After all, how many people stay up until they hear his Top 10 List at night? (or record it for the next morning to enjoy over breakfast)
In so doing, he seems to have legitimized the concept of a Top 10 List of something as worthwhile. (or at least funny)
So, just recently, I got an email from a friend that said “Hey, you’re on this top 10 blogging list”. Funny, I had just skimmed another list of “top 10 bloggers” and the list was almost completely different. I smiled when I looked at one of the entries and I checked and one of the bloggers hadn’t written an entry in her blog for months. But, somehow, it made the list.
Hmmm.
Alfred Thompson and I kid around when we see these messages. After all, he’s got a fabulous blog. You’ll notice that it’s on my blogroll over here on the right. I like to kid him when one of these posts come out and neither of us are on it. Rats, missed it again, Alfred.
Sometimes I wonder the value of these lists. I mean, how can you identify the “top 10″ when you haven’t read them all? And, certainly if there hasn’t been a post in months, that’s not my idea of a Top 10. Maybe it’s just a need to make a post? Sort of like the need to write a post about it?
In my mind, you’re a great blogger if you’re blogging. Not everyone hits every post out of the part. I think that the value goes across when people just take the time to write and share. That’s good enough for me.
The content of this blog is generated by whatever strikes my fancy at any given point. It might be computers, weather, political, or something else in nature. I experiment and comment a lot on things so don't take anything here too seriously; I might change my mind a day later but what you read is my thought and opinion at the time I wrote it! My formal education includes a Bachelor of Mathematics degree from the University of Waterloo and a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Toronto. Ontario Ministry of Education and Training qualifications are in Data Processing, Computer Science, Accounting, and Mathematics. My personal website is at: http://www.dougpeterson.ca Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dougpete I'm bookmarking things at: http://www.delicious.com/dougpete
I think a lot of these lists are “link bait.” The authors hope that the people listed will want to link back to the list. Sometimes it works. Actually it works a lot – though not for me. When I create lists few seem to link back to it. That is ok because my intention when I write a top 10 list is to point my readers to blogs (or twitter accounts) that I think are useful and where my readers will get value. Any links back are just gravy.
The top ten or best of or whatever list has been shown to increase traffic.
Also I remember Dan Meyer had a post on these lists a year or so ago (I couldn’t find it with a quick search) but basically saying many of them do more harm than good.
Anyhow, my comment is more useless than not, but I suppose that goes well with the top what ever list.
I find it so ironic. David Letterman does it so well and it’s become a staple for him. Before that, it was Carnac the Magnificent with Johnny Carson. You can’t really replicate the original.
I think you’re dead on on this one, Doug, particularly your thought at the end about not hitting it out of the park every single time. One of the things I love about Royan Lee’s blogging is that he doesn’t do it super-frequently, but when he does, it usually really makes me think.
I also took a closer look at that Top 100 blog list from last week, because it at least chose to give some of the data they used to assemble their list, and I appreciated that.