Twitter has rolled out a new feature that has already been in beta for a while.
2009-10-31 ??:?? nk Lists now is available to all users. I hope you guys find it useful already. But this is just the start of great things to come.
Twitter Lists allows you to create group tweeple into lists.
Twitter Lists are pretty nice. You can make private lists, public lists and
switch a list between being public and private.
I have created some public lists to help other connect with each other, but I am
currently keeping my spammers list private. Well, I will admit that
guykawasiki is on it, as he’d be disappointed if I did not give him the recognition
he deserves as twitter’s spam king.
Twitter lists are either public or private and public list are viewable by
the world. There is no level in between public and private list in which your
list is only visible to other tweeple.
The URL of a public twitter list is twitter.com/UserName/ListName.
I have a few public lists right now, but many more private list. Some of these may become public, but I like to keep them private while I experiment to find out what lists work best for me.
There is a new section on the right side of your home page titled Lists
, currently below the Search box and above Trending Topics
.
This section contains links to lists you’ve made. The bottom of the section
contains a New List
and a View all
link. The New List
links
brings up a dialog box that asks you for a link name. The Lists section will
show only a few links, so the View all
link brings up page that provides
an overview all your lists.
When you’ve added some to a list, that list is shown near the top of their profile, below their avatar. The list will also show your follow and following pages, so it is easy to see who’ve you already added to some list, and who you have not added to any list yet.
When you visit any profile page, including your own, there is a number on the upper right (where the number of tweets used to be, that has been moved down) that shows how many lists that account is one. That number is a link, when you click it you get to see the an overview page with all those list.
You cannot not just make your own lists, you can follow any public lists you like. If you have some tweeple following a public lists of your and you make it private again, all those follow connections are severed; even if you immediately make it public again, the list starts out with zero followers again.
The overview page for each user has two tabs; one for lists they are on, and one for list they follow. In front of each list is a scaled-down avatar of the list creator, and you can click to visit their profile to check out what other lists they’ve made.
Behind each list name are two numbers: a following and followers numbers; how many twitter account are on the list, and how many others have decided to follow the list.
When you decide to follow a list, you actually merely bookmark that list. You do not automatically add all the people on that list to your own follow list, nor do the tweets of the tweeple on that list show up on your home page. You just bookmark the list for future use, and then use it like you use lists you made yourself.
Twitter lists have several uses. Twitter lists make it possible to categorise the tweeple you follow, sort them by subject or relation type (family, boss, hobby). This makes it easier to remember why you are following someone and easier to find tweeple you are following for a particular reason.
This sorting into lists is not just a way to categorise those you follow. You can also categorise your followers. You can in fact categorise all twitter accounts, whether you follow them or they follow you does not matter.
This ability to add any twitter account to a list enables you to change your follow habits. Until the introduction of twitter lists, your follow list was the only way to bookmark another account inside twitter. Now, you bookmark accounts by adding to a list.
The interesting thing about twitter list is that they work just like your follow list does; they are a filter on the twitter stream, and they work independently of any other filter. The lists you make does not combine with your follow list in any way.
I say that twitter lists work just like your follow lists, but that is only because that is the natural way to explain it right now. Truth is that twitter lists are a generalisation of the follow list idea. Your follow lists is just another twitter list.
So, That’s two uses already; sort those you follow, and use list to filter your view of the tweet stream. A third use is to help others find interesting tweeple to follow by adding those interesting tweeple to a public lists.
I’ve been maintaining a list of genealogy companies on twitter. That overview is now (sans descriptions) available as a twitter list. I limited that list companies of general interest to genealogist. Making twitter lists is so easy that I now offer an additional list of the companies offering genealogy research services that I’ve come across; these are companies that probably have subscriptions with some of the companies on the first list, and mostly appeal to non-genealogists who do not fancy doing research themselves.
I follow most of the genealogy companies and almost none of the genealogy research services, yet I feel that both lists are a success. Both are fairly complete lists, one of interest to genealogist, and one of interest to those who just want a genealogy.
