The 10/100/1000 Most Popular X (click image to enlarge)
Popularity Lessons From Lists Of “The Most Popular”1
High on the list of The Most Popular Content To Publish On The Internet is “Lists of The Most Popular Something Or Other.”
While popularity contests have always been - well, popular, modern technology has made the tabulation of indicators of popularity easier and faster. Computers invisibly and automatically tabulate sales of products, TV programs watched, and the addresses of registered sex offenders, producing rankings on demand. And, my friend, once you’ve got a ranking of such choices, you’ve got yourself a “Most Popular X List” where “X” equals just about any preference for any idea, presentation, concept, material commodity, location, etc. by any individual or group of individuals during any time period.
The American Kennel Club, for example, offers the past year’s ten most popular dog breeds with preferences broken down by state, TorrentFreak ranks the ten most popular files downloaded from BitTorrent sites in 2007 (AKA “Top 10 Most Pirated Movies and TV Shows of 2007″), and the Social Security Administration budget apparently has a line to fund a web site that lists the most popular baby names by time period and by state. One can find the Most Popular Fruit Wines, the 10 most popular newspaper typefaces, the 10 Most Popular Types Of Massage Therapy, … .
The structure of the internet2 lends itself not only to publishing Most Popular lists but also formulating them. That and the easy availability of inexpensive or free software (often automatically integrated with web site hosting packages and blogging systems) has empowered every web site owner, Facebook page owner, and blogger with the capacity to publish popularity rankings of the elements of his or her site itself. The only requirements for a Most Popular Post list are (1) a means by which to count the times a post is linked, read, viewed, preferred, etc.3 and (2) at least two distinguishable posts or post components (e.g., graphics) to rank.
That the population of obsessive, geekish, introspective, individuals pandering to the public in a desperate plea for attention (i.e., people like me) is overrepresented on the internet has resulted in web sites devoted to “most popular” lists popping up with some regularity. At the time of this writing, the current post at one such example, The List Universe, is Top 10 Things That Are Surprisingly Good For You. Recent offerings at that site have included Top 10 Best Fake American Accents, Top 10 Amazing Holes In The Earth, and Top 10 Failed Apocalyptic Predictions.
And, if there are a batch of lists, there must be, of course, meta-lists. The Most Popular Top 10 Lists of 2006 from AlterNet.org is a fine, albeit somewhat obvious, instance of this phenomenon.
Residing one level deeper in the more esoterically meta than thou sequence is What is the most popular “top (number)” list on Digg?, which calculated the most frequently occurring story on the front page of Digg with a headline that included “Top” followed by a number (e.g., “Top 5,” “Top 10,” “Top 100″).4
The Most Popular Use Of Most Popular On The Internet
One heading in An Overview Of “Most Viewed Posts” was “Most Viewed Vs Most Popular Vs Most Important Vs …,” which was, in part, my effort to signal the conflation of these and similar terms, especially as they are use in online rankings.5 In that post, I pointed out the variety of methods used to determine something as simple as a blog’s “most popular” post. My concern at this point, however, is the potential shift in the meaning of the word, “popular,” in general.
The thin line between “determine which post is most popular by counting viewings” and “most viewings and most popular are equivalent terms” has, it seems, dissipated completely. At Heck Of A Guy, I’ve used the more technical and literal “Most Viewed Posts” as a title for this list rather than “Most Popular Posts” because I think those are different descriptions that may or may not refer to the same posts. In the next post in this series, I’ll present examples from the entries on the Heck Of A Guy Most Viewed Posts list which will, I believe, support that contention.
For today, I will only point out the semantic differences. Definitions of “popular” have in common the notion that anyone or anything that is popular is well-liked or is embraced by the entire group (population) of indivudals being considered. The definition from the Answers.com is representative:
popular
- Widely liked or appreciated: a popular resort.
- Liked by acquaintances; sought after for company: “Beware of over-great pleasure in being popular or even beloved” (Margaret Fuller).
- Of, representing, or carried on by the people at large: the popular vote.
- Fit for, adapted to, or reflecting the taste of the people at large: popular entertainment; popular science.
- Accepted by or prevalent among the people in general: a popular misunderstanding of the issue.
- Suited to or within the means of ordinary people: popular prices.
- Originating among the people: popular legend.
That Post A attracts more viewings than competing Posts X, Y, and Z is not, I maintain, identical to Post A meeting with more approbation than Posts X, Y, and Z or Post A being more enthusiastically or widely embraced by the population. Viewings, in fact, are tallied before the viewer has even read the post in order to make an assessment of its value.
A legitimate question at this point is “If such a melding of terminology is indeed taking place, is it important?”
Well, maybe. Definitions and word usage change continuously. On the other hand, some changes, unless they are recognized, can lead to dangerous assumptions and misunderstandings. There is, for example, not only a thin line between “Most Clicked Link” and “Most Popular Post;” there is also a thin line between “Most Popular” and “Best.” When all those thin lines disappear, the result is “Most Clicked” equals “Best.”misperceptions
I believe I can concoct an strong argument that such a shift could lead to misconceptions and mistaken judgments.
As to whether this shift is taking place, consider this heading that introduced a collection of recent posts at one of my favorite sites, Lifehacker.com, which I’ve found to be not only useful but also carefully and competently written.
Most Popular Posts = Best Posts (click image to enlarge)
Note that the headline6 describes the posts that follow as the “most popular posts” and in the next line7 refers to those same posts as the “best posts.” (The underlining in the graphic was added by me.)
I am unaware of the mechanism Lifehacker uses to generate their Most Popular Posts links, but the blogging software used is WordPress so one of the plugins described in An Overview Of “Most Viewed Posts” may be responsible. In any case, I doubt that the admirable folks at Lifehacker literally mean that the “most popular posts,” whatever the formula used for determining that ranking, are necessarily the “best posts.”
In the next entry in this series, tentatively titled, What’s A Post Like You Doing In A Most Viewed List Like This? The Heck Of A Guy 10 Most Viewed Posts & How They Got There, I’ll demonstrate that at least at Heck Of A Guy blog, the list of Most Viewed Posts certainly does not correlate highly with Best Posts.
Footnotes
_____________________- In An Overview Of “Most Viewed Posts,” I indicated that the sequel to that post would be a pragmatic guide to interpreting statistical reports, including polls and “most ______ of” lists. I am, however, deferring that topic in order to survey The internet’s Most Popular lists in general and the Heck Of A Guy Blog’s Ten Most Viewed Posts in particular as examples of the unintended consequences of the mechanisms chosen to accomplish the ranking, timing, and other independent variables. This will be, I believe, a useful prelude to the interpretive guide.↩
- That a browser must land on a web page to be read makes the counting of potential readers much easier than, for example, readers of books since books can be borrowed, sold outside normal retail markets, lent and resold casually, transactions it would be pragmatically impossible to monitor. This structure also enables the functionality of search engines, which are, in this perspective, popularity rankers - albeit those rankings are determined by a complex, weighted formula.↩
- There are many possible indicators of post popularity that can be used singly or in combination, e.g., how long a browser stays on a single URL, how much money is spent or how many ads are clicked during the visit, how many visitors are first-timers, …↩
- According to the article, “From our analysis we found that the “top 10″ list format has reached the homepage more times than all other “top (number)” lists combined.”↩
- The internet is not the only area in which this commingling of terms takes place but the others are a topic for another post on another day.↩
- ”August 2008’s Most Popular Posts”↩
- ”Before you dive headfirst into September tomorrow, make sure you didn’t miss the best posts in August”↩
