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Top Ten Reasons for Top Ten Lists

12:31 PM Sunday June 1, 2008

Tags:Communication, Marketing

10. Lists don't take a lot of human attention to process. Since we don't seem to have much to spare these days (particularly online), that makes them popular.
9. Ranked lists imply a comforting order to the universe. People like to believe that some people, teams, or companies are simply better than others. Never mind that it's all about the criteria the rankers use, and the niggling detail that there may be no significant difference between ranks.
8. Lists can be worded tersely. They're easy to write.
7. We've gotten conditioned to the context-free sentences (or even less) in lists, perhaps because of the popularity of bulleted lists in PowerPoint.
6. Lists are popular online because they are amenable to the "slide show" web format, which artificially runs up the page view count. In other words, they help to impress advertisers. Readers hate slide shows, but they seem to be proliferating nonetheless.
5. You can get away with silly statements in the middle of the list, because nobody's reading closely at that point. For example, it's clear to me that lists are to Internet content what Paris Hilton is to acting.
4. Lists are a good way to present jokes. Witness their popularity on Letterman since September 18, 1985 ("The Top Ten Things That Almost Rhyme With Peas" was the first ever).
3. Lists imply that you have exhausted the possibilities for items in them, although the predominance of the decimal system in our society means that you usually have to have ten items. Sometimes that means a need for artificial list fillers or repeats.
2. Lists seem to come in 10's, so be wary of repetition.
1. Particularly when the numbers in the list are in decreasing order, there is an expectation that the number one item will be particularly momentous. Sadly, the last item rarely meets expectations.

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Comments

10. The applicability of their statements is equivalent to the Delphic Oracle -- you make of them what you want, which makes them always correct.

9. They're similar to Chinese food; tasty, and an hour after you've digested them, you’re hungry for more.

8. They don’t strain your faculties (also known as the Not Too Shallow, Not Too Deep principle).

7. Like any good buffet, you’re almost certain to find something that you like.

6. Like the product from any good crystal-ball gazer, you may find something in the list that’s astonishingly relevant to you.

5. The entries are numerous enough to seem worth the effort; not so numerous that the time committed is begrudged.

4. They’re highly susceptible to mix-and-match pairings with other infobits.

3. Content does not have to reflect reality so long as it is internally plausible.

2. As Warren Buffett might say, references to the great and near-great can buttress what would otherwise be so much worthless mish-mosh.

1. Even if the last item is meaningless, there is a sense of satisfaction upon reaching it.

- Posted by bill reith 
June 1, 2008 1:55 PM

Hmm.....depends on your learning style and preferred way of working. If you are a visual person then mind maps can be much more effective?

Chris
http://learn2develop.blogspot.com

- Posted by Chris 
June 5, 2008 8:49 AM

And they are great for getting in-bound links, traffic and SEO.

- Posted by Tony Karrer 
June 5, 2008 9:11 AM

Here is hoping top 10 lists are as popular as we think. I have created a site that posts original top 10 lists every week. Stop by and leave a comment.

- Posted by Top 10 Lists 
July 6, 2008 11:49 PM

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Tom Davenport

Tom Davenport holds the President’s Chair in Information Technology and Management at Babson College, where he also leads the Process Management and Working Knowledge Research Centers. His books and articles on business process reengineering, knowledge management, attention management, knowledge worker productivity, and analytical competition helped to establish each of those business ideas. His website is tomdavenport.com

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