Second, like Followers, the user has absolutely no way of knowing how many people who follow you or a List you're on actually ever see or read the Tweets you publish. I have 20 Lists, follow another 20 and I only regularly check 3 or 4 of them. It doesn't mean I don't occasionally peek in on the others but it's not on a daily basis. So, taking the number of Lists you're on as a sign of your “sphere of influence” is laughable, I think.

We're in the early adopter phase, where the tech & social media are trying things out. What happens when a Jonas Brothers superfan is on 2500 Lists? Or spammers/marketers realize that while they can only follow 2,000 Twitterers with their Following List, using Lists they can follow 10,000? Will being “Listed” have the same allure?

The only thing certain about Twitter is that in 3 months, it won't resemble what it looks like today. Lists should be fun & functional and to attach your self-worth or self-esteem to your placement on any List is not only foolish but shallow because, hey, it's as easy to be taken off a List as put on a List. I put together Lists that I later completely deleted because I had new ones I wanted to create. Lists are works in progress, not written in stone.

Ken

Ken has an idea for how to use lists that I see some value in. His idea? Putting people or companies he may not wish to watch closely, yet still wants to be able to check out without having to look them up or remember their user name, into a list and unfollowing them thereby keeping the noise in his twitter stream to a minimum. To each his own.

As for where our value is, I would say I'm still skeptical as to how important lists are. Look, if I'm honest I will tell you I put virtually all the people I follow on a list. I made categories that made sense to me. general categories. I'm not terribly creative so they are general. I went through my list methodically and added everybody somewhere. That's for me. It's not for other people. it's for me and me alone. I don't honestly care what other people think about where I put them because how I remember a person is what keeps them at the forefront of my brain. Aren't the lists for us?

I hear constantly how where you have been placed determines your value. I call bullshit. (sorry, but I do) Half the people I know who I also KNOW truly care about me, haven't placed me on a list. Of those who did put me on a list, my guess is they put me on a list that made sense to them. Does that raise my value to them? Probably not.

Lists suck if everyone is going around comparing how many they are on with others. Why do we have to look outward for validation? It's not a lot different than how many followers one has. The real questions we should all be asking is how well do those who put us on a list, or for that matter those who follow us in general, know us? How well do we know them? Saying you're connected to 'Jim Long' might boost a persons ego, but why? We're all connected anyway.

Why is the biggest topic of discussion focused on one's influence and how to tell if you have it? It's a constant game of oneupmanship. We should already know we are relevant.