by Clive Riddle, MCOL President
 
A typical visitor to healthsprocket first checks out the Most Viewed Lists, which provide a cumulative ranking of healthsprocket lists by popularity. The upside to making this your first stop is to benefit from "crowd-sourcing" before attempting to surf through a thousand lists on your own. The downside is that a number of such lists might be relatively older, as a more mature list will have accumlated more views over time than a newer list, all other things being equal. Furthermore, sometimes a list might accelerate as "Most Viewed" simply because it is near the top already, and that is where viewers go to browse (just like books  will sell more because they are on the New York Times Top Ten list, compared to an equally worthy book not on the Times list.)
 
That isn't to say that the healthsprocket Most Viewed Lists isn't a worthy first stop. The test of a list's popularity over the course of time is a good measure. But another relevant first or second stop when browsing healthsprocket is the Trending This Month menu, which provides a glimpse of what is hot right now. However, Trending This Month works off of each calendar month (as opposed to the past 30 days) which means this menu is a lot more meaningful at the end of the month than at the start. 
 
The best approach could be to be sure to visit both when beginning your browse through healthsprocket.