Finding blog central

It still bugs me that there’s no good way to figure out which blogs are at the center of their own niche community.

When I started Flicker two years ago, I knew that there were people out there who’d want to read it. I knew there was a market.

But I had a damned hard time finding out what was at the center of that community. It took about a year of blogging and hopping around people’s blogrolls and links to find AFK Gamer, Destructoid, Buttonmashing, The Escapist, not to mention Joystiq and Kotaku.

Now I’m working on another project in an entirely separate niche of the blogosphere, and I’m having exactly the same problem. I know these bloggers and readers exist somewhere. I know that there are probably four or five blogs that are really the epicenter of thought in the subject. But I’ll be damned if I know how to find them.

Yes, I’ve tried Technorati. And Technorati does some things really well, but in my opinion, this is not one of them.