Ranker http://www.ranker.com is a social site and platform that is in essence an operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 for Lists. From the Ranker website - "We make it easy, fun, and social for users to Rank things – anything - via a Netflix

Netflix

Netflix, Inc., is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming media in the United States, Canada, and Latin America and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States. The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California...

-style drag-and-drop

Drag-and-drop

In computer graphical user interfaces, drag-and-drop is the action of selecting a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object...

 interface and a huge backend database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

. Everything in our system is an object, so that we can aggregate individual lists and answer the “wisdom of crowds” question “what is the best ___”."

"The app is fully distributable. So for example a travel blog

Blog

A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...

 can embed the app on their site that allows their users to easily rank their own favorite golf

Golf

Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....

 destinations. This gives the blog a sticky interactive tool."

The Ranker platform is flexible enough to be used for publishing

Publishing

Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...

, social networking, shopping

Shopping

Shopping is the examining of goods or services from retailers with the intent to purchase at that time. Shopping is an activity of selection and/or purchase. In some contexts it is considered a leisure activity as well as an economic one....

, polling

Polling

Polling is a municipality in the district of Mühldorf in Bavaria in Germany....

, even organization.

Ranker is a growing content and social site http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ranker.com#trafficstats some apparently user contributed lists have achieved some viral notoriety.http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/03/six-by-6-six-gay-comics-that-are-better-than-anything-on-rankers-list/http://www.afterellen.com/blwe/03-12-10?page=0,3http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/03/16/The_Top_10_Antigay_Activists_Who_Like_Gay_Hookups/