**We interrupt your normally scheduled post with a Twitter List update**
About a two weeks ago, I was reading ShoutMeLoud.com and came across an article about the Beta for Twitter Lists. I wondered how exactly Twitter decided who to invite and hoped to be included.
Then about 30 minutes ago, I was looking at my secondary Twitter profile which I recently started (more of a mix of personal and blog instead of just blog) and saw that I was on 1 list.
I thought to myself “hmm, how am I on a list with my BlakeWaddill account, but not my Propsblog account.” The hamster started running… then the light came on.
My Initial Impressions of Twitter Lists (BETA)
It turns out my primary Twitter account was selected to participate in the beta testing. The first thing I noticed was the extra “stat” next to followers that keeps track of lists.
When you click on the list stat, it takes you to a list (shocker) of the different lists you are on. There is also a counter for how many people are on the list (following) and how many people are following the list (followers).
It turns out Greatest Review was selected for the beta as well, and he added me to his blogger list!
Naturally, the next thing I did was start a list. From your Twitter homepage just below saved searches is the tab for Lists. Just click on New list to get started.
You are then prompted to create a list name and decide if you want it to be public or private. I created a list called Whale Bloggers which included the normal cast of big name bloggers.
To add people to the list you can use their search function which sucks, or you can just add people to your list the same way you add a friend from their homepage.
You can select multiple lists or you can create a new list on the spot. Can you guess which famous blogger this is?
Twitter List Counts That Caught My Attention
By now, you’ve probably already heard about all the nonsense I mentioned above. If you haven’t, you now know what you have to look forward to. ;-)
As I was going through different bloggers to add to my Whale Bloggers list, I saw a couple of interesting things. Problogger, Chris Brogan, and Guy Kawasaki were on 250, 410, and 570 lists respectively while John Chow, Daniel Scocco, and Shoemoney were hardly on 50 lists each. Not shockingly, Mashable was on 1,250+ lists!
After I started checking my list, I noticed Chris Brogan, Problogger, and Guy were by far the most active Tweeters, follow back to some extent, and they were on far more lists.
Think Twice About Who You Put On Your List
The problem I see with adding people like Chris Brogan to your lists (he’s on my list, won’t come off, don’t get me wrong) is that he has a tendency to fill your entire feed when he is online.
When you start making lists, will you split super active twitters into a separate group for people who rarely tweet so you can hear more of what the quiet people have to say, or will you let them be drowned out?
I’ll be playing with lists over the next couple of days I’m sure. Expect a list for people who actively visit and comment here on Props Blog. I have to give my readers some luv.
Anyone else participating in the Beta?
Related posts:
Dave Doolin | Website In A Weekend Says:
October 29th, 2009 at 1:45 AM
I’m curious how many bloggers – including in my readership – are coders. Real coders.
Because I’m about to have to do a fair bit of coding.
Now, when I code, and to some extent when write as well, twitter, facebook, web browser, email, phone, pretty much everything is unnecessary and unwelcome distraction.
I’m curious whether others have this experience.
When I apparently drop off the face of the earth… it means I have to get real, quantitative work done. It means I’m doing it.
Blake Waddill Reply:
October 29th, 2009 at 7:43 AM
I find that facebook, Twitter, browsing etc.. definitely take away from the quality and speed of my work. I wouldn’t call myself a real coder at this point, though.
I know just enough to be dangerous.
Dana @ Online Knowledge Says:
October 29th, 2009 at 3:58 AM
I think It is a good idea to group active user and non so active user.
Blake Waddill Reply:
October 29th, 2009 at 7:44 AM
I’m going to experiment with that some more today. Right now I have all the talkative people with less noisy people, and I’m finding that I’m missing a lot of great tweets.
I’ll probably post in a few days how I’ve ended up splitting up my lists.
John Samuel Says:
October 29th, 2009 at 4:46 AM
So fat the list feature of Twitter is not enabled in my account. But I don’t want to follow anyone who tweets a lot, because you will miss some of the tweets from your close friends. Though if there is a list, I can add such accounts into too active lists :)
Blake Waddill Reply:
October 29th, 2009 at 7:48 AM
I’m actually considering putting the very talkative people each in a list of their own. I find it to be a little frustrating having my feed filled with just one or two people’s tweets (although I think the people who fill the feed have valuable things to say).
I’m excited to do some more testing today.
