The Lady Programmer

Most of the successful websites that I’ve seen around often elicit the participation of the community to get the best content. Social bookmarking services like Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon are mainly powered by the community. Even Google’s pagerank technology is based on other people’s linked content. People remain the life-blood that powers up these successful websites.

Now 10to1 introduces a new way of doing things: by encouraging people to create lists and add up items. Members can get to vote up or vote down an entry. It is a way to ask the community which items are really cool or not. The most positive votes get it straight up to the top ten.

The most entertaining list that I’ve seen is the list of funny license plates.

The press release below explains the mechanism of this top ten voting lists.

Press Release

PHOENIX, Arizona – September 9, 2008 – 10to1.com, a technology company pioneering a new way to organize data and create collaborative authority, unveils its ranked list voting site offering. The site allows users to create, vote and comment on lists for any category. Categories include tech, environment, entertainment, sports, gaming, business, health and politics.

The process is simple. Each user-generated list, from 1 item to 101 items, will begin as one person’s opinion of a ranked list. The user community will then build and shape that list through voting, comments and adding new items which creates a consensus of the best version of that list.

“There is a lack of order and authority online. It is hard for users to get trustworthy information searching through the billions of pages found on Google and Yahoo. The user generated content and unbiased opinions found on 10to1 help users to find the best information based on collective user’s consensus and it aids in discovery of items that they may not have considered before,” said Korey Bachelder, President of 10to1, Inc. “We took a look at Digg and saw that people love to offer their opinions by voting and commenting. We decided to take the idea and make it better by creating order, ultimately creating winners in every category.”

Why Lists?
10. Easy to digest and remember
9. Encourage debate
8. Creates order
7. They will spread and be shared
6. Easy to write
5. Insightful and interesting
4. They aid discovery
3. People love stats
2. They assert authority
1. Lists are interesting!

10to1.com is a website destination that allows users to create, comment and vote on lists for any category. The lists become more powerful and resourceful with each vote as users collectively create the best list based on individual opinions. The company is headquartered in Chandler, Arizona.

5 Responses so far | Have Your Say!

1. 

   kouji
   September 12th, 2008 at 4:36 pm #

   interesting take. sort of a formal realization of the power of these lists on social bookmarking sites.

2. 

   Gem
   September 12th, 2008 at 4:59 pm #

   @kouji
   You can use social bookmarking sites to promote your haiku blog. I don’t know which one is a good fit to your blogging audience.

3. 

   MikeC
   September 12th, 2008 at 11:16 pm #

   For all the interesting ideals I try to come up with, I slap myself in the head when I see a site like this that has a great concept. I like it. Thanks for the share.

4. 

   Gem
   September 12th, 2008 at 11:26 pm #

   @MikeC
   I was thinking that you might be putting that concept in your blog.

5. 

   mikedone
   September 14th, 2008 at 12:38 am #

   social bookmaking is the other of the day when it comes to seriousness of traffic generation.are great article thanks for that.