Frankly, I think they’re a symptom of laziness on the part of writers and readers alike. But I do have to admit that with all the info we have to process these days, they’re sometimes better than nothing. It’s true that, as Umberto Eco (who loves lists, BTW, and is no slouch) says, they “make infinity comprehensible.” I guess people can always dig deeper into a subject if they want something they can sink their teeth into. I wonder how many do.

Anyway, you gotta do what you gotta do, and I’ve been known to write a list post or two in my day. In fact, the last two I wrote for Web Worker Daily were just that: 5 Japanese words that start with S, and 3 words uttered by Mel Gibson that start with E (and might help you get a content strategy, which you should do).

We all have days when we get demoralized and depressed and consider giving it all up for a day job.

If you’re suffering from the startup blues, here’s some good medicine for you that’ll put an end to your user envy…

Read Patience and Hard Work from the Contrast blog. “If your number of users is growing 10% each month, you’re doubling your user base every 7 months. So if you’ve only got 70 users, you just need 10 more this month, allowing for churn.”

Watch this inspiring video of David Heinemeier Hansson (37Signals) at Startup School ’08.

David talks, among other things, about the beauty of realistic expectations. He tells you exactly how to make a million dollars in a year (2,000 customers who pay $40 a month). That seems realistic, doesn’t it? Thirty-two very informative, entertaining and refreshing minutes.

Now that you feel better, get back to work!

This is a day in my life. Read about how I deal with it on Web Worker Daily and CNNMoney.com/Fortune.

I found a free desktop search app called Exalead Desktop. (I discovered the app recently when I applied for a writing gig at Exalead.) In case you don’t know about desktop search apps, what they do is index the files on your hard drive so that you can perform fast searches and get useful information about your search results. The good ones generally index over 150 file types, including your e-mails and their attachments, and Exalead is a good one.

I read a number of reviews of such apps, and found no mention of Exalead. Maybe that’s because it’s a French company; the anglophone web sometimes seems to be as insular as the US itself… (But the app has been localized into English). It’s certainly not because the app is lacking in any way; it’s at least as powerful and versatile as any of the others, and I found the user interface to be exceptionally intuitive and well organized.

Once you install Exalead Desktop, you interact with it through your browser (as you do with Google Desktop). It never connects to the Internet unless you ask it to, and no indexed information is saved anywhere but on your computer.

It took several hours for Exalead to index the more than 63,000 files on my computer, and when I tested it, I knew I’d never have to see the ugly puppy again. The first time I used it it found what I was looking for in seconds.

The two most popular desktop search apps for PC appear to be Google Desktop and Windows Search 4, a Microsoft product. I wouldn’t use either one of them. I already can’t stand Google Docs or Google Groups. Can’t stand Microsoft. And I’m anti-monopoly.

So if you want to support a French company, give Exalead, which I’ve heard referred to as le Google français, a try.

For more info, read Darrell Etherington’s review of the app on Web Worker Daily.

Two themes stood out: whether there’s an inherent conflict in creating a personal brand when you work for a company, and how to deal with personal branding when you’re also engaged in branding a startup. I’m sure I’ll talk about these issues here at some point.

I came away with an awesome tip given by Fadhila. When she was asked how to brand yourself when you have a diverse background and skill set (which is increasingly the case for more and more of us), she said that you should choose one element to place at the forefront that will allow people to envision what might be behind it.

She used the metaphor of a boulangerie (bakery) and said that everybody knows what a boulangerie is and that you can get all kinds of different things inside.

So,  when you’re creating your personal brand, be a bakery. Give people a concept of yourself they can grasp, but one that is not too limiting for you.

I also sat in on a session about certifying your digital identity presented by the founder of MyID.is Certified, a French startup to watch, and one I’ll probably write about on Web Worker Daily.

This is what’s happening: Francophilia, my startup, has its own Twitter account with hundreds of followers. Francophilia wants to follow all the francophiles back. But Francophilia can’t always tell if followers are actually francophiles, or if they’re just flagrant and indiscriminate self-promoters who have no interest in France or Frenchy stuff.

