Twitter Lists – Hot or Not?
November 1, 2009
This week the rest of the Twitterverse got a look at the long anticipated Lists feature. Despite the polite request by Twitter for the beta testers to keep it mum, rumors had naturally leaked about their existence. The careful systemwide rollout by the Twitter team heightened the anticipation and excitement as more and more users logged in to see that the new feature had been added to their account.
The technorati have been weighing in with mixed reviews. Some folks like Robert Scoble love the feature and others like Chris Brogan find it to be less than desirable.
In the next few days to weeks, there will be dozens of posts on Lists – because it really is a radical change in the functionality of Twitter and will continue to have ramifications the effects on the usage of the platform.
Of course, like any good GeekMommy, I’ve done my own tests, research and analysis. And like any other blogger out there, I’m ready and willing to overshare share my findings with you.
Pros and Cons
For the sake of clarity, I’m resorting to ye olde bulletpointed list. It seems that embedding analysis in long paragraphs tends to get the information skimmed and comments pop up that get stuck on misconceptions.
On the Plus Side
I find it good to look for the positives first. After all, tools are created to be useful, right? And if I’m being candid, this tool can be really useful. Used beneficially, I can see where it’s very appealing.
- Sharing Great Resources – Lists make it easier for you to share good resources with someone who isn’t as familiar with the people you follow. If you’re a political wonk and know that 2 dozen people out of the thousands you follow already are the ones to read when it comes to current politics? Making a list for those who wouldn’t know which ones you’d suggest is an awesome tool
- Filtering Your Own View – granted, most people who want or need viewing filters have already switched to a 3rd party application such as Tweetdeck, Tweetgrid or Seesmic that allows them to create groups. But this is built in Twitter integration. The benefit of which is that all of those 3rd party apps will have to incorporate the ability to view Lists, so you don’t have to rebuild your groups if you move from app to app. The groups will now be lists and only have to be built and maintained in one place.
- Viewing Other Peoples’ Filters – Twitter used to have an awesome feature that you could view someone else’s twitterstream the way they saw it. Many of us used this as a good way to find new people to follow – you’d go to a user’s profile that you liked/respected/found interesting, click on the tab that let you see their stream and see what they saw. When that feature went aways it was a loss, because you could no longer put yourself in someone else’s seat. Now, with the ability to follow someone else’s public List, you can regain part of that functionality. Since Lists are currently limited to 500 members though, if the author of the List follows more than 500 people, at best, you can get a partial view. Still, if the List mirrored someone’s “preferred view” you might see what they look at most of the time in one of those apps like Tweetdeck.
- No Commitment – presently, when you follow someone else’s list, you’re simply giving yourself a link to that view, not following any of the list members. Again, it’s more like clicking over to see someone else’s stream than actually adding people to yours. Sort of a try before you buy. You can always click to view the members of the List and follow or unfollow folks from there.
On the Minus Side
- Noble Intentions Are Not the Norm – the potential for abuse/misuse of Lists is high. Let’s be candid, shall we? There will always be people who use something with the best of intentions and there will always be those who use it with the worst of intentions. If the beneficial uses outweigh the destructive ones? Then it’s a good idea. But relying upon people to not abuse something or use it for harm is naive. Let’s talk about how this feature can be abused, shall we?
- yes, this is a real troll lister
1) Negative Lists – it’s all well and good to find yourself on the “Really Smart People” list, it’s not exactly a joy to see your name on the “Stupid Egotistical Ass” list. Sure, we can say that people “shouldn’t care” or “should grow thicker skins” but ’shoulds’ and ‘ares’ are two different things. The truth is that most people are hurt when people say mean things about them. Especially in public. Worse yet? What if that list comes up on the first page of Google? Sure, it’s not supposed to mean anything really – but what happens when the HR person Googling your name comes up with a bunch of links to lists that are vile? Do you really think that impression won’t linger in the back of her mind?
