Along with their recent redesign, Technorati now has a "most favorited blog list," it appears both on the popular page (along with cool data like the most popular online videos, tags, searches and news) and in its own page as a list of the top 100.

Since this is still a relatively new service, you can actually reach the top 5 with only 300 or so users tagging you as a favorite. Getting into the top 20 requires only 130 or so favorites and there are folks at the end of the top 100 list with a mere 40 favorites. If you want to add your favorite blog(s), all that's required is a login to your account and a click on the "favorite this blog" link on the detail page (i.e. SEOmoz, SEW, Threadwatch - apparently, Technorati doesn't know about them - get on that Aaron!).

The favorite blogs list is a great place (along with their overall top 100 blogs list) to go looking for sources who can make your site an Internet star. Recently, a discussion over at HighRankings led me to give this (personal) definition of linkbait:

it's really about more than just targeting a demographic, but targeting an industry and the journalists (online or offline) who get attention in that sector.

The goal of linkbait is twofold - increase branding/mindshare and get thousands of links. The process involves going out and finding where your industry is getting discussed (or could get discussed) online, identifying succesful ways to get in front of those folks, building some amazing content and promoting it.

The Technorati top lists help make this type of work easier in two ways. First, you can see exactly what popular bloggers and sites are writing about and second, you've got a directory of who to target with your content. These folks aren't stupid or gullible, so marketing to them will require some very clever content. My new goal.... Boing Boing. :)