Americans Love Lists + Here Comes Another Bubble

December 7th, 2007 · 7 Comments · 1,641 views

I just saw this funny but also interesting video (via ze frank):

Goodie Bag TV - Americans Love Lists

It’s true - lists are very popular online and I suspect people often write all kind of lists primarily as link bait - and it often works (to some degree). People like short, to-the-point bullet points that give them some interesting/entertaining information, right? But it’s not just online is it? Magazines often have articles that are based on lists - these two headlines were on the cover of October’s issue of FastCompany: “25 Widgets We Love” and “14 Designers To Watch”. And since it looks like it’s working - why stop? Like he says in the video: “We need more lists, we need lists of lists within a list” ;)

Another video I ran into today:

Here Comes Another Bubble - The Richter Scales

[Update: OK, it looks like the video has been taken down because of a copyright claim (of a photo used in the video). But apparently you can still watch the video here (at least for now)]

Pretty funny lyrics - and a catchy song too ;) Yeah, some people think there is another bubble going on. Perhaps - I mean, is Facebook really worth $15 billion?

This video is actually a pretty good link bait - and they even admit that it’s a link bait video: “won’t you blog about this song?” :)

7 responses so far ↓

Emirhan // Dec 19, 2007 at 6:41 pm

Hi Hannes,
I liked your blog and it is in my favorites now.
I find your blog is very usefull. While I was checing your blog out I noticed the ”google ads” placement in your article (right upper corner). I am wondering if you could tell me how you put the google ads code there in your article?
I’d like to learn and apply the same thing on my blog. This is a new thing for me:)
Thanks
Emirhan
Hannes Johnson // Dec 20, 2007 at 1:19 am

@Emirhan: I use the WordPress plug-in AdSense Deluxe to handle my AdSense ads. Then, in the options for the plug-in I wrap my AdSense code with a div tag:
<div style="float: right; margin: 5px;"> [adsense code] </div>
Emirhan // Dec 21, 2007 at 1:54 am

Hi Hannes,
Thank you for answering and helping me out about the adsense question. I appreciate it.
I have another question on Wordpress template. When I write an article and try to post, it does not stay the way I arrange the paragraps. I generally use the visual because I am not an HTML expert. I make paragraphs and they come together again:)
I am having this problem almost for 3 months. Sometimes I try to do HTML and it works. However today I failed. I tried to put the article into visual and after a click all the paragraphs came together. I am just having a big headache with this Wordpress blogging:)
What do you suggest?

Thanks,
Emirhan
Hannes Johnson // Dec 31, 2007 at 3:02 pm

@Emirhan: Are you pasting your blog post from e.g. Microsoft Word? That might mess up your formatting. But you might also try putting a double paragraph break (press Enter twice) between each paragraph and see if that helps…
Emirhan // Dec 31, 2007 at 6:59 pm

I’ll try to give a double paragraph break. I always write my articles in Microsoft Word first then I copy and paste it in to my blogs. Do you think that I should not write my articles in M.Word?
Thanks and Happy New Year…
Hannes Johnson // Jan 1, 2008 at 7:37 pm

@Emirhan: Yeah, Word often messes up formatting - I would try just writing straight into the WordPress editor. Or you could use Notepad instead of Microsoft Word - you shouldn’t have any problems pasting from Notepad because that’s just pure text.

I’m happy to be able to help - and a happy new year to you too :)
Emirhan // Jan 2, 2008 at 1:18 am

I’ll try to write my articles in Notepad or directly in the Wordpress editor.
Thank you Hannes
Emirhan

Hannes Johnson dot Com