Liz Reply:
October 29th, 2009 at 4:20 PM
It’s crazy to have a list with just one user on it. You can just go to their profile page & read their Tweets which is the same as a one person list. You only get 20 lists…I’ve already used mine up.
Plus, why duplicate lists that someone else has created? I was going to put together of people who work at Twitter (I follow a lot of them) but there are dozens of these lists. It’s easy to follow other people’s lists. I found a great one someone put together of indie music artists on Twitter. Why recreate the wheel?
Blake Waddill Reply:
October 29th, 2009 at 4:30 PM
It would be crazy and pointless to only put a single person on a list. It would also be pointless to have a list of 150+ people because you just can’t keep in close contact with that many people.
I was suggesting putting very active tweeters like Chris Brogan, Guy, and Problogger in the same list and putting people who only tweet 5 or 10 times a day in a list.
I think that would provide a nice mix of tweets instead of everyone being drowned out in the noise.
Great point about why duplicate lists others have made. Finding good lists hasn’t been easy so far, but I think when lists are available to everyone, there will be far more lists worth following (thus allowing you to save your lists for… other lists?)
Liz Reply:
October 29th, 2009 at 5:47 PM
I didn’t read your message that you were going to group talkative people together on one list, I thought you were saying they’d each have their own list. Sorry for the confusion.
Blake Waddill Reply:
October 29th, 2009 at 5:58 PM
@liz – It’s all good. I had to re-read what I said 2 or 3 times to make sense of it too.
Typing like I talk gets me in trouble sometimes.
jan_geronimo Reply:
October 29th, 2009 at 10:19 AM
You can make a separate list for your close friends and family members. You’re allowed to make 20 lists so you’d not likely run out of category. Well, the most important categories, I mean.
Blake Waddill Reply:
October 29th, 2009 at 10:38 AM
That’s a good point Jan! I started thinking a little more about other uses for Twitter besides content marketing after my last reply.
You point further solidifies why I can’t really justify having a huge number of people on a single list. Unless you’re keeping track of your graduating class or the people who comment on your blog, I just can’t justify having more than 30-40 people on a list.
Harsh Agrawal Says:
October 29th, 2009 at 8:36 AM
Initially I Followed few list and later on I realize my Mistake when I saw lots of noise in my time line.. Finally I had to unfollow few people and realize.. I should rather be selective.. Its good to take help of list to find some cool tweeters but useless to follow the whole list..
Blake Waddill Reply:
October 29th, 2009 at 10:03 AM
I think the whole point of lists was to help people who are following thousands of people have a way to split people into smaller groups.
I think lists with 30+ people defeats the whole point (unless they are people that only tweet once a day).
I’m testing having 3-4 lists of only 5 or 10 people each… Then I’ll just follow my normal feed like normal.
jan_geronimo Says:
October 29th, 2009 at 10:22 AM
Nice point about lumping the prolific tweeters with some of the quiet ones or occasional tweeters. Their tweets just might be buried. That makes me rethink who I group with whom. :)
Pallab Says:
October 29th, 2009 at 10:32 AM
It seems twitter has decided to expand its Lists beta. I also got access to Lists today.
Gabe | freebloghelp.com Says:
October 29th, 2009 at 10:47 AM
I haven’t used Lists yet but it’s a good head’s up. For many of us, it’s going to take a little experimenting to get the whole lists thing down to a reasonable noise level.
Christina Sawyer Says:
October 29th, 2009 at 12:36 PM
I am not on twitter but it is probably something that can be applied to LOTS of areas! Kind of a scary though how your name and info gets pulled all around unsolicited.
Tara Says:
October 29th, 2009 at 3:56 PM
Hi there. I have four Twitter accounts and last week I noticed that one of them had lists enabled so I decided to create one for “Who creative entrepreneurs should follow on Twitter” (Here’s a longer explanation: http://ow.ly/w70l)
It’s fine now because there are less than 10 people on it, but I haven’t solved the problem of scale yet.
For the problem of noise … I was using groups in Tweetdeck before there were lists. Now I’m using Hootsuite and you can create columns for groups, but there is still the problem of noise if you group sqwakers with whisperers.
Don’t know yet how to solve that.
Thinking …
5 Twitter Newbie Mistakes To Avoid To Get You on More Twitter Lists || Props Blog dot Com Says:
October 30th, 2009 at 12:02 AM
[...] Think Twice About Who You Put On Your Twitter Lists [...]