So, as a public service,one of the things that the Mediacratic was going to do was provide all of the top download lists of the big boy sites. Peoplewhole thing comparing the top video downloads of all of the big-boy sites: iTunes; AOL; Google & Yahoo! It would be in interesting compare and contrast, and perhapsprovide some insight to how the various sites’ strategies were panning out.
Well, not so much. iTunes has top tens. (The most recent eps of Lost, The Office and Battlestar Galactica.) (And oh my gods, how amazing was that latest ep of Battlestar? How they were able to have a major major victory against the Cylons and yet things are even more frac–, oh, right, the point.) But that’s pretty much it. AOL has “What’s Hot,” but there really isn’t a ranking. Yahoo! has a “Popular” section, but it’s based on searches, not downloads. And Google, well, who know what the hell is going on there?
It’s not a secret that popularity breeds popularity. People are interested in what other people are interested in. That’s why record stores and video stores have always have top sales and new release sections. So it’s a bit baffling that, except for iTunes, of course, none of these video download sites do.