I hit upon the idea of trying to make a fairly comprehensive list of genealogist on twitter. There are several such lists now, and looking round, it seems that mine is the most popular one, with more than ten people following the list within a day. Its popularity does not change the fact that I am already considering this list a failure of sort.
Twitter never bothered to document this, but I discovered there is a maximum of 500 twitter accounts per list. I already have a second list of more than hundred additional genealogist, including some well-known names. I’d like to add these to the first list, because I really don’t want to make multiple lists for the same thing. don’t worry if you decided to follow the list, or want to check it out, I am not going to delete it any time soon, but I am doing what twitter apparently wants me to do; thinking about other approaches that will easily fit within the maximum they set.
A list can only contain twitter accounts, not other lists, so it is not possible to nest lists.
I have discovered not one, but two limits. You can not make as may list as you want and you can not add
an unlimited number of tweeple to a list. You can make 20 twitter lists and each
list may contain 500 tweeple at most.
It seems that you can follow as many lists as you like.
Twitter has introduced this feature as list, but it is worth pointing out that it is very similar to GMail tags. You do not use twitter lists to put tweeple into separate groups. You can add twitter accounts to multiple list, so you are really just tagging each account with some word of your choosing.
The immediately obviously value is that you can see how others tagged an account. It is not interesting how many lists someone appears on, but what lists someone appears on; all those list together are a crowd of tags, the keywords others use for that account. Not all keywords will make sense, and some will be silly, but the collection of tags form a word cloud that may give you a better idea what someone tweets about than their own description does.
Few twitter clients supports lists yet, but that is sure to improve soon, and it is not an issue with twitter itself.
Well, I hate the limits. I should be able to make as many lists as I like and make them as big as like. Not because I want to make a gazillion huge lists, but because any limit is arbitrary.
Twitter should allow list descriptions. It does not have to be much, a 140 character limit for descriptions would be fine. But I’d really like to add short descriptions.
The ability to refer to lists seems limited. It would be if we could a
include a list in a tweet the same way we include others. As short syntax such
as @UserName.ListName would be nice.
Twitter Lists are surely going to impact Follow Friday. No, it is not going
to disappear anytime soon, but it sure going to change. After all, why bother
trying to fit multiple twitter names into a single 140-char message without
making a typo, when you can simply include a list and have some room to spare to describe the
list? In fact, why bother with Follow Friday at all once you have that
followfriday
list? Why not simply keep it on your profile, for anyone to
find, any day of the week, and merely name the list followfriday
in memory of
Follow Friday?
don’t be too sad or happy about the change. Tweeple will soon start some List Love; they’ll be recommending your lists instead of you.
Twitter list introduce new numbers, and thus new twitter statistics. Some see
the number of lists you are as a new popularity metric, better than the number
of followers, the follower / following ratio or the follower / tweet ratio. That
is not entirely insensible, but the various ways you can use lists is not
directly related to popularity, and it is way to easy to ensure you are on many
lists for it to mean much.
The number of tweeple that decide to follow a list you’ve made is arguably a
better indicator of popularity than the number of lists you are on, but again, a
number that is too easy to manipulate to be worth much.
Even the number of times that others recommend your lists means little. All these
numbers should be weighed by a ranking of those doing it, and that ranking
should not be one global ranking for all twitter users, but a personal one that
reflects your preferences.
The introduction of lists has an immediate effect on the popularity of twitter directories. Until the introduction of twitter lists, you hand to depend on follow lists, searches and twitter directories to find interesting tweeple. Now you can just browse through many lists.
This greatly reduces the added value of the many twitter directories. A directory like omnee, which adds data from several sources remains interesting, but a directory like wefollow that offers nothing more than twitter lists already does is going to see a huge drop in popularity.
The only problem that remains is finding interesting list. The solution to that is a directory of lists; a site you where everyone can list their lists for other to find. There are several such sites already.
The listorious site is still around, but has continual connection issues. The link has been removed for now.
The tlists site is gone. The link has been removed
Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.