I Was Wrong About Twitter Lists

ceb — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 12:14:21 +0000

I originally felt Twitter lists would be really harmful, that people would be upset by not showing up on certain lists. I find that I’m now using five private lists and growing. I have two public lists, too. So far, the world hasn’t ended. And, lists have really helped me tidy up my “views” of Twitter, which is important if you’re following 90,000 folks.

I am wrong from time to time. This time was one of them.

Twitter Lists- Im Not Down

ceb — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:24:01 +0000

I just took a look into creating my first ever Twitter list. I’m listed on over 1500 at this writing, so I figured I’d give it a go. Immediately, I realized what I’m not going to like about them: they will exclude people. Sure, on the one hand, they’re a great way to group people and information together. For instance, I might make a list for news feeds. I might make a list about travel, like hotels and airlines.

But the minute you move into the people department, things get sketchy quick.

In talking with friends about it on Twitter, people immediately started DM-ing me, telling me that they felt left out or even LESS important because they weren’t on any lists. Lists are exclusionary by nature. They’re static. There’s a lot of reasons why they might not be all that pleasant for people.

I think there are some uses that are important, but for the most part, the way I’m going to deal with my listmaking is in private, so that people don’t feel left out or less important, or whatever else they’re going to feel. Man, it stinks feeling left out.

Photo credit Tom@HK

chrisbrogan.com» twitterlists

I Was Wrong About Twitter Lists

Twitter Lists- Im Not Down