When Google+ came out, circles were its most prized feature. They make organizing followers a snap. Twitter always let users do this, but the feature is not front and center anymore. It used to be that when you looked at the key stats for someone’s profile, what you would see is how many lists they are part of. Some users may have created lists to add themselves to, but that would be a bit silly to have a big number of lists in the dozens and add yourself to them. Actually, of course it is when other people you to theirs that matters. And this was one way of measuring with a glance whether or not someone had a following that was real and people really thought something of their contributions and their shares. Of course people like to look quickly also at the number of followers, and the ratio of following to followers. The recent change in the redesign has meant that you don’t have access to your list numbers right by your profile, let’s say from your home, or to other people’s lists immediately. But for yourself, certainly you have it right down here from the drop-down box.
A clean social stream: Lists in twitter
Looking at my own lists for example, some of these are going to be ones that other people created and a small number that I created I had the vanity to include myself in. I still make a habit of going directly into a Twitter list to see what people are sharing. A lot of people that I have much respect for otherwise are not using best practices of Twitter, and they’re automating too much and doing it in a way that’s not really adding any value for me.
For example they’re just “social bookmarking” I would call it – in a fairly indiscriminate way. If I really want to look for articles that I’m interested in, I have great ways to find them without them being shared with me in an uncurated manner. That may be different for others, but I think after a while people figure out in their area of interest how they can find information – either through certain kinds of searches or from certain news sites. Or, RSS feeds which use third-party applications and can build a stream of information based on a search term and give up-to-the minute updates on information that’s being put on to the web.
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