How I choose my VMware top blog list

I while back I started a top 10 list for VMware blogs that you must read. I updated the first list about 6 months after it was originally published as new blogs appear all the time and old blogs sometimes fall to the wayside. I utilize a combination of criteria when picking blogs for my list:

1. The first is posting frequency, if a blogger has not posted in many weeks or months I generally disqualify them. I’m looking for bloggers that post at least 2-3 times a month.
2. Next is posting quality, if a blogger is generally just repeating news and things other people have written I also tend to disqualify them. I look for the bloggers that produce quality, informative posts and aren’t afraid to share their own opinions
3. Next is post length,  short posts are OK for some things but the really long posts that contain lots of information score more points with me.
4. Finally the length of time that the blogger has been posting, I generally don’t include ones that have been around for less than 3 months until they’ve established themselves.

Not to long ago when I re-did my vLaunchpad I decided to expand the top 10 list to the top 20 as it became increasing difficult to pick just 10 of the best ones as many new blogs have appeared. I also did a bit of re-shuffling of the order as there were many new great blogs on the list. So without further ado here’s the latest top 20 VMware blogs that you should read, links to them are also all available on my vLaunchpad along with icons for the RSS feed and Twitter account of the blogger.

1. Yellow Bricks (Duncan Epping)
2. Blog.scottlowe.org (Scott Lowe)
3. NTPro.nl (Eric Sloof)
4. Virtualization Pro (Various)
5. Virtualization Evangelist (Jason Boche)
6. VM /ETC (Rich Brambley)
7. Mike D’s Virtualization Blog (Mike DiPetrillo)
8. RTFM Education (Mike Laverick)
9. Professional VMware (Cody Bunch)
10. Virtual Geek (Chad Sakac)
11. Planet VM (Tom Howarth)
12. Gabe’s Virtual World (Gabe Van Zanten)
13. Rational Survivability (Christofer Hoff)
14. Musings of Rodos (Rodney Haywood)
15. VMware Tips (Rick Scherer)
16. The VM Guy (Dave Lawrence)
17. VCritical (Eric Gray)
18. Virtual Black Hole (Steve Beaver)
19. Virtual Future (Sven Huisman)
20. Ken’s Virtual Reality (Ken Cline)