It looked as if Twitter may have dropped a bomb on a number of Twitter-centric third-party apps yesterday by announcing its new Lists feature. It’s a feature that Twitter really should have implemented a while ago for better filtering if nothing else, but they didn’t, and that gave rise to services like TweepML and Wefollow. So are those guys now mad about Twitter’s latest move? No. Instead, they see it as an opportunity to make their services even more popular by hooking up with the feature through its API.
Brizzly, a web-based Twitter client from Thing Labs, was the first to come out and share its enthusiasm for Twitter’s new feature. One of Brizzly’s key selling points is that you can filter the people you follow on Twitter into groups. As the Brizzly official account tweeted out yesterday, the plan is to now support Twitter Lists. They’ll apparently offer the ability to convert your Brizzly groups into these lists, which is nice.
Meanwhile, Digg founder Kevin Rose’s latest project had been Wefollow, a Twitter directory for popular people to follow in various fields. So is he annoyed by Twitter lists, which will allow users to group people in a similar way? Nope. He tweeted out a link to Twitter’s blog post about Lists a few hours ago with the note, “playing w/twitter lists feature, this is going to be cool 
”
The most interesting would-be competitor for Lists however is TweepML. The service, which we covered here, allows you to create your own lists of Twitter users to follow to send and share with others. On the surface, that sounds very similar to what Twitter Lists is, but founder Marcelo Calbucci has already gotten a chance to play with Lists and says that he too looks forward to integrating TweepML with Twitter Lists.
He also notes what he sees as 10 key differences, which we’re reposting here with permission:
- #1 You can’t create a list with yourself: A Twitter list is a subset of your followers. You cannot follow yourself, and you cannot add yourself to a list you create. If I create “Entrepreneurs in Seattle” list, I cannot be on it.
- #2 You can only add people you follow: That’s the same issue as above, but what if I want to create a list that doesn’t have everyone that I follow. For example, I might not want to follow all the 300+ Entrepreneurs in Seattle.
- #3 It’s hard to add people to your list: To add someone to your Twitter list you go to your Friends page and select one-by-one who you want on your list.
- #4 No way to go from list subscriber to tweep subscriber: Imagine you are following a list of 25 photographers. You get upset because the list owner keeps adding irrelevant people, or removing cool people. You decide you just want to follow them directly. There is no UI to do that now.
- #5 No way for people to know you are following them: If you follow a list, the people on that list won’t be notified you are following them. You lose the opportunity of them following you back.
- #6 No way to “follow-the-list-except-that-guy-who-tweets-too-much”: If you follow a list is all or nothing. You can’t exclude that guy that can’t stop tweeting.
- #7 You can’t import/export lists: They don’t support the TweepML format, but they’ve promised a server-to-server API, which doesn’t matter for end users. If you have a list with 25 accounts, there is no way to easily import a list. There is no way to export that list either, like into a spreadsheet or a text document.
- #8 What if you block someone: Blocking on Twitter is somewhat weak already, because the person can continue to follow your tweets by just going to your page (if your account is public like most people). Now, if someone creates a list that you are part of it, anyone that you blocked can follow your tweets again by following the list.
- #9 No stats or analytics: Right now Twitter does not tell you anything about your list. I believe in the future they will tell you how many people are following that list, but that’s it. No way to know how people found the list, how many people came and went, etc. This is probably not important to your average user, but for power users and business, this is critical.
- #10 No dynamic lists: Finally, Twitter doesn’t allow you to have dynamic lists. For example, if you go to TweepSearch and you want to follow everyone who’s a Security Consultant in Seattle you have to be manually updating that list.
Some very interesting points from someone who has used the feature already.
Overall, it looks like Twitter did a smart thing by allowing these competitors to check out Lists from the get-go. Rather than seeing this as a hugely threatening gesture by the service, these competitors all are welcoming it to varying degrees. Twitter also did a smart thing by making sure Lists launched with an API, so third-parties can build things that will do many of the 10 things listed above.
Well, they don’t have a choice, do they. Their survival depends on it. I mean, everyone knew Brizzly will not last more than 2 months. Twitter now will release ‘List’, and next month, they may allow photo and video display which can be turned on and off. So at that point, why would anyone be spending time on Brizzly? That is what happens when you build your house on someone else’s yard.
You make a good point about Brizzly, but for now it’s nice having something that will do those things.
And not to add to the hype, but all of this kind of thing will be part of Wave. Someday soon we’ll look back on Twitter as a kind of an AOL and Brizzly as… I don’t know, a cool “Keyword” function. Remember those?
“That is what happens when you build your house on someone else’s yard.”
Well said!
If Twitter was smart they would buy Brizzly!
Looks like i can follow all the people who blocked me again…
Noice.
How will this affect services like exectweets.com and others from Federated Media and other sites?
Twitter is hiring like crazy and WILL add more features to their lists (especially after reading this feedback). Full integration gives them the power to do stuff that others can’t.
Did facebook have lists at the beginning? No. And now they have that, with some fully integrated features such as “partial trust” friend lists which only they can do! And apps rely on the platform’s list features (not a third party).
So here is a list of issues regarding third party lists:
- Anybody can script this kind of stuff
- Not part of the platform
- Can’t properly integrate with security
- Requires “give this app permission” issues
Another Sampa in the making.
I think WeFollow is really interesting — a value add for discovery of Twitterers based on real data. But I don’t get TweepML and that list seems like sour grapes from being one-upped by Twitter. By the time Twitter Lists actually ship, they could address all of the shortcomings you list. And third parties will solve any of the problems Twitter doesn’t.
One item on the list is backwards. Twitter Lists are actually dynamic (you follow the list), TweepML lists are static (it follows all the people on the list at the time you do the follow).
The format is a different story — it would be nice if Twitter, TweepML, WeFollow, etc., all used the same format for lists of users. Would certainly make it easier for app developers. Maybe TweepML should concentrate on that, not on competing with Twitter in their own backyard.
Great so thats like Groups..?
Then they ll add Events
Then Photo Album
Then finally a TWIT-POKE utility.
Awesome! Can’t Wait.
#1 #2 #3 and #6 we tried to solve with http://tweetarium.com and I can’t wait for lists to be released, as it will allow for easy population of groups.
I am visiting TC site less and less as I am getting most of the posts are not worth my time…. what is happening?
Wondering what to do on new years eve???
MyNewYearBash.com contains details of the hottest new year parties happening in the major Indian cities of Bangalore, Mumbai, New Delhi – NCR, Gurgaon, Noida etc. It displays comprehensive details of the most happening new year parites in town making it the most sought after resource of new year parties in India.
With MyNewYearBash you can search parties on the basis of ticket price, venues, cuisine, music, DJs etc.
Happy Partying and Happy New Year 2010 !!!
Surely if they don’t get along then they will become surplus to requirements. I’m still not sure about Lists as it’s going to be even more about cliques on the service. Plus everyone will follow the people (lists) that influencial people recommend!