More lists of influencers

You know how I like lists of influencers. Or rather, how I like to rant at their general pointlessness.

So I got all excited about another list source, called Most Public. It’s an index of the most influential public figures in some predefined news community. Like New York.

I'm troubled by any information source that claims "a teenage Twitterer may have as powerful a voice as the New York Times editorial board". What nonsense, at least without qualification (such as, influential on whom?).

Oh, and it has to be online influence. The measurement criteria, which are published, make it clear that it’s the online world that is being indexed.

In fact, I actually quite like the idea of this type of list, especially when there’s an obvious methodology in play. Disagree with the method, but you can’t claim that the list is made up randomly (unlike most compilations of influencers).

Still I can’t help wondering, who are these people influential on? My first guess is, other people on the list. There’s a tendency in the online blogosphere twitterverse web2.0 world to refer to other people in the same community. This is, of course, natural since we gravitate to others like us. Fair enough. Except don’t assume that the online community is a proxy for the rest of the world. It isn't. In a recent survey we conducted for a client, the most popular answer to "Which blogs do you read?" was "What's a blog?"

I’m left with the impression that the New York Most Public list is interesting, like a top ten list of marching band music is interesting, if you’re interested in that sort of thing. From a practical point of view, I’d rather see a top 50 list of the most influential restaurant critics in NY. Or who’s influencing advertising trends in print media. Or who’s influencing the economy. Or who’s influencing voting intentions.

Lists are all very well, but they beg the question, what are they for. Too often, this question is left unasked.