuade people with interesting things to say. It remains a challenge to create troll-proof online spaces. We need to work out better ways to deny the halfwits a platform, while maintaining and enhancing that platform for the best voices.

There; four factors. But the real legacy of blogging is that we now understand that when publishing online – blogging or not – we have no choice as to how social, how “webby” our work becomes. As long as we publish digitally, we will be discussed. Our work will always be social, unless what we produce is so narrow or lacking in interest nobody gives a damn. The platform doesn’t matter. Comments on or off, links out or not, trackbacks enabled or not, Vignette or WordPress or Tumblr or Twitter or handcoded, hardcore HTML… none of that matters.

Soon, we’ll always have the blogging mindset when we’re working online. The market will demand it; readers will be baffled if we don’t link to our sources, and view us as one would a screaming lunatic in the street if, online, we preach or hector without – at least – a very precise understanding of what we’re talking about.

It’s a world that calls into question lots of journalistic givens – not least the value of being a non-specialist journalist. It’s tougher to be a columnist, too, unless you are capable of game-changing arguments supported by your reporting prowess, wide access and deep knowledge. It’s a world which may accord trust more on individual rather than institutional reputation. It’s a world that favours quality – although quality may mean many different things. It will be a world in which, praise be, we can probably drop the word “blog”.

In short, this is the assimilation of blogging into the mainstream, and is what some of us have been expecting, even hoping for, since we first posted.

After nine-and-a-half wonderful years at the Guardian, I’ve decided to move to pastures new, to become editor of the European edition of WSJ.com, the Wall Street Journal’s website.

WSJ.com has been making great strides of late, including an impressive redesign unveiled just as the current crisis took hold last month. The team there is working to create something outstanding around one of the biggest stories of the time, and it’s a huge thrill to be asked to take the helm in Europe.

I’ll be developing European editorial from London, although I’ll also be working on some special projects with the global operation in New York. Things kick off in the New Year.

Before then, lots of farewells. It’s been a privilege to work for the Guardian in print and on the web, working on some big stories and meeting fascinating people along the way. On guardian.co.uk, I’ve had enormous fun doing things like building our blogs, and launching our audio and video services. I’ll miss everyone, although I hope they’ll still let me sneak in to see the plush new Kings Place offices when they’re all settled in.

But, before then, some drinks may be taken around Farringdon…

1. Yes, it’s true that the Waverley – the glorious Clyde paddle steamer which makes an annual visit to the south of England – isn’t due here another month. An Honest Man – who I’ve known most of my life as my Uncle Bill – posted helpful photographic evidence of the lovely ship steaming past Ayr, on the west of Scotland. The Waverley’s fast, but not fast enough to make it down in those timescales. But I’ll be going for a steam next month.

2. James Cherkoff asked why I advised against buying a house with a basement. Well, James, it’s because mine keeps filling up with water and – given that’s where the boiler lives – that’s a royal pain. And an expensive one, too.

3. Graham Beale adds very very good point – join Tate. He’s right about the members’ club, which has the finest views of any members’ room in the country. I’d also suggest the ICA in the Mall which – aside from having quite the poshest address of any club – has a very nice restaurant and a late bar. [Later: Gah! Thanks Graham! How could I forget the Frontline Club, the journalists' club in Paddington of which I'm a founder member and a great fan? Maybe the very fine members' bar has something to do with my amnesia... decent restaurant there too, open to all.]

There are more nice suggestions from you lovely people at the end of the post – do add more there, rather than here – if inspiration strikes.

So, to mark ten years working here in the big smoke (if not always living here – we’ll always have Swindon), here are ten top London tips. Feel free, of course, to add your own in the comments, for London or your locale of choice.

1. As soon as you live here, you get to be a Londoner. But remember to be a tourist in your own city. Get on the open-topped buses. Sail down the river (I really want to do this on the Waverley this autumn. Hmm. Maybe this weekend, in fact). Do the Tower, and Buckingham Palace, and the galleries and museums one wet Sunday at a time. And subscribe to my mate Andrew’s brilliant weekly email, and buy his gorgeous guidebook, to find more cool things to do.

2. The Tube’s great, sometimes for several complete days a year. But buses let you see more, if you can suss the masonic ritual that is “getting a ticket”.

3. Oyster (Transport for London’s contactless card system) makes life much easier, even on buses. Some privacy activists will tell you, as they adjust their foil helmets, that they won’t use it because Gordon/George/Boris/Ki-moon/Ken will be able to follow their movements as they touch in, and touch out. Yet they have no trouble telling their cabbie where they’re going, and are probably Twittering and blogging the minutae of their paranoid lives from the back seat as they do. Ignore these people, and remember to smile for the CCTV.

4. On the tube, or in the street, keep walking. Briskly. There’s a Facebook group dedicated to Londoners’ fantasies about dealing with those who don’t.

5. No matter how much you earn, and no matter how much more you’re earning with your new London job, you will feel poor. Even Roman Abramovich was surprised at the cost of a loaf down Borough market, and left wondering if he’d taken enough out the hole in the wall for that and an artisan sausage sandwich with organic lemonade for lunch. Really. Or maybe not*. Console yourself with the fact you’re not having to scrape by on less than the London living wage, like one in seven of your new city neighbours. Or maybe you are, in which case, condolences. The government thinks you should survive on the flat-rate UK minimum, despite major banks, other big employers and even the new Tory mayor thinking Ken Livingstone’s higher London minimum is a good idea.

6. Helpfully – because you couldn’t afford a nice car anyway – having a banger with damaged paintwork is the pragmatist’s motor of choice around London. It means you can move into traffic without fear – that BMW/Mercedes/Audi driver will let you in**. It’s not that they’re being nice – they just don’t want to get bashed. Have you seen the insurance premiums?

7. Ah, yes – insurance premiums: for the love of God, shop around. Some insurance firms, landing you with an annual bill that’s one third of your car’s total value, seem convinced London’s full of people madly driving into one another. What? Oh.

8. Don’t buy a house with a basement.

9. Pocketing the money you’ve saved by not buying a house with a basement, save up, and do a really great restaurant. You’ve got an amazing choice, but the best meal I’ve had in London was probably at Rhodes Twenty Four, up the old NatWest tower; British food done really well, with stunning views of the city.

10. But the simple pleasures are good too. Nothing makes you feel like you’re in a great city more than watching the world go by with a late-night/small hours coffee at Bar Italia in Soho, or a greasy spoon breakfast in a formica topped-table caff a few hours later.

* The Abramovich thing is a lie. A flight of fancy, for illustrative purposes only. Sorry.

** This does not apply for London buses. Really. Don’t. Try. It.

Alongside an eclectic selection of other nationalities, she could have registered her Englishness, Welshness, Cornishness, Northern Irishness and Irishness… but not her Scottishness.

I don’t think, however, that treatment is affected by which box you tick, or by the accuracy of that tick. Which is probably just as well.

A cloud summarising the shit I put on Twitter. By TweetClouds, via Russell Davies

In finest blog tradition, here’s a picture of my cat in the tree. Merry Christmas to all my friends – real, imaginary and Facebook. I’ll be back the other side of the turkey and sprouts*.

* In keeping with the time of year, that link is a repeat from last year. Sorry. But not very.

1. Valencia.

2. The dish was 21m in diameter, and its contents fed 110,000.

3. Sir Winston Churchill (clue: something about pigs).

4. Charles De Gaulle (clue: something about cheese).

5. The Greeks (or maybe the Romans) first farmed them.

Naturally, as I await their next call, I’ll fret about the ethics of this. And how easy it is to set up a premium rate phone line for this kind of thing.