How does an article go from being just another post on a blog to a web-wide sensation overnight? I would argue that at their core most of these strike the right blend of fascinating, novel and mainstream: they are compelling enough to grab your attention, strange enough that they present new information and yet of general enough interest to have a broad appeal to many people who frequent the world wide interwebs. Here are 12 great examples that illustrate these principles in more ways than one and are incredibly entertaining to boot!

LifeHackery’s 99 Extraordinary Uses for Ordinary Objects another great ‘themed’ post built around items that everyone has in their home – what better way to draw readers immediately than to point out that boring old objects laying around might have strange secondary uses? Some of the particularly clever/innovative ones come complete with pictures which provide a great initial boost to the article.

OddOrama’s 5 Brilliant Reverse 419 Scams is immediately understood by anyone with an email account, because we have all gotten those strange scammers who offer us billions if we just help them out, right? Better yet, this article shows how people got back at those scammers we all love to hate. Images help break up the content visually and provide some interest on top of the text.

DarkRoastedBlend’s Art of Extreme Sleeping is an excellent example of a themed image collection that, no doubt, started when the author found one such image and became determined to find more related images. There isn’t much text, but not much is needed: the title is self-explanatory and the work of assembling the post comes mostly in the form of finding great photographs for it.

DeputyDog’s 13 Worst Fake Accents in Film taps into classics that many people have seen, and is sufficiently comprehensive (as a list of thirteen) to include something for everyone. Moreover, who hasn’t cringed when they heard a truly terrible accent from a famous actor whose nationality is painfully obvious? Of course, no such post would be complete without a series of YouTube videos as examples.

Ecoble’s Man-Made Mexican Island Paradise conjures the age-old idealized goal of living somewhere on one’s own private island. Pictures and videos help fill in the details for sure, but the article taps in on a more basic level to a combination of popularly held dreams and extreme oddities. After all, it isn’t every day you read about an island built from a quarter-million plastic bottles!

OneMansBlog’s How I’d Hack Your Week Passwords hits you on the head with the first sentence: it addresses the reader directly and in a highly alarming way. A lot of us realize in the back of our minds that we have weak and possibly hackable passwords but we tend to try not to think about it. This post explains how some strategies are weaker than others, helping (after scaring) the readers.

WallStreetFighter’s 11 Photographs that Look Photoshopped but Aren’t ties into the classic debate about images found online: are they edited or are they real? Well, this collection of images highlights the fact that images that seem impossibly surreal may actually have been created by unconventional means and yet may not have been edited after the fact – you just never know.

PocketGadget’s 10 Accidental Inventions again ties together the basic argument of this article: that web-wide successful articles and blog posts involve elements of the familiar and the unknown, tied together under a common theme that everyone can relate to. Some of these inventions you will be familiar with, others undoubtedly not and all are quite interesting.

EliteFeet’s Eaten by Trees immediately conjures a seductively strange and implausible mental image – one that begs readers or potential link-clickers to reach forward and find out more. And when they look? A potent and somewhat humorous set of illustrated examples of the passage of time, with objects being overrun by trees – a seeming paradox since trees are some of the slowest-growing things on Earth.

CapnWacky’s 20 examples of Unusual eBay Feedback really hits home for most any mainstream web user. Who hasn’t used eBay or a similar site and checked feedback to see what a seller’s or buyer’s reputation is? So readers can instantly relate to the content and yet it is probably funnier than any similar content they read on eBay (and they almost certainly have never seen so many strange ones in one place).

WebUrbanist’s 7 Abandoned Wonders of America brings home a strange point: that even in the wealthiest of countries in the world there are buildings that remain abandoned and unused. For American readers this is perhaps a strange awakening, though many of the locations are in major cities that people are familiar with and maybe didn’t know contained abandonments.

AllSux’s collection of strange articles that went all over the internet … oh wait, that’s this article?! Well, it is impossible to say for sure what will happen with it, but it does fit the formula I argued for: you can of course relate to popular articles on interesting subjects, the topics chosen are of general interest to web readers and hopefully you haven’t seen some or all of these before so this post contains new information. Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed this article feel free to pass it along.

It all started with a blurb on EcoGeek about a 007 Solar Pen Camera spying device. I wanted to submit the link to Digg then noticed their blurb was via TreeHugger, which in turn added two new links: ChinaVision and Dvice. The latter link traced to UberGizmo, which linked to UberReview that in turn linked to 7Gadgets (an appropriate 7th link in the ongoing chain). Most of these sites didn’t link to the ChinaVision (original) site, and only one linked to 7Gadgets where this information apparently first hit the blogosphere.

