Top 100 Lists - Ho Hum

Jason Calacanis has an post about Technorati's Top 100 and it's pro's and con's. In fact, he's offering 50 grand in advertising for a "better" top 100 list. Pfft. And I can say Pfft because I have nothing to advertise at this point -unless anybody is interested in buying half-finished amateur attempts at python programming ;). Personally I'm not a huge fan of top-whatever lists when it comes to blogs or podcasts. I am finding more and more that new and interesting online content arrives in my brain in two different ways. By chance and by search.

When I say chance I mean that if something is interesting to me, or something is really important, chances are that it will find it's way to me through the people I read or listen to. Or, someone I regularly read will point to the source of the info - and this may become a new source of content for me in the future. I'm not one of those people who feels scared that they might miss something. The beauty of blogs and linking is that 99% of the time that important information will get to me.

By search I mean that if there is something that has sparked my interest that is not necessarily part of any of the blogs or podcasts in my aggregator then I will search it out. And many times I find great sources of information and many times new blogs or podcasts that merit my subscription.

I don't need someone telling me what the 100 most influential blogs are, or what the top 50 podcasts are. Where is the excitement in that? This is a new medium, shouldn't we be exploring it freely instead of expecting someone to package it up the way they think is best and hand it to us.

Of course I'm not going to sit here and say that I don't subscribe to 'A-List' bloggers. Of course I do. But I personally find that the five or six in my aggregator do a pretty good job of pointing me to enough interesting content to fill my spare time (and then some). The really nice part is when one of them points to some obscure blog that turns out to be my cup of tea.

Dave Winer has summarized his thoughts on the subject in his usual efficient way:

Jason Calacanis wants to shake up the Top 100. Why bother. Just blog what you find interesting, what you believe in, and everything is fine.

Well said.