2) Gaming Lists to Swindle the Unwary – for quite some time now, there has been an element on Twitter that has used high “followers” numbers to indicate to potential clients that they were some sort of “social media expert” and the unwary were not clued in to the number of tools that allowed people to ‘game’ that number using loopholes that allowed them to artificially inflate those numbers. Lists will be even easier to game. That the number of lists one is on is shown on a users profile page is a weakness that will be exploited. “I have over 50k followers and am on over 300 Lists for Social Media Experts” is a phrase that we can expect the unwary to hear as they are pitched by these “experts.” How can you game them? Far more easily than getting 50k followers. Each account is able to create up to 20 lists with up to 500 names on the list. Expect to see services that say “join this service and create 20 lists with names of other users and you will be on thousands of lists yourself shortly!” Yes, this will happen. Yes, the knowledgable will discount the influence of number of lists quickly. But just like people still think that number of followers means something as a metric, so too, they will look at number of lists as one.
- Unintentional Hurt or Offense – Chris Brogan covered this thoroughly in his post so I’ll just outline it simply. I know that we’re all supposed to be emotionally secure adults, unaffected by inclusion or exclusion from being put on someone else’s Lists. I know that more than one person is going to comment about that below. But can we drop the pretense? Even the most secure, well adjusted person feels a little twinge of disappointment when s/he isn’t included by someone s/he respects and thinks values them back. Sure, I don’t care what a stranger on the Internet thinks of me – but I sure as heck do care what someone I respect and value thinks of me. If I don’t make your “really awesome cool people” List? I probably won’t say anything, because I’d rather pretend that it was accidental rather than intentional… because finding out that it wasn’t an oversight? That would hurt.
You know what? I don’t want to hurt or offend or exclude anyone I care for. And I know I would. I know that at some point, someone I care about would feel left out or disappointed. I don’t want to be “that gal” – the one who left a dear friend off of the list and didn’t find out until years later that she was hurt but didn’t want to say anything.
- People Are Subjective, Not Objective – so you set out to make a list of “Thought Leaders” in your area. You’re adding people to your list when you realize that @UserX really should be on the list. S/he is generally considered a thought leader after all. But damn it all, you *hate* @UserX! You think s/he is a fraud. You just can’t bring yourself to endorse @UserX. What do you do? Pay lipservice to @UserX and add them? Or leave them off the list knowing full well that you are being less than honest with your list? Tough call, isn’t it. Emotions can and will play a factor in most peoples’ Lists.
- Changing the Twitter Ecosphere – this one I know won’t make a lot of sense immediately, but it will in a couple of months. Lists will change the way people engage on Twitter – and probably not for the better. The ability to follow someone *else’s* list without actually having to commit to anything will change things in the long run. As a new user, I now no longer have to commit to following someone to see them regularly. I can follow a list they are on and read that list whenever I choose. Do you know I’m interested in what you are saying? No. Do I know you exist? Not necessarily. Currently, if you follow me, I get notified. I go and look at your twitterstream and decide if you’re real, not spamming me, and not offensive. If so? I follow you. Now, you follow a list that follows me. You might @ me, I might @ back – but if I click through to your stream and see you aren’t following me? The likelihood I’ll follow you is slim. Have we engaged? Do we have a relationship? Nope, not really. What will this do in the long run? Not sure exactly, but relatively sure that it’s not going to help me connect with new people. The value of Twitter for me has always been in connecting with people and I suspect that value is just about to be diminished.
Well That’s Most of My Story
So honestly, if you made it through all of that (wordier than I intended again) I think you might understand why I am opting out of the whole “List creation” experience. I certainly don’t think it’s “evil” – but I think the negatives outweigh the positives.
I kind of hate the fact that I’m going to have to monitor the Lists people put me on semi-regularly to see whether or not I have to block some trollish attempt to put me on a derogatory list. Every moment that I have to spend doing that is one that I don’t get to interact with people I want to on Twitter. But I’m also not going to wait until Twitter figures out how to monitor their own nifty feature to see that it’s not abused.
I appreciate if you love the positive aspects of Lists. I just hope you now appreciate that there are negative aspects which I doubt Twitter considered when they implemented the feature.
What did I miss? Something positive or negative that hasn’t come up yet?
Add to my perspective please. But if you’re just going to say “people shouldn’t be offended”? Yeah, don’t waste your time. I already addressed that above under Negative Lists.
