List Posts: Taking the Easy Route
I have a lot of respect for sites like Smashing Magazine, they’re doing a great job serving the best of the design web, and their posts are always worth a glance. They always attract a lot of links, which is warranted.
Problem is, a lot of blogs are doing the same thing, listing stuff. It can be the best WordPress plugins, or designers to follow on Twitter, some Firefox 3 themes, or… Well, you get the picture.
Lists are easy content, and if you’ve got a good compilation you’ll get links. Linkbait comes to mind.
I’m sorry, but list posts aren’t only easy content, almost all of them are also boring! A good list is a good list, but when I’m getting the fifth link to the same place in yet another list post, I just close it and move on.
I’m not saying that list posts should be banned, although most of them are simple linkbaits without any real value, but I do think that original content is preferable in almost every case.
That being said, Smashing Magazine proves that it can be done right as well.