With Twitter’s recent roll-out of Lists functionality, there’s been a lot of division over their utility, measure of influence, and whether they simply serve as self-referential ego strokes for the technorati establishment. OK, I admit I was a bit giddy to discover how many lists I was on, and YES, I made that little “I’m Listed!” image link there on the right sidebar. Wordpress Bible author Aaron Brazell confirmed to me that the sidebar link does in fact qualify as social media douchebaggery, but hey I’m embracing it.. owning those bona fides if you will. 
Regardless, lists do give users the ability to take the firehose of their Twitter data and break it down into manageable streams.
I’m still figuring out how I’m going to use them and I’d love your advice here. In the comments below, please leave smart ideas on how people are using lists, beyond the usual “social media ninja”, “thought leader” kind of stuff. I’m also interested in hearing your thoughts about whether you make your lists public and how Twitter might make this functionality better.
Publishing those lists is what seems dividing users. So when the functionality appeared in my stream, I shared the news and was eager to jump in. Right off the bat, one of my dearest Twitter friends, Jon Swanson, made me stop and think.
@newmediajim wait. what if we don’t WANT to be managed? -
@jnswanson
By then, interweb titans Chris Brogan and Robert Scoble were well into a debate about the misgivings and merits surrounding lists. That conversation has been propogated and amplified on the web, and at the end of this post, I’ll provide links to some other interesting viewpoints. I did an informal poll on Twitter asking.
TWITTER LISTS – social media d-bag ego stroke?, spam opportunity?, measure of influence?, useful tool? all of the above?
Here is a sampling of the responses I received.
jillinski @newmediajim Also, ppl are hard to fit into just 1 list. So I’ve decided to bail on the whole concept. Does this make me a Twitter Luddite?
You2Gov @newmediajim Lists: some will abuse, most will make useful tool. Ego is involved, but so is altruism, transparency and flat communications.
Scobleizer @newmediajim you are on my tech news people list so you KNOW my answer is “all of the above!” Seriously, lists are crack.T
thomasknoll @newmediajim lists are for listening
SGnow @newmediajim Twitter lists… Something to use to organize and discover. Not overthink.
While lists probably aren’t something we should over think, they do merit discussion.. to a point. I think we all know, that there will be “rock star” or “must follow” lists, which will serve little more than as self-perpetuating ego strokes. For instance, I’m a member of two VERY elite Twitter lists. These lists reside behind a virtual velvet rope of the ultra hip lounge called the internet. They are:
- Orchid8’s Team-Hot-Salad-Dressing
- mikeneumann’s Might-Need-Bail-Money
Clearly, I’ve managed my online reputation well. 
How Others Perceive You
If you do show up on lists, it is a unique opportunity to see how others perceive you. Leah Jones compares Twitter lists to Johari Windows. In her post, she describes how she was surprised a bit at peoples’ perceptions of her. There’s an interesting web tool out there by MustExist that allows you to see a tag cloud of words that people use to describe you (or your brand) in lists. To me, this is a much more important data set than how many lists you’re on or how many followers you have.
Measure of Influence
In his post “Using Twitter Lists to Judge Influence”, The Bivings Group’s Todd Zeigler posits that being listed is a far better metric of “influence” than simply being followed. This post has been getting a lot of traction, re-tweets, and references, but I’m not sure I agree with it entirely.
I think Twitter Lists will end up helping separate the men from the boys when it comes to influence. In addition to seeing a Twitter users follower count, we can now see the number of other Twitter users who have added them to lists – Todd Zeigler
Here’s why I’m a bit skeptical. As of this writing, I’m on some 600 lists. But if you take a look, you’ll see that the vast majority of them are followed by ZERO, bupkus, nil, naught, nuthin! Others might have a handful of follows and are likely people that already follow me on Twitter. Seems a bit redundant to me, so I’m not sure how accurate a measure of influence lists really are.
Real Utility
During the coverage of the horrifyingly tragic shootings at Fort Hood, journalism demonstrated the curation value of lists. The New York Times, The Huffington Post and The Today Show all created lists of a variety of sources from the center of the crisis. Sadly, a violent shooting rampage happened just the next day in Orlando, Florida. Again, lists were created by smart, Twitter savvy journalists like Etan Horowitz.
I think how people end up using lists privately, might demonstrate their real utility. From filtering out noise to geographic, and categorical organization, these bread and butter applications will be the mainstay, yet less blogged about practices. Again, let me know in the comment some smart ways, either publicly or privately, you plan on using lists.
Further Reading
Why Twitter Lists Change Everything
Are Lists Good for Social Media
Twitter Lists – Proof That Social Media Misunderstands Itself
Twitter Strokes Egos With a New A-List Popularity Contest