Comments
20 Responses to “Twitter Lists – Hot or Not?”
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Great insight! I haven’t spent the time to do Twitter lists, I can’t keep up with my TweetDeck lists! After reading your pros & cons, I think I’ll save myself the effort & remain “listless.”
Great post- great points.
I just started playing with the lists today, and while I think brand lists and such are ok, like Chris Brogan mentioned in his post—
when you get to adding people, for a “favorites” list, it kind of gets sticky…. and yes, there will definitely be abuse of the lists as you said.
The idea that people wont follow eachother, just look on lists — I never thought about, but that is definitely a downfall.
Not sure if I will keep my lists just yet- still weighing it out.
@Mama Bird – I agree that List management becomes such a chore that it starts taking more time than one spends actually engaging. I’d rather connect with people than compile lists of them.
@Complicated Mama – yes, the value lists start out as a nice way to give kudos and end up as a way to accidentally hurt people we care about… I’d rather do the random odd shout out to someone providing amazing content than become a list keeper.
Would love to hear your final analysis!
Great post GeekMommy. I honestly didn’t think too much of it when it was presented to me. Like something shiny catching the corner of my eye, I thought to myself, “ooh, I’m going to make a list of all the PF bloggers I really pay attention to”.
Looking further into it, I wouldn’t want to step on any toes on other PF bloggers that I don’t really follow but follow me.
Maybe I’m looking too deep into it. Decisions, decisions.
I agree with your observations. Lists are fun and easy for following a subset of your favorite Tweeters. But the thousands of self-annointed “social media experts” will surely use them like they use the number of followers, as a scorecard or metric for influence. I would be interested in a verified metric – such as the amount of income a person has actually banked as a social media consultant – if I was looking for advice. Not how much income someone has earned from Google or website hits. Real consulting income. That would be interesting.
I’m kind of on the fence with the Twitter List. I agree with Chris Brogan’s point of view about how the lists excludes people and makes them feel less important. Furthermore, you are now “labeling” people into certain categories with the Twitter lists, which I can also see some benefits.
Your tweets and retweets are a reflection of you. What you project onto Twitter paints a picture of you and your thoughts, feels, and interests. When people place you on a certain Twitter list, it’s their perception of who you are to them — which is an expression of you and your tweets. Don’t be upset if you are on @Santa “bad” list and not the “good” list.
“Tweet like you want to be tweeted,” and you’ll be on everyone’s A-list!
Noland Hoshino
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about lists. I especially appreciate your points about the lists’ possible effects on engagement in the (near) future. And that brings me to my concern for businesses’ Twitter accounts. At lunch the other day, my friend Karianne said she can now put all the restaurants she follows into a list and unfollow them. It’s only a matter of time before more users figure this out.
Yup, I am in the middle too. I like the resource/organization/new connections aspect, but can also be just another way to hurt people’s feelings. Will be interesting to see how they play out.
I agree with your decision. I personally feel the whole Twitter-list thing just comes down to ego-stroking. Just my opinion! I enjoy what I do on Twitter now. Granted, I am not a “big name” on Twitter. I don’t care. If someone follows me and I find their perspective interesting, I follow them. If I don’t particularly find they are interesting (or their tweets are spammy) I don’t. I can also check out people who are @-ed on other people’s tweets, and sometimes I actually find people I want to follow.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I don’t like “clutter.” I follow people that I find interesting, and that don’t fill my screen with a million tweets a day. I like the variety!
Don’t know if that really explains why I don’t like the whole Twitter list concept. I appreciate that someone who I follow (and who follows me) put me on a list. I thought it was sweet. But I am not checking that number every day hoping I make it onto more lists.
Anne @alivenkickin
Well said. I have to say that I watched all the buzz about Twitter Lists for the last few weeks and still don’t really get the appeal. It’s like having groups so that you can follow tons of people but ignore most of them: I can see appreciating objective lists, like “people who write for Linux Journal”, but that’s about as far as I can see it being useful. Thanks for your insight!!
You stated about wasting time to monitor the lists to make sure trolls aren’t adding your to lists that you would not want to be a part of, and that you hate that it will waste time you could’ve been using to engage with others.
Well, I agree and also, another waste of time seems to be creating all of the lists. I have seen some saying they spent hours creating the lists. That to me is hours I could’ve been talking to people I already follow and who follow me back.
