Lists & Online Inspiration Archives

Why are lists and compilations (both text and image based) so popular on the internet these days? It could be seen as an easy way to organize, and wade through an endless swamp of online information. Or maybe it’s just a good way to archive and display found inspiration. Regardless of the reasons, the results are captivating.

Rosecrans Baldwin explores the growing popularity of lists on The Moment blog:

Not long ago, the Web was all about personal sites, and we all knew one another by first names. Then the blogs showed up, and now with Tumblr and Flickr and Twitter the emphasis is on the list format, be it a series of bon mots or visual snippets. These are lists without much to say. In the magazine world, you’d call it the front of book — that first section of terse paragraphs, charticles and perfume ads. But on the Web right now it’s the new, the vanguard, the limit.

You can start with sites like The Material Review, tracking the cave drawings of ye olde preppies, or JJJJound, covering some of the same territory but with a dose of sex, or UUIUU, collecting objects of pop futurism, or Agence Eureka, a French collector’s archive of printed matter. But the granddaddy is Fffound!, for “image bookmarking,” where desperate art directors go searching for inspiration, and the rest of us spend hours away from our families.

The Moment: “The Digital Ramble | Lists”