There’s much to say about Twitter’s slow to roll out but much discussed Lists feature. I’m a fan of it, in short, for many reasons. Lists is a pretty simple idea – it lets anyone make and share a list of folks on Twitter. But it’s also a powerful new signal that will help Twitter solve two of its most vexing problems – first, that of discovery, and second, that of authority. Not to mention it gives everyone a chance to add value above the level of a single “follower”, more on that later.
In short, if done right, Lists will provide the Twitter ecosystem a third dimension that might just propel it beyond the hype curve and into a long term platform play. Combined (intelligently) with the new traffic coming from Google and Bing, and this could mean Very Big Things for Twitter.
All this bears further discussion. And I promise to to that, soon. I just wanted to leave a note here that I think this is important, and hopefully, when I stop traveling and start thinking a bit more, I’ll dig in here.
Thanks for flagging your core views on Twitter Lists – useful to hear your views even with a short post and will look forward to more depth.
As I’ve been looking at Lists and thinking about what they mean for our small business platform, my mind chained back to a post that you made a couple of months ago about all business starting with community – http://bit.ly/14DMhC.
Take a look at the picture that you included in that post. I think that one of the cool potential uses of Lists by small businesses surrounds the online instantiation of their recommendations of other people and businesses in their community. As long as it’s kept authentic, it could be very powerful indeed.
I’m curious to see how quickly and and well major media adopts their use. I just took a look at 30 news sites – so far there’s not much happening yet in terms of list creation or attracting followers. But things should pick up once they get some momentum going. An Early Look at News Site Twitter Lists: Not Much Traction
What do you guys think about the twitter phone?
“Authority” has created havoc in Web search and if social media begins to formalize it then “authority” will create havoc in social media.
We do need to be able to ascertain authority but the value of authority is diminished the moment any mechanism for creating it is implemented.
That is why Google’s search results are filled with spammy crap today. Twitter is already struggling with a mountainslide of new spam techniques. The lists feature will probably make that problem worse.
I cannot see any real value or use in the lists (and I note that I have been included in several).
there is no value to these lists. John gets hysterical about things he likes to pimp. The service du jour if you will.
@Jenkins, am I really that hysterical!? Watch Lists, it matters, I think.
Great post.
Search for new Twitter lists to follow at:
http://www.tweetfindtwitterlists.com
@gametrender Good post, is it possible to update it as you are always a renowned authority with some good insights it will be nice to see an updated analysis.