I don’t know about other people, but I am an extremely busy person, and to take time to make up lists, and like you said with maybe missing someone unintentionally, is double work, or really un needed work in my eyes. Especially when now it is so much easier to just follow or unfollow people with a few clicks, and as they come along.
Thank you for your insight and post. I know I will not be using lists either. At least not at this time.
Because I am not a computer/techie geek; Twitter is truly a social network. I have been able to tailor it to my own interests. I have expressed my own views regularily on my lack of understanding/need to have a kabillion followers. Then I feel bad…because I do not want the followers that I do have to feel slighted! Because I truly have tailored Twitter for me; I only follow,(as a rule),people who truly interest me. Interest has a broad meaning for me. I will follow someone who makes me laugh. I will follow someone who is inspirational. And by inspirational I really mean in most cases…good people who do good selfless things. I will follow News Outlets that provide me with the news I want to hear about. I’m sure you get the picture. But never has the number of followers that I have mattered to me in a stigmatic sense In fact, I must admit a type of awe that so many people would want to follow an ordinary person such as myself! Now…in Twitter terms I have a paltry 289 followers,(which is nothing compared to the thousands and millions that some have!), but to me….that might as well be a kagillion! Because truly…for me…it has always been about whom I could follow to gain the knowledge,imformation or entertainment that “I” crave! Not about others following me…because as my Bio says,”Iam ordinary in oh soooo many ways!” That is NOT an understatement!!! Tho some have dared to challenge it!
I have never been a celebrity cling -on. So, if I do follow a person that has any type of celebrity; I do not expect a follow back. Nor when I @reply to them, am I hurt that they do not acknowledge me.
The fact that they are of celebrity status of some type or other, is not my primary goal in following them. They must pocess some redeeming trait for me to follow them in the first place. I never expect to rub elbows with the rich and famous!!
During my time on Twitter I have come to see that like all social networks that are public; there is immediately a form of segregation. Celebs tweet other celebs, politicians tweet …anyone,(who are we kidding lol), geeks tweet geeks etc,etc, down the line.
And I just want to be ME! If I had to lose my own identity to exist on Twitter; I would not continue to use it!
Now…to the topic of the lists…
I agree with everything that you said on the con side! The pro side of the argument does not really apply to me since my goal has never been to use Twitter for business, or applications,(I could just stay on Facebook, or have the same type of apps in a more private setting). As I’ve mentioned, I am not a techie, geek or business woman.
So…the creation of the lists just seems like a couple of things to me. It seems like an intrusion of a persons privacy,(tho I am personally uneffected that way ’cause I’m a nobody! lol). And it just seems like another way for all the snobs to stick together as they already do. But now…they can openly rub it in others faces. I agree that a person with self esteem or confidence issues will end up being hurt. The next thing that we’ll be reading in the News is how Suzie Q commited suicide after being placed on a big fat loser list! We all know that this is not far fetched either!!
In short,(not short at all…hahahaha), I have opted out of the list making process as well. And now I can only hope that, that in and of itself is not offensive to those who have already added me to a list!
@Zen Capitalist – I am really hoping that my analysis is missing something important because it just comes across as so bleak – most of the uses I could come up with for them can also be achieved using 3rd party APIs. I guess I’ll have to hope that I’m missing the elephant in the middle of the room!
@angie_seattle – I’ve seen a lot of scamming of clients based on metrics that are artificially created, so I expect this will be one more thing that causes businesses to be wary of *everyone* working in the Social Media field if they are burned by one of those “experts”. I don’t know that amount earned by a consultant would be the best metric – maybe the ability to see something they’ve actually done that increased the customer loyalty, interaction and profitability of a client? Amount earned can be an indicator of how slick a salesperson someone is. We’d kind of want to know whether they actually gave good advice!
@Noland Hoshino – agreed about the advice, even if it does really only address Chris’s point. But treating people well doesn’t address the abuses that the scammers and trolls will make of lists.
@Veronica Sopher – ooh… now see, that level of disengagement will also be tricky for people tweeting on behalf of a brand — can you imagine them having to say to their bosses “well, no, see… the number of our followers is dropping because they are putting us on lists now instead of always having to listen…” Yikes!!
