LISTS on Twitter - Thoughts for Writers and Others

Readers of my new diary - rebeccawoodhead.com/diary - will already know that I'm part of the Beta testing group for Twitter's newest addition - 'lists'.  They will also know of the slightly secret squirrel nature of this mission.  Well, so many of the testers have blabbed now that it's safe for me to do the same so here's my review so far of Lists.

What are Lists?

The general idea of lists is: they're lists.  Tech explanation over.  Rather than give you a step-by-step account of what you see as you press each command (there are many of these posts already in circulation) I'll give you my feelings about what the technology means. 

• Follow Friday every day: Follow Friday is over.  There's no reason for it at all any more.  Instead of filling Twitter with noise every Friday you can simply make a permanent 'Follow Friday' list.  We've been talking about this in the testing group and the feeling seems to be that Follow Friday has a kind of cultural significance at the moment - people 'get' it - so there may be a few Follow Friday lists.  After a while, they'll probably go as you can do so many more specific things with Lists.
• Rooms Been in a hashtag discussion?  Taken it to Tweetchat so you have a 'room'? Well now you don't need Tweetchat.  The functionality is pretty basic but each list can now be a little chat room.
• Your Own TV network This is a metaphor but you can use lists in the same way as you use your TV.  Group your entertainment: comedy, music, news etc.  Group your experience in the way that makes most sense to you.
• Your Twitter PA Set up private lists that tell you how you view your own followers.  Not nice to think in terms of 'A List' 'D List' etc but there are many other ways to define them: cheeky, funny, clever, agent, publisher etc.  Some people will end up in many lists, others may appear in only one or two. 

Well, that's probably all I can tell you for now except that there is a Word Nerd Army list and I want all the original Word Nerd Army supporters on it because - and this is the one bit I failed to mention above - people can follow everyone in a list with just one click and the Word Nerd Army deserves to be followed ;)

Hugs,

Rebecca
a.k.a. The Slightly Secret Squirrel
http://twitter.com/rebeccawoodhead
http://rebeccawoodhead.com/