Brad Feld

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Top 10 Reasons Top 10 Lists Suck

Dec 27, 2011

It’s that time of year again. Everyone that publishes content and is looking for link bait is publishing a top 10 list of 2011. I’m getting asked daily to contribute – I finally decided to create a blog post so I could simply refer to it instead of saying “sorry – I hate top 10 lists, count me out.”

10. They are boring as shit.

9. Extraordinary selection bias prevails.

8. Clever superlatives like splendiferous are often missing.

7. They always have 10 items. Why not squares like 9 or primes like 11?

6. Google has better things to do than index top 10 lists.

5. Time wasted reading top 10 lists takes time away from playing CastleVille.

4. Ever try to read a top 10 list on an iPhone? There needs to be an app for that.

3. If SOPA/PIPA passes, some of the sites republishing the lists might be shut down.

2. Listmakers, like @abatchelor, are food for the matrix.

1. Very few lists of 10 things fit in 140 characters.

So there.