In my most recent podcast, I cautioned against putting too much credence in iTunes rankings. Turns out that was a good call because those numbers are meaningless and easily manipulated. Let's take this a step further and quit caring so much about these fricking meaningless ordinal rankings. None of them can measure the only aspect in the whole deal that really matters, which is how much your audience of whatever size is digging you.

Let me state now that I am completely uninterested in my ranking in any list of any kind, no matter what the methodology used to gather it. I had a period where I did care because it felt like injustice when I started dropping down the Podcast Alley rankings to shows that had a fraction of my listenership and a fraction of my affinity (or at least it felt like that, I have no real way of knowing). I don't care about getting votes for awards, I don't care about rankings, I don't give a shit about being the top of any heap. What I care about is that when you spend 30 or 45 minutes listening to me that you feel your time wasn't wasted.

What I'm ultimately asking for is not a better ranking system or a less gameable system, I'm asking everyone to think beyond the Nielsen-style big media ranking systems and stop caring about these nonsensical lists. It doesn't matter what most people listen to, it matters what you listen to.