North x East (never heard of them either) has a list of their 50 most influential bloggers in the world. Building these top 50 lists is easy, so we see a lot of it. They’re also heavily subjective. This post, like many others in this category, doesn’t give any criteria for who is selects to its list, so I guess we can just assume they pulled the Technorati Top 50.

That said, it does give an insight into what’s considered an influential blog these days. And looking at the list, a lot of their subjects seem to repeat themselves. Here’s a breakdown:

• Twelve on the list run technology blogs (web development, electronics, software etc.)
• Seven run or are heavily involved with celebrity gossip blogs
• Six run political blogs
• Five bloggers run blogs that specialize in search engine optimization or search engine marketing
• Five run marketing, media or social networking analysis blogs
• Four run or are involved with “life hacking” or personal development blogs.
• Three make money writing blogs about how to make money writing blogs

That’s 42. Leaving only 8 outside of these six categories. And of them, four aren’t known for their association with one particular blog, but for running blog networks or blog services.

That leaves four bloggers — Heather Armstrong (Dooce) Jason Kottke, Matthew Haughey (MetaFilter) and Mark Fraudenfelder (BoingBoing) who are there because they run general-interest or personal blogs that have gained a huge following.

Are these the only categories of blogs that can be considered influential in this world? Or is it because big-time blogging is still so new that it’s confined to these technology-related and niche subject areas?