This Infographic Is Unnecessary and Incorrect ⇥

Megan McArdle on December 23:

The reservoir of this disease of erroneous infographics is internet marketers who don’t care whether the information in their graphics is right, just so long as you link it. As a Christmas present to, well, everyone, I’m issuing a plea to bloggers to help stop this plague in its track.

Klout – the infamously horrible web service that nobody asked for – released an infographic a day earlier on December 22 (“Most Influential Topics of 2011”) that I’d like you to look at, if only to spot the errors and egregious fluff.

The top eleven companies are presented as a bar graph for no reason whatsoever. Five of the locations listed are cities, five are states and one country. There are spelling errors, the music genres and influential people are presented in the same list, and the top tech products are in a generic device. Totally unnecessary and difficult to read.