I love lists. Not all lists but “competitive lists.” I remember reading the Book of Lists (and the Guinness Book of World Records) as a kid. I admit I was kind of nerdy (some may say I still am) but I love reading through lists. I look forward to the end of the year in anticipation of year-end “Best Of” lists. I make my own — I may pretend someone is interested and actually publish them this year.

I’m not surprised then that I have three separate lists open in my current set of 40+ Safari tabs. I wouldn’t think a list would be an easy template to use for developing content but web sites are always publishing lists. I always read them and I always plan/hope/dream that my name and likeness will appear on one (or more) one of these days.

I just finished reviewing the recently published Austin American-Statesman Out & About 500 which “recognizes those among us who are everywhere, all the time, often doing good, weaving the social fabric of Austin.” I’m not too sure what that means but they have enough categories (all 15 are listed on Michael Barnes’ blog) and people (500 individuals and couples) on the list that I don’t see why I can’t be on it next year.

Although it was published in January, I also finally read through The New York Times Style Magazine’s Nifty 50, a review of America’s up-and-coming talent. I thought they developed an interesting list covering photography, art, dance, music, acting, food, and sports. I don’t think I uncovered anyone new to me but “future prognosis lists” are one of my favorite types of list and this one was worth reading.

The third list I had open was the Fast Company 100 Most Creative People in Business 2010. I immediately have a lot of questions about a list in a business-focused magazine that contains Lady Gaga and James Cameron in the top 10 but they also included people like Aaron Koblin, Zachary Lieberman, and Yugo Nakamura in the 100 so I guess they didn’t create the entire list based solely on selling more copies of their magazine. To be completely honest, this might be my favorite list of these three because each profile has a “mash-up” feel that includes the person’s Twitter feed, an image gallery, Wikipedia entry, Flickr feed, blog, and Google news. I don’t have to research anyone on the list because all of their public online information is right on their profile page. I appreciate that Fast Company provides all this information instead of making me search for it myself.

I hope you don’t think any less of me now that I’ve come clean about my list fetish.