Twitter Lists - A Users Take

Well Twitter is adding to the feature list again. This time, they give us lists. This is a feature that 3rd party applications have had for a while, such as Tweetdeck groups, Brizzly and others. While the others handled this on their end, now we have a true central location for this information.

What does this mean for my Tweetie or Tweetdeck client. Well, first they should be able to tap into the List API from twitter to pull that information. With that they should also be able to update the lists via the API. This will greatly improve the mobile access of twitter.

I have now played with the list feature and I'm still tweaking the feel, but here are some things to think about when you set up your lists: 

• Currently you can have only 20 lists
• You don't need to have everyone you follow in a list. 
• Make your lists valuable to others, such as by location or topic.
• Decide if you want your list to be public (available for others to follow) or private (available only to you)

So, now that you have a list, what does it do for you. Well if you follow only a handful of persons, you won't see the total benefit. The list feature is for those that follow hundreds or thousands of persons. I know I follow some that I'm only interested in a few of their posts. This is mainly from the news tweets out there. So now I can filter those out of my stream on twitter.com by selecting a list that does not contain those IDs. So what are some of the benefits of lists :

• Removal of the SUL (Suggested User List). The new gauge I believe will be how many lists are you on. This will reflect true value. This is why I said earlier that adding everyone you follow to lists may not be the best approach.
• Quickly find like mind persons without following them by following someone else's list. Downside is those in the list you follow do not show in your stream. I'll address this later.
• Quickly scan the topics that you are interested in. For example, I have a group for my Dawg Fans, then on game day, I can view that list and it filters out all other content. 
• Set Private lists that you can use locally, but are not available to anyone else

Since it appears Twitter is still tweaking the concept of lists, there are a few bugs, at least they appear to be bugs.

• If you unfollow someone they stay in your list.
• Can't select multiple persons to add to a list, you have to select one by one.
• If you follow a list, even those with public profiles do not flow into your stream like I would expect.
• Not all assignments to lists takes. You may have to repeat several times.
• Private list assignment doesn't reflect on the persons profile. 

So what would I like to see from the lists. 

• I would like to see a description field added to a list. Makes it more searchable.
• Speaking of search, they will need to add a list search feature.
• Easier edits of lists
• Totally open API for lists (verdict is still out on this one until lists go live for everyone)
• Ability to see which users you don't have in a list. 

So here are my lists, the lists themselves my not change in the near future, but the content within the list might.