Take Rawinvstg, for example. Short (and hard to remember) for Raw Investigations, “an online music mag.” Now, maybe the person/people running that account are actually francophiles, but because the account is a “business” account, I have no idea if there’s a francophile behind the curtain.

Then there’s cellphonebestbu (another abbreviation mishap). Are the owners of this company that sells cell phone accessories in Mississauga, Canada, francophiles? I may never know. What I do know is that I don’t want to get their updates on their latest greatest deal for bluetooth headsets. So Francophilia is not following them back.

Among Francophilia’s legit business followers are boutique owners, wine merchants, real estate agents dealing in French property, gourmet shops, etc. This makes sense. But PETA? Or a religious charity? Or an online brokerage firm? There’s something fishy going on here.

I have two Twitter accounts, one for plain old me and one for Francophilia. I had the courtesy to create separate accounts because I didn’t want to waste the time of Francophilia followers with my updates and vice versa. You see?

As far as I’m concerned, Twitter only makes sense if genuine communities are formed. But how do we separate the “real” people from the imposters? Your thoughts?

Here’s a related post I wrote for Web Worker Daily, in which I emphasize the dangers of having your Twitter feed on your professional blog or site…

The theme of the conference was Connecting Communities. I chose my topic because I wanted to emphasize what is undoubtedly obvious to many: communities are made up of individuals, and you have to construct your digital self before you can join the online reindeer games.

It’s kind of amazing to me how many people are still not aware that they’re being Googled, despite the fact that most of them have Googled an ex boyfriend or girlfriend at least once… (I know you have too.)

I’m also surprised when I meet tech professionals who are still trying to stay under the radar online. I told my audience of technical communicators that it was in their best interest to start creating a professional online identity because a comfy, in-house tech writing job could simply vanish in this economy.

I just love tech events in Paris. They all seem to end with champagne.

What a bummer, man.

Granted, it’s only 15 bucks for the privilege to play with my CSS for a year, which is more than reasonable, considering the service that WordPress has rendered society. We really do owe them and the many other free platforms for human expression an enormous debt of gratitude. But gratitude don’t pay the bills.

Social is here to stay, but free is over, and so is Web 2.0.

Frankly, I’m very OK with that. I’m tired of the clone wars, and this turn of events may put an end to that and give me something else to read on Mashable too.

Think about it. If you have 50 free social whatever aggregators to choose from, and suddenly they all realize there is no more funding on the horizon and they have to start charging for their services if they want to keep the servers running, users are going to become much more discriminating about which products they use. Natural selection will occur, and only the companies able to offer the highest quality and most benefit for users will survive. In the end, the users win because what they get is a better product. Theoretically. There are always exceptions (Microsoft, homo sapiens…).

Ruthless, I know, but ladies and gentlemen, you are now leaving Eden. Welcome to the jungle.

Unfortunately, all of this is happening just when people are losing jobs and homes. Another minor obstacle, which many have pointed out, is that people don’t like to start paying for something that they’re used to having for free.

What happens at times like these, when disposable income suddenly dries up? Well, you don’t dispose of it. You only buy the things you absolutely need. And thanks to the free love fest, there are a lot of us who need our social apps and the other tools and toys we’ve come to depend on. We are hooked. So, though it may be a little harder to rack up the new users if they have to pay, chances are good that those of us who are already users will pay the price, if we can.

So the tech world waits with bated breath to see whether Facebook and Twitter and other Web 2.0 heavyweights are going to get business models. Investors are only interested in startups that are already making money. And startups are facing the challenge of finding business models that will cover their costs without pissing off their users.

The good news for startups? Your competitors should start dropping like flies. The bad news for startups? If you can’t find good people with the time and motivation to build your product without funding, you could be screwed. The good news for startups and everybody else? All this turmoil has created an opportunity for entrepreneurs to put their heads together and pool their resources. Share the love and make some cool new stuff.

