Quite the contrary - I love commentary like yours! It’s great to see positive “I love you” feedback from people, but that just tells you what you’re doing right and who already is a fan. There’s always a group of people who don’t get it, aren’t interested, or who want/need something else entirely. It’s those people who get my brain going and get me bugging the devs with “what if?” questions.

As for the ever-flogged coverage, I’m so on board with you there. It wouldn’t even be so bad if there was variety, or new blood, but so much of it is just the same thing over and over - both the same people talking and referencing each other, and referencing the same well-trodden news.

Good impetus for companies like us to come up with unbelievably cool, wild stuff to give folks new things to talk about.

Or you and I can just keep having smarty arguments…

The rant almost went unpublished until yesterday with the Frienderati launch on Alltop. The problem I have is that once a ranking gets published, people can’t stop talking about them. It happened with the Twitterati launch on Alltop as well.

In any case, thanks for reading and presenting your position. I appreciate any readers I get, even if you aren’t very happy with me You may have also sparked an idea for a post with a slightly different angle.

Yup, for those who have no use for rankings, there certainly is a surfeit of options. And I freely admit to some folks who tell me they don’t get it that what we do is not universally applicable. Some people’s processing style requires a high level of manual interaction to maintain a comfort level, and some people don’t buy in to the pre-set parameters of a lot of rankings.

And a “so what?” argument can certainly be made for bloggers if their reason for wanting rankings is nothing more than a barometer for popularity, or, as Steve noted in his rebuttal, human nature.

However, on a bigger scale, one that pays the rent, it’s business. Business demands metrics. It requires parameters of measurement and then rankings of relevant entities within those parameters. Works for sales targets, marketing campaigns, balance sheets, manufacturing efficiencies — you name it.

It’s business for some of those bloggers whose rankings help them get advertisers or new consulting clients, which means income for supporting their families.

It’s business for companies who want to know what their customers and potential customers think, or how they’re doing in the marketplace and with customer service. It’s hard to know what to improve if you don’t even know you suck. Just like it’s good to know to keep doing what you’re doing and work even harder to be great if you’re consistently ranked #1. The better companies do, the more they grow, the more people they can employ who can pay their rent.

If you have no need for rankings, cool. You’re fortunate and you have a lot of freedom. You can write about what you like, whenever you like, and it won’t affect your income stream or whether or not your mom likes you best. However, Steve is right — rankings (likely to become ever more complex and interwoven) are here to stay.