Interactive Marketing Blog

Twitter lists have been rolled out for almost everybody I guess. And the next thing I’m waiting for is to see how the 3rd party apps pick up on it and add another column (like Tweetdeck or Seesmic) to sort out friends according to lists. It’s going to be very interesting for sure. Btw I heard Tweetdeck is already on its way. Great – all the more because all such development drives value in twitter’s ecosystem which is what we need from any consumer internet technologies.

And I should probably mention this that its been long long time that I’ve actually seen something worth writing about twitter. And when the talks was doing its rounds about twitter coming up something called “Twitter Lists”, I should say the truth that initially I didn’t think that this would be any different from any other casual development we have seen from Twitter team lately. But when I started using Twitter Lists, my perception has totally changed now.

So rather than jotting down paragraphs, let me put it in points for easy understanding:

1. Twitter lists are great to follow highly targeted people. For example, I wanted to follow the “Social Media Marketers in India“, then simply I tried to get a glimpse in my “Lists Following You” tab and there it is or ask for a recommendation from your twitter peers since they might have come across something worth which might help you.

2. Twitter Lists are great “Perception Builder“. Why? Firstly, if you check your “Lists Following You” tab, then you’ll see what people think about you and thats why they have added you in that list – both from personal front or professional one. Secondly, the lists you create says a lot about you – like I created a list called “Social Media Marketers“. Now if I carry on making lists pertaining to my professional field, then surely it helps build a perception about you.

3. Twitter Lists are a great way to build a “Recommendation Engine“. Twitter lists can help everybody in your network to follow the exact sort of people whom you were trying to connect with. And surely, it makes it easy for follow and connect. Now you might think that then what about sites like “WeFollow“? Now that’s an interesting question – if people get into the bandwagon of “Twitter Lists” then surely I’m left with no doubts that these sort of sites won’t survive long since what Twitter lists does is help people at a micro level build connections; whereas sites like WeFollow just helps you in ego boost to show that you are connected Ashton Kutcher or Oprah. I say who gives really…!!!

But this is not all for me. I see great potential in this application. Some of the things which I would really appreciate seeing in the near future from Twitter are:

1. Search: Twitter should enable some search option which makes searching “Twitter Lists” easier. Like for example, I like to know if there is any lists available for “Social Media Agencies in Mumbai“. And if there is one, then this search option should help me get to that. It just adds to that extra bit of feature needed for twitter lists to make it successful and get that extra bit of mileage & traction.

On this regards, Twitter can integrate “Twitter Lists Search” in Twitter search only with two tabs in place of one tab (like Google). See the screenshot below:

2. At the time of registration only, Twitter should ask users if they would be interested in making any “lists” (like it does for “Suggested Friends“) e.g. Friends, Co-workers, Acquaintances etc which would help to categorize the following/follower list. This sort of feature helps organize the chaos around twitter a bit.

These are some of my initial thoughts on twitter lists. May be, I would add on as it evolves. But what do you say – will it last the hype cycle?