@Aimee – agreed! I think it’s going to be one of those features that they’ll end up adjusting a lot, just like they have @s and follows… Twitter seems to release stuff into the wild and then recode after seeing what happens rather than really using Beta testing for actual feedback and correction.
@Anne – I probably tweet waaaay too much for you then – as I tend to clutter up peoples’ streams who don’t follow a lot of people. But I pretty much use it the same way you do. I love finding new people to actually add to the mix of my twitterstream – lists just seem counterproductive to that for me.
@Dave – see, I’d love to have objective lists… but it’s just so hard to imagine finding really good people to moderate those. Then again, I’d probably never really use them either. I might look through them once to find new folks I’m not following, but then I’d just follow them and not go back to the list. Dunno. Good point tho.
@Beth – yeah, it seems like it would be a full-time job. I have a hard enough time balancing my work/home/online time as it is without having to creating/updating/modifying my lists all the time.
@Eleanor – you know, I think one of my favorite things about Twitter has always been that my following stream reflects my own diverse interests… I follow techies, moms, politicians, scientists, film makers, dads, teenagers, 70 year olds, Americans, Europeans, Asians, and too many other categories to list! But to put them on lists I’d have to start categorizing them. Which is kind of limiting… because geez, we’re all mulitfaceted aren’t we? I really really appreciate the fact that I’m on someone’s *following* list. That means that I’m not too annoying and maybe even providing something worth occasionally reading. I figured the only way I could be honest/democratic is to not make any lists outside of my one… following!
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Lucretia–
I like the Lists. I use them to sort through the maddenly increasing number of people I follow, and can easily access a list I label “Media” or “entrepreneur” for different purposes.
I don’t really care what list people have me on, and I’m sure that will be spammed soon. As for people boasting that they’re on lists, surely the people they boast to will know it’s inflated and useless to be on someone’s arbitrary list.
But just so you know, you’re on my People that Rock List!!
I had one more thing to say… I also think in some ways, good or bad, it will be another “separating the men from the boys” thing for me – not in that I want to see who all is so hot or whatever… But how people use lists. Already some people are showing themselves to be interesting or funny in how they complile the lists… And some people are doing it in ways that are fairly ridiculous, if not hurtful like you mentioned. So to me, the glass is half full way of looking at it is this… I do use the web interface quite a bit and lists give me a way to organize people into categories that make sense for me… And also perhaps show some true colors for other people. The interface is fairly clunky right now which isn’t helping, and yes it’s cumbersome – DON NOT GET ME STARTED ON HOW TWITTER ORGANIZES PEOPLE YOU FOLLOW – but anyway… I guess it’s their way of evolving to more of a tweetdeck interface right there on Twitter – and trying to keep you there on their site rather than letting 3rd party do it all. As they try to monetize I assume this is all part of the plan? Particularly since I have always felt the data is where they will make the money, we are neatly organizing that data for them right now.
Oh, and I guess that was more than one more thing.
I was somehow in the first wave of this whole Lists thing, and after naming one list – “old pals” – and not actually adding anyone to the list, I realized that this app. is probably not for me. I saw the same potential outlined above for feelings to be hurt unintentionally. But my bigger concern was what I tweeted about a week ago and still believe will happen:
ResourcefulMom: I’m wondering if Twitter lists app will quickly degenerate into adolescent slam books wielded by unscrupulous adults…
Reservations noted, I also believe that Twitter is one of those platforms that is used by each individual in a different way, and for better or worse, I support that. I know that the second I try to say what someone else should or should not do with Twitter, the Twitter police will come shut down my party. And that would be a sad, sad day.
Thanks for a great post, Lucretia!
Ok…I first need to say…Holy Jeezy, you blogged. Thank you Twitter for that.
Second, I note and agree with your lists about the Lists. You itemized each pro and con clearly and I appreciate it. I agree that unfortunately, the likelihood of it being used negatively is high and even if I had the time to make the lists, I wouldn’t. Like you, I don’t want to forget anybody I love and inevitably I would.
Thank you for delivering a well-written post…and thanks for writing again.. I missed it.
I think twitter lists are a good idea in concept, however i don’t find myself using them that much