I made my first Twitter lists last week. I thought it was a cool idea and added a lot of value for me being able to sort my tweeps by category – I thought it would simply help me cut through the swathe of noise that I otherwise see in the Twitterstream of consciousness.
But this morning as I was thinking about how much extra value I have been getting out of Twitter and the value I have found in Twitter lists I read this intersting post from Laurel Papworth about her experience (all positive) who also pointed me on to this blog post from Chris Brogan who pointed out how I might be making people feel left out by not including them and all of a sudden my value added lists are starting to sound like a bad thing!
It is all so confusing. I don’t want to make anyone feel left out. Are my lists really doing anyone damage?
This lead me back to my trusted blog advisor Skelliewag who always has something intelligent to say when I need help to keep my blog and twitter exprience positive. As usual her post points out all I need to know and that is I have the Desire to keep writing and this keeps me going.
But back to my lists and Twitter adding value. I think we look at it too closely and pay too much attention to the minutia. Twitterverse should be taken with a pinch of salt. It isnt too serious and it should be Fun. Yes, note the capital F in Fun. I know it adds value when I lose hours daily dissappearing deep into the fold as links here there and everywhere take me off on journeys into the ether.
I feel that Twitter lists leaving people out making them feel isolated is going too far. Perhaps if you are a member of the Twitterati or a highly influential social media maven then I could understand but even @Zaibatsu knows how to have a bit of fun with his tweets now and then, and apart from the evolution of Twitter from answering the most basic question – what are you doing right now? – into this amazing channel stream of news sharing and story breaking we should all just lighten up a little bit and use it for what it is.
A communication tool that utilises 140 characters to express thoughts, ideas, opinions, links, pics and videos etc that have a moment in the spotlight, then just bumble on harmlessly down the stream.