The Usual Suspects

Granted, I’ve talked about this before, and at this point there are probably some links I shouldn’t even bother clicking on when I see them in my news reader. But I can’t help myself when I see a link announcing yet another ranking list of bloggers (and others involved in “new media”). Namely the AO/Technorati Open Media 100 list.

Like I said, I couldn’t help myself. I saw a few names here and there that I didn’t recognize, but for the most part it was the same basic collection of names I could find on just about any similar list. Granted, the creators of this particular list did more than just count links. They solicited nominations from bloggers, took surveys, etc. But the list looks pretty much like any other. All of which leads me to ask: does the world need another list of those at the “top”?

I’m just not sure it’s telling us anything that we don’t already know, or why we should be interested. (Yeah, yeah. I know. If I’m not interested, why did I follow the link. It’s Pavlovian, I swear.) At this point, I figure the folks at the top have got their own thing going, and it really doesn’t have much to do with me.

What’s more interesting to me now is what a group of “smaller” bloggers can do when they combine their efforts. I’ve seen it happen with the people who blogged about the murder of Rashawn Brazell, with the Big Brass Alliance and the Downing Street Memo, and most recently with the blog storm around Zach’s story.

That, to me, is the more interesting story and more indicative of how and where “open media” or “new media” is changing things; when a group of citizens — who, seperately, have little pull or caché — can get together and make a non-story suddenly the story or at least a bigger story than it might have been otherwise. It’s happening more and more often, and there are more and more of us taking part, but you’ll never see most of us on any of the “top” lists.