Two months ago, my colleague David Cushman and I started compiling a list of ‘Web 2.0 rock stars‘. It was partly a bit of fun, but also to see if it might bring some attention to www.ditto.net (disclosure: Both David and I work at Bauer Media, who own Ditto, and know/work with the Ditto team). We also though it would be fun to see a public vote, rather than one created either by Google page rank, Technorati, or by a small group of people on an editorial team.

But there have been some really fascinating outcomes:

• Being able to watch how people are using the voting tool on Ditto – some vote for their single favourite/some re-order the entire list.
• Adding people that David and myself hadn’t encountered and discovering some cool people we might have missed. And we’re still adding more (Suggest someone/yourself in the comments, or email daniel dot thornton at bauermedia.co.uk)
• And seeing how a list with minimal promotion (Mentioned only on this blog and Faster Future) has been picked up by lots of people, including several of the notables on the voting list.
• And also turning it into a bit of a resource after David added videos to almost every rock star. It’s a good example of what the Ditto team are trying to achieve (You can see and hear one of the founders, Colin Kennedy via Dave’s writing on /Message)

So where did it spread to?

Blogs:

AFP Mediawatch

Doc Searls

Euan Semple

Joseph Jaffe

Jason Calacanis (in the comments of Rich Millington’s post)

Stowe Boyd (written by David Cushman)

Jonathan MacDonald

Wikinomics

Comments:

Shel Israel, Corvida, JP Rangaswami, Veronica Belmont and Doc Searls all appeared in my blog comments (which I suspect wouldn’t have otherwise happened!), or contacted me via Facebook. As did Jonathan Yarmis, Stephanie Frasco, Josh Bernoff, Brian Solis and The Kaiser via email. (Jonathan’s inclusion apparently made his mother very proud!)

And it also created even more debate and mentions on Twitter and Pownce:

ciaranj

enikao

waynesutton

stoweboyd

technofeliz

jasonrysavy

askfrasco

j_mac

(At which point Twitter Search broke)

And despite a relatively ‘niche’ subject compared to ‘The Best Movies of All Time‘, it’s still ranking as one of the most popular lists on the site!

All this was possible for two reasons:

1. Cush, myself, and the Ditto team (Especially John!). Between the three of us, it probably took 1-2 days to have the list at the stage it is now.

2. The desire of people to discover, share, link and contribute. From the first post I made, people were contributing great suggestions (I forgot to include Cory Doctorow, for example) And even though no-one was taking it seriously with a title like ‘The Rock Stars of Web 2.0′, almost everyone was happy to be included, supply pictures, correct information, and link back (even if they were embarrassed to be included, eh Euan?). And it was a pleasant surprise to find a namecheck from Doc Searls today.

And none of this was broadcast to anyone. As David examines in more detail, we didn’t email anyone to publicise the list. We didn’t prepare a press release, or even use Bauer Media’s global brands. We both blogged and tweeted about it in an honest and fun way, and waited to see who discovered and contributed to it. And all the rest of it occurred naturally, as people self selected whether they wanted to be involved, and whether they wanted to encourage voting from others. It didn’t make Techcrunch or Slashdot, or the front page of Digg. And judging by the timing and tone of many of the posts, people were discovering it individually, and passing it around their social networks, but it hasn’t been bridging the gap across them as you might imagine. (See Slide 4 in Cush’s excellent presentation on the future of PR)

And the great thing is that it’s an ongoing thing. We’re still adding more and more people – and the voting never ends. Unfortunately submissions are via a slightly clunky ‘email daniel dot thornton at bauermedia dot co dot uk with name, details and a headshot’ method but we’ll work to get everyone online as soon as is possible. Voting is rather slicker! At regular intervals we’ll keep everyone up to date with the results at the time, further learnings, and how we’re continuing to be surprised by the wonderful thing which is humans interacting.

Oh, and if you’ve contributed/suggest for the list, or allowed the use of your photo via Creative Commoncs, then many, many thanks. It’ll take me some time to list everyone that contributed via me, but I’ll happily list anyone as they remind me (or whinge in EaonP’s case!)