Saturday, 31 October 2009

  • In Response to "Twitter Lists: Love It Or Leave It"


     

    I followed a tweet by a fellow Tweeter, RayBeckerman which lead me to GeekSugar's poll asking whether people Love or could Leave Twitter's new feature: Twitter Lists. I immediately spotted that more people said "Leave It" and then looked to see the comments and the 1st one reads:


    “Geeeezzz do we REALLY need another way to communicate with each other???????? Duh don't we have enough? I think it just another reason to change our phones and spend MORE money,and its all for the young comsumers...Stupid as they don't see the REAL picture just yet." - Anonymous

    I made a (very long) comment there that I'd like to elaborate on a little:

    First and foremost, anyone who says that Twitter's new list feature is a "Leave It" or is useless does not understand Twitter. And unless you understand Twitter or plan to find out the network's purpose, you shouldn't even have an account. If you don't want to network, share links, find a job, find a scholarship, build your brand, etc... don't even make the account. There are plenty of other networks for people who don't want to do anything useful!


    With all that said, the lists are a plus. Now when I go to a tweeter's profile, I have another validation source to see if it will be worth it to follow.

    I ask:

    • Do they have a profile pic? If not, why? Is this a bot?
    • What is their Follower / Following count/ratio? Are they following more people than are following them? Is this a bot or is this person just annoying?
    • Do they have a bio that really describes who they are and why I should follow them? Typically, someone that can't fill in 160 characters about themselves will not be followed by me.
    • Do they have a website link (even if it's mypsace  )?
    • What do they tweet about? Just links? Just convo? If they don't mix it up, that turns me off. If they tweet too much, that turns me off too!
    • (and now) What lists are they on? If none, why not? If they are only on lists that are useless  like "Internet People" then maybe I don't need to be bothered.

    From the lists that I'm added to, you can see a few things:

    1. I'm some sort of designer or creative person
    2. I might be a little charming (to someone!)
    3. I know someone that speaks Tagalog and considers me a friend
    4. I Retweet often (if relevant)
    5. I like Hip-hop (or music) and express that freely

    There are enough characteristics visible on my page that someone will have enough information to say "I do not want to follow this person!" or "I DO want to follow this person!".

    Furthermore, the hope is that Twitter's apps will sync with these lists. As of now, the lists you make in applications like Seesmic & Tweetdeck do not sync (the feature is still new). And "FollowFridays"* will be much easier considering it's time-consuming as is. Also, if I follow a list of other designers listed by a designer that I admire, I find more people to follow and perhaps to be followed by. Twitter's found a way to make me MORE active (as if I'm not active enough) without getting all in my business like... Facebook .

    *If you don't know what "FollowFriday" is, GOOGLE it.

    Time to go steal candy from babies! Happy Halloween!

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