Twitter Lists
I love Twitter Lists…
Yesterday, after some annoying downtime from Twitter, we were faced with the sudden disappearance of Twitter Lists, users were concerned that they were gone forever - Tweets were flying around Twitterland about the missing lists and it was soon apparent that as @davepeck always says - people like lists!
It was some time before we found out from twitter status - http://bit.ly/7z24nR 
There are obviously those aren’t keen on Twitter lists.
- Those who expressed the opinion that twitter lists exclude people
- The users just can’t be bothered with it
- Some that are worried about being put on bad lists and spam
- Others that - just don’t get it.
Lists add a beneficial function to Twitter, giving us the facility to swiftly gain access to targeted groups of individuals who tweet about particular topics
It does take time to create lists but its very easy. You can organise list/groups by industry, geography, personality or however you wish. Lists are created like herds of sheep that you have to gather into the pen, once they are gathered together they are there until you let them out.
Creating a list
In detail here http://bit.ly/2BCIJa
The basics
Make a new list > give it a name > a description > and decide if you want it public or private.
Private Lists –These lists no one can observe but you – you can follow people in secret and of course other users cannot add these lists.
Public Lists – Everyone can see these lists and anyone can follow. Users like to see that they are listed so there are many of these lists around.
After you have created your list/group you can add users to the list, either by typing in their name – going through your followers – by searching or just adding them as you see them by accessing their profile page.
The good bit
You can list users without the need to follow them – so for instance –if you aren’t in the industry, you might choose to have a list with all the celebrities on (that are never likely to follow you back anyway) - you can still see what they are all saying – and it doesn’t clutter up your tweet stream. Then, when you aren’t busy and you are chilling, you can just click the list and see their latest tweets.
New users on twitter can find it can be overwhelming. The lists function helps with that and I think they are more likely to stay around if they can have lists of friends, family, work etc.
Private groups have been around for sometime in assorted applications, so this isn’t new to anyone that uses those rather than the twitter web but the applications are catching up now and adding lists.
In my view, lists are very valuable because I cannot be on twitter 24/7 I could have missed out on something – and to read through all the tweets is just unrealistic, with lists I can catch up from the area’s I need to.
If a user follows your list that you don’t want – IE spammers – you can just block them, which I’m pleased about – or the other way round if you are put on a list you don’t like – you block the creator of the list.
Twitter lists could take over followfriday – it’s a quick and easy way to see user’s most influential or fun people.
Furthermore you can follow other users lists which much easier than searching for individual users in a particular field and if you want to follow an individual at a later date you can do.
What we do really need now is a Twitter List Directory; we need to be able to discover more lists effortlessly and expeditiously.
10 reasons why we love making lists - http://bit.ly/lVppT
Original Post http://michellewaffle.blogspot.com/2009/12/twitter-lists.html