Andrew Chen on the end of Web 2.0

When you name your startup zlignob, you’re playing a dangerous game. Some people try to compensate for the meaningless signifier they’ve chosen to represent their company with an evocative image to accompany the name, but many don’t manage to succeed at that either.

Now, I know all the good domains are taken but, really, words are supposed to convey meaning. It’s their job.

If you ask me, the most essential questions you should ask when you’re picking a name and logo are, first, do the word you picked and its accompanying image, alone or together, clearly state what you are about? And second, once a user learns what you are about and has context for your name and logo, are they memorable? (At the very least, the latter should be true.) You would think these things are no-brainers, but obviously a lot of people need to be reminded of them…

I grabbed some random logos off my reader not long ago, when I was in logo design hell myself (still there, but taking a breather).  If you don’t already know these companies, do you have any idea what they do? (Or did, as the case may be. Some may be in, or heading for the dead pool.)

Playfish. A social gaming site for kids. If you know there is a card game called Fish (or Go Fish), this name is effective. Even if you don’t, the word play gives a hint that it might be about games (but it could be about music or video). I really can’t stand the Fisher-Price, baby-toy look of Web 2.0 sites and logos, but in this case it’s appropriate.

Yoono. Yet another aggregator. Obviously a phonetic spelling of you know, which is not bad for memorability—if you speak English. I could see how it might be the name of a site that lets you keep track of everybody you know, especially with the little humanoid image. But that’s a tenuous connection and doesn’t really encompass what the site does.

Snipd. For collecting and sharing bits of Web content. My first instinct was to pronounce this sniped. Why? Because the single ” p ” after the “ i ” indicates that it should be pronounced that way (gripped/griped, stripped/striped). The scissors pointed me in the right direction, as far as pronunciation goes, but they made me think of haircuts. (Online haircuts?) Without knowing what this site does, the name and image are a fail. But once you do know what it does, it’s easier to remember the name.

Spot Runner. A company involved with online advertising. Without knowing that, I would have no idea what this company is about. I did not instinctively make the leap to advertising, even though I know that spot is a synonym for ad and that one runs ads. (In fact, the dog probably hindered my making that connection.) If you do know those things, the name is memorable once you learn what they do. The logo is a little too playful and looks odd with the rest of the site. But the dog is so cute!

Akamai. Provides servers and services worldwide. Lucky for me, I lived in Hawaii for 5 years and knew the word and what it meant. And I know how to pronounce it. If I didn’t, it might be an uncomfortable word in my mouth, which is not a good thing in terms of usability. (Yes, usability. You don’t want to make your users work.) Its foreignness would also hinder memorability. Of course, the wave didn’t strike me as incongruous given that it was a Hawaiian word. But how many people know that? If you think real hard, I guess you can get from wave to surf and eventually end up at data centers… But the casual and cartoonish logo just doesn’t work with the corporate look and feel of the site, or with the magnitude and seriousness of what this company does. It would be more appropriate for a designer of board shorts.

My advice for choosing a name… Make the effort to find someone who works with words to brainstorm company names with you, or review and comment on your working list of names. Of course, startups don’t have the budgets to see how their names will work in other languages, so if your invented word is the worst insult in the Swahili language, that sucks for you. But these days, it would be nice if even those targeting the anglophone world could come up with something meaningful.

And when you go to tech events… As I walked around LeWeb 08, startup hunting and reading badges, I felt like I was looking at the character name reject list for The Fifth Element. If you must name your company something totally random, at least put a tagline or some keywords somewhere visible (on your badge, on a t-shirt, wear your own stickers, whatever) so the people whose attention you want to catch (investors, bloggers) can get an idea of what you do!

• A surprisingly great name for a web app: Say Hi to Doris, Your Task Management Assistant
• Enough with the bubbles already: Mr. Bubble Leaves His Mark on Web Design