14 DAY TRIAL // Twitter moves at its own pace when it comes to introducing features but every so often it launches something new to the delight of the masses. New, of course, is a relative term as a new feature has probably been implemented by a third party already but everybody loves Twitter so no one is holding it against it. Now the microblogging service is announcing 'Lists', which allows users to create, well, lists of other Twitter users, label them and share them with their friends.
“The idea is to allow people to curate lists of Twitter accounts. For example, you could create a list of the funniest Twitter accounts of all time, athletes, local businesses, friends, or any compilation that makes sense,” Nick Kallen, the project lead for Lists, wrote. “Lists are public by default (but can be made private) and the lists you've created are linked from your profile. Other Twitter users can then subscribe to your lists. This means lists have the potential to be an important new discovery mechanism for great tweets and accounts.”
Uses will be able to create lists by any sort of criteria they see fit. While these can be made private, they will be public by default meaning that they could become a great tool for discovering and sharing interesting Twitterers and it's sure to spark a 'revolution' of sorts on Twitter with probably a deluge of “Top 100 Wordpress Themes” type lists. Still, it is actually a great idea and a great way to recommend a group of users in one go. No wonder someone else came up with it way before Twitter.
Another interesting use, which is only hinted at in the post, would be to use the lists feature to group the people you follow in categories to make them easier to manage. This in turn opens up a ton of options like seeing tweets from just one group or searching within one or several groups, effectively using them as filters. But considering it took Twitter this long just to announce the feature – mind you this is just a limited test it's rolling out so users still have some waiting to do before seeing it in action – don't hold your breath for any sort of advanced capabilities just yet.