Twitter Lists - Network redundancy for the Twitter conversation cloud

I wasn't going to write a post on Twitter Lists; I thought everyone will be writing posts on Twitter Lists across the blogging world.

But then why make life hard for myself, it's certainly one of the hottest happenings of the last few weeks and something I'm actively involved with.

Lists appeared for me last Wednesday, one day they weren't there, the next I had a new link on my Twitter homepage and an intrusive promo at the top of my page.

So I set about exploring . . .

While I understood the concept of how lists were going to work before they were launched, until I actually saw them in action I hadn't really grasped how they could potentially change the face of Twitter very rapidly.

Users following others lists will not only strengthen their nodal network connections rapidly, effectively offering a vast increase in potential network value redundancy, but they will also improve network reach enormously.

Take Mike who knows Dave and Emily through his connections at his agency. Emily used to work at another agency and knows many more connections from her time there, some of which Mike has never heard of.

One of those connections places Emily on a list of agency contacts and Mike investigates, he decides to follow the list. Multiply this effected by x amounts and you suddenly have a very connected network of like minded people.

This should ensure a greater sharing of information between similar users, which in turn should increase the overall value of Twitter as a social media tool.

Prior to lists, finding people from your industry or mindset, who you had never heard of before, was often labourious process that might not have been achieved without the use of third party tools.

A knock on effect of this increased network strength and growth will be the potential for users to increase their following numbers dramatically overnight.

However, I think most will approach this cautiously, not wishing to outbalance their following numbers against their follower numbers, or am I the only one that considers this factor any longer?

Either way it should improve Twitter market penetration, with 58 million visitors to Twitter in September 2009 globally, their market growth is certainly on a sharp curve upwards at the moment. I'll be interested to see what effect the adoption of lists by users will have on this growth.

There will inevitably be some humorous blog posts appearing in the near future detailing the names that people have used, sometimes unwittingly, to classify their followers into lists.

It will also create a new competitive element for people to aspire to improve, along with the current concerns of improving follower numbers that most have.

One item of great interest to me will be the third party manipulation of the list data that will become available. Often the spin-off products from Twitter offer some very interesting data applications, giving greater insight into the platforms information.

I also expect the likes of TweetDeck and Seesmic to have full list integration in the near future. I'd hope to see some option to migrate existing TweetDeck Groups into lists, something that TweetDeck founder Iain Dodsworth seem to confirm when I queried him on this early last week.

Whatever happens next, I think the launch of Lists for Twitter will have a positive effect on the application.

I'd be interested to hear of any lists people have discovered that you think are worth sharing.

Shared lists, now that sounds like a good idea . . .


Related links:

Twitter - The global voice of the people - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/10/twitter-global-voice-of-people.html

What is the cost of social media? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/what-is-cost-of-social-media.html

What now for Twitter? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/what-now-for-twitter.html

Twitter - When was the tipping point and what does it mean? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/twitter-when-was-tipping-point-and-what.html

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