The fact that this last source didn’t link another source doesn’t even mean, of course, that it is the last source in the chain. Maybe this is just where the chain got broken because one author didn’t cite his source. So where did this come from? Which one should you link to or submit to Digg? Who knows. What does this mean for the blogosphere? Is it natural and healthy sourcing or a sign of things getting out of control?

via allsux

Description Includes:

Established blog with prime keywords that appear on major search engines. First page of Google, Yahoo and MSN for the keyword make money and how to make money.”

I was skeptical, checked, and he’s not on there … others were too, criticized him, and he responded:

I am still on #1 page on Yahoo, MSN and Google. If you don’t see it, maybe you just need to look for the word Make$ Money$

Someone then responded to him:

Very good point. I am on page one on google for the term:

£($&^(MMORTGAGE)”^(*”

(10) A classic favorite, Fark is undoubtedly the best source on the web for strange, weird and funny news. This is a site full of sarcasm and stupid puns, be warned!

 (9) At SeeHere expect to see something like what you’re seeing, well, here! In short: the links are short but sweet, and there are nicely categorized/grouped sites.

 (8) Want a broader variety of web-buzz? Stumbleupon always provides interesting and offbeat sites voted by users in all kinds of categories.

(7) Ebaumsworld has always been a scandalous site, surrounded by controversy over stolen content, but at the end of the day they still show users wacky videos and fascinating links.

(6) Everyone knows Digg.com, right? Well, if you don’t, it’s probably the biggest social news site on the web – but it varies from offbeat news to too much tech. Just so you know what you’re getting into!

(5) OK, so, I don’t even know what language this site is in (.hr? anyone?), but they keep linking to me, so I figure they get an honorable foriegn language site mention.

(4) Even though the content is a bit immature and/or scandalous, I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to compile a list of popular linkdumps without mentioning LinkDump.com

(3) WebUrbanist has a great category for cool images of all kinds which is worth checking back in on every few days – not updated constantly, but quality is better than quality, right?

(2) Never forget the good old WallStreetFighter, who posts top 10 lists all the time – and old ones can always be found in his archives at any time!

(1) You guessed it – All Sux dot Com is the best site on the web for awesome link lists. This was in NO way biased by the fact that you are currently on All Sux dot Com …

Make no mistake, I have no real problem with them – they laugh and play out in front, dealing crack and causing no real harm except some occassional pee on the stoop. To be honest, the crachheads/dealers are pretty entertaining all in all. Perhaps that’s why I found this link so incredibly, gut-wrenchingly, hilariously entertaining. Here it is.

Enjoy that? Well, you can always find more at the Best of Craigslist. No, this isn’t a sponsored post, Craigslist is free you @#$%ing idiot!

I love my readers too much for that stuff!

(9) Bear with the poor video quality, because these are some actually transforming Transformers costumes in action.

(8) A decade is a long time on the interwebs, but one of the first bloggers down under is still going strong with a one-word URL for extra style points!

(7) At the longer end of the style, class and URL length spectrum, who would have thought someone would successfully register a site named ‘Hot Chicks With Douchebags‘ and be successful with it?

(6) Sad but true: many gifted students are just ordinary.

(5) These are some strange looking animals.

(4) Here are 20 science myths you probably will kick yourself about after reading them.

 And this is why you shouldn’t try to win $1 million with a stolen credit card.

(3) How about a top secret link to the most expensive stuff selling on ebay instead?

(2) Before you go, check out these people who can lift islands and light their cigarettes off of the sun.

(1) And don’t forget to see the heated debate around convertible, portable and inflatable homeless shelters.

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(9) Strange but true, some people are really just mirror images of people.

(8) Did you know that you could solve any Rubik’s cube puzzle in just 26 moves? I know I didn’t.

(7) I know I wouldn’t want to be a blind man who stumbled into an all-girl’s biker bar.

(6) Bored at work? Try this beginner’s guide to breaking into buildings that has some amazing images from sewer tunnels and abandoned structures.

(5) Google, though usually evil as we all know, for once seems to have their head on straight in rebutting an argument that they could save energy by making the Google.com background black.

(4) See the two-month-old blog that just made the front page of Digg.com three days in a row.

(3) Is anyone really shocked that breast implants are linked to suicide?

(2) Out of sight, out of mind … President Bush notes that if he hasn’t seen it, clearly the US doesn’t torture people.

(1) Since this link list obviously sux, I highly recommend you go check out a much better top 10 link list.