An online tool has cropped up that skims the text of most blogs and websites and reports on the readability levels of that site.  In this case, “readability” translates to “education level” required to understand and enjoy the posts to their full extent.

Wired has written about the tool and states that it does not publicize the methods by which it works but has to be some combination of sentence length, number of syllables per word and possibly this as well.

In case you’re wondering, a few of the most popular gaming websites were also tested with the following results,

• Kotaku: Junior High
• Destructoid: Junior High
• PlayStation.blog: Junior High
• GayGamer: Junior High
• MTV Multiplayer: Junior High
• Game|Life: High School
• Slashdot: High School
• Joystiq: College
• Level Up: Genius
• Ars Technica: Genius

The scale is as follows, Elementary school, Junior High, High School, College and Genius.

Some of that is totally believable, especially Ars Technica, no wonder I enjoy reading their stuff more than some of the others.  The article would not be complete if I did not test our very own Tech.Blorge.com and sister sites Vista.blorge.com, Gamer.blorge.com, Photo.blorge.com and Mac.blorge.com.

You’ll need at lest some college education to understand most of our posts as The Blog Readability test rated our sites as “Genius.”  But, don’t let that stop you from reading if you don’t meet the criteria.

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Related:

Survey: more women blogging than men as blogs hit mainstream

Firefox 3 beta 5 comes closer to Safari 3.1 in Acid 3 test

U.S. Air Force blocking troops from blogs

Microsoft makes IE8 more compliant with new rendering mode

Microsoft to release Internet Explorer 8 beta next year

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Entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 11:03 am under Internet, Internet applications.  Print

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.