In the last post I have stated that random lists are boundary objects: They include a low level of list-ness, and can therefore often better be described as sets or groups (I used these two terms quite carelessly as interchangeable - I wil…

What distinguishes lists form other forms of assemblages? Well, to start with a pretty simple observation: Lists are pretty simple forms of assemblage. They are nothing near the complexity of an organism, not even of a network. They have a…

Nico Nico Douga’s ranking is one form of ranking. Rankings are one form of lists. So what is a list? What looks like a simple question turned out to be a rather complicated one. To develop a sytsematical approach, I moved up even one branc…

The British media theorist and sociologist Adrian McKenzie has recently sketched out his idea about the Internet as a medium of lists. I found his talk on a workshop at Goldsmiths highly inspiring. It struck me that rankings in particular,…

Like most video community websites, Nico Nico Douga does not have one single form, but a plurarity of rankings. The most important form is called, tellingly, “ranking”, but it is not the only one. The “ranking” button is placed in the uppe…

There is hardly a week without a new twist in the development of Nico Nico Douga. But even said that, the last weeks were particularly exciting for us at the metadata project. Niwango, the company behind Nico Nico Douga, re-organised its r…