Tags

Picture 44If you haven’t joined Twitter yet because it seemed too hard to find people saying anything that matters, it’s time to reconsider.

Twitter recently launched “Lists”, which is a way to group the people you follow into categories, so you can hone right in on the conversations/news that matters to you.

A wonderful complimentary service that also just launched is Listorious. It aggregates all the best lists that everyone has created. This is an AWESOME resource! As of yesterday, already over 6.5 million lists have been created, but you’ll see that the best filter to the top. You can type in just about any word at this point, (“news”, “music”, “humor”, “media”, etc), and will get to see the best lists out there.

Why does this matter?

1. You don’t have to go through the painful process of figuring out who to follow on Twitter.

Someone else already done the dirty work for you. As you look through a few lists under the same category, you’ll notice that many of them include the same people. So, essentially, this service helps to separate the wheat from the chaff, based on who the wisdom of crowds have decided matters.

2. You don’t have to actually “follow” all the people in a list.

You can just follow a list, which then ends up in your Twitter page sidebar, and you can click on it when you want to dip in and see what those people are saying, without interrupting the flow of info you’re receiving from your main feed.

3. You can create your own lists, set to either public or private.

You may still want to curate your own lists, based on your own interests or social networks. (i.e. “Peeps from School”, “NYC Production Companies”, or “Social Media Marketing Tips”).

4. No more “firehose”.

People have referred to the massive flow of fast information as the Twitter Firehose. If you follow a lot of people, the tweets just go so fast that it’s impossible to keep up. Now with Lists, you can separate signal from noise, and use Twitter a lot more effectively.

This has been such a useful tool already for me, and I’ve discovered tons of smart, interesting, relevant people that have made my Twitter experience a lot more enjoyable. Here’s a few lists I like:

Design, Creativity & Innovation

Social Media

Smart People

What lists are you following?