I am a sucker for "list journalism" — the practice of publishing lists of various kinds. Many (or is it most?) magazines have made a franchise of it:
· The Fortune 500 companies
· The Forbes 400 richest people in America
· Working Mother's 100 top companies to work for
· New York magazine's 24 dream trips
· Sports Illustrated's 101 most influential minorities in sports.
I also admit that in my youth, I read — cover to cover — the Book of Lists series of books. Sadly, those books seem to be out of print — where can I now go to get such gems as "10 Untranslatable Words," "18 Celebrities Who Were Cheerleaders," and "10 Famous Virgins"?
So I am a perfect customer for
PC Magazine's Top 101 Most Incredibly Useful Sites, a recent special report on the mag's website. According Lance Ulanoff, senior executive producer, this is the fall edition of the list (with the magazine running a similar list each spring). Two separate lists a year (with some overlap) may sound excessive, but he's right when he says, "Because the web moves so fast, if we didn't do this twice a year, we'd be falling behind."
Ulanoff and his team have chosen 101 sites in 16 categories — business and finance, careers, computing (everyone), computing (experts), entertainment, gaming, good reading, information, kids, lifestyle and fun, news, online services, search, reference and portals, shopping, sports, and travel.
Not many surprises here, but this list is worth bookmarking. I especially liked being able to download links to all 101 to my "favorites" list (after registering). It's perhaps best for discovering sites you may not have known about. Among the sites new to me were CaloriesPerHour.com, Worth1000.com, and TelevisionWithoutPity.com.
Goes to show that "usefulness" is in the eye of keyboarder.
One truly useful feature of this list: it has an alternative, easy-to-remember address: IncrediblyUseful.com.
Your turn: Have a site you want to recommend? Let me know at poynter@sree.net.
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