Alert Blog Reviews

How do you share files on Twitter? Growing your followers means you will move beyond the people that you personally know. I’ve met scores of people on Twitter that I will never meet in real life. I also don’t have personal contact information for many of the people I know on Twitter either. So how do you send someone a file online without their email address? Surprisingly, there are at least nine different sites that can answer that question for you. From presentations to mp3s to documents to zip files and anything else, they can now be sent via Twitter. This really opens up the use of Twitter from a simple communication tool to a new way to share large amounts of information. I sat down with my co-workers and created a wish list of qualities that we as marketing people want in a Twitter file sharing tool. Of course, all the apps have to be free, easy-to-use and require no downloadable client. Beyond that, we wanted to be able to: * store at least 15 mb of data * share multiple file types: mp3, doc, ppt, zip, pictures, videos * public and private tweets * use OAuth so you don’t have to create a new account * have it self-delete after a certain amount time * share across multiple platforms The evaluation method was simple. I visited each site and registered. After my profile loaded, I took a screenshot of the interface and then spent about ten minutes looking around the site. A decent site should be able to explain itself in that time. After using the application, I rated each site against my wish list. Tweetcube Tweetcube allows you to upload zip, rar, pdf, jpg, png, gif, mp3 and txt files. Or at least it says it says it does. I could only get to step two and wasn’t able to upload anything. According to Tweetcube, you can upload as many 10 mb files as you want, and after 30 days they get deleted. Or you could if it worked. Ten megabytes seems to be the lower end of the uploading spectrum anyway. PROS: You can upload up to 10 mb, uses Twitter OAuth so you don’t have to create an account. CONS: It doesn’t work. Tried several times over two days to use the site. At first it wouldn’t let me login. After I got past that, I was never able to upload a file. RATING: Thumbsdown Tweetmojo Tweetmojo allows you to share videos, photos, files and tweets of up to 1400 characters long. There is no mention of upper size limit on file sharing and a tweet to their Twitter account didn’t get a reply. I tried uploading a 36 MB pdf and after waiting 10 minutes, nothing happened. It didn’t give me any indication that the file is being uploaded, so I don’t know if I didn’t wait long enough or if it never tried to upload the file. The Twitter OAuth didn’t work either so I could never log in to post anything to Twitter. There is also a timeline so you can see what other people have uploaded from the site. Tweetmojo does allow you to record your own video and post it from the site by using the Viddler video recorder. That is, if the sign in feature worked. PROS: Allows you to upload any file type and you can record you own videos from the site. Nice feature that allows you to add long posts without having to upload a file. CONS: It didn’t work. I was able to upload smaller photo files and record a video, but could never sign in to Twitter to use it. RATING: Thumbsdown Twitt Twi.tt gives you the ability to upload pictures, videos, documents, audio and create a poll. The screen is divided into tabs so you can select from which area you want to upload. Under each tab is a selection of options, such as upload from computer, get from website, capture from webcam or post by email. Most of the these options aren’t available yet but there is a message that it should “be added in just a few days.” You can choose between posting your file to Twitter or just putting it in the Twi.tt public timeline. There is no mention of file size or how your files are hosted on their system or for how long. PROS: Hurray, it works! There doesn’t appear to be a file size limit and a 29 MB file uploaded just fine. CONS: Most of the site’s features don’t work yet. It’s unclear what happened to your uploads after you share them. RATING: Thumbsdown TwitFS TwitFS offers a free non-account version, which is pretty good. You can upload up to 100 MB at once, you can share videos, audio, pictures and documents, and you can publish to Twitter, blogs, Facebook, MySpace, message boards and send via email. You can also store your file for 30 days, send a direct message to an individual or message everyone in your tweetstream. Once uploaded, your file gets its own page and you can share the url or embed it in another program. If you register with TwitFS, you can upload a file up to 250 MB, a file manager, a direct link to the file, parallel downloads and unlimited file storage. For a small fee starting at $0.99, you get up to 2.5 GB maximum file size. PROS: It does everything we could want from a file sharing site. It’s worth registering with the site for added features. CONS: Um….can’t find any. RATING: Thumbsup Filetwt Filetwt is another simple site. You enter your Twitter username and password, enter a 114 character message and upload a file up to 20 MB. The file then goes out on your public Twitter stream. The site creates a TinyURL that links back to a page where you can download the file. It works basically the same as Filesocial, but not as well. It also offers the ability to sign up for an account, which allows you to send private tweets, better storage and allows for creating a friend list to send files to. The friend list isn’t a complete list of your Twitter followers. PROS: Easy to use and share files with a simple one step process. CONS: You don’t get a link to your file unless you go to your Twitter stream and find the tweet. The registered version doesn’t pull in all your friends and doesn’t give you the option to add friends that are missing. RATING: Thumbsdown FileSocial FileSocial is the prettiest site of the file sharing tools. You can upload any file up to 50 MB and post it to your public Twitter timeline. The file is stored on their servers for an unknown amount of time. FileSocial sends out a message to your Twitter stream with a TinyURL. People can view your file, download it or leave a message on it. It also opens the file without having to download it. There is also a downloadable client that allows you to drag and drop files you want to share. PROS: Easy tool that allows you to share any type of file on Twitter. CONS: FileSocial only allows you to post to Twitter. You can take that URL and share it on other sites or post in an email, but you can’t do that directly from the site. RATING: Thumbsup TwitDoc TwitDoc uses the Twitter OAuth to log you into their account. You can upload up videos up to 25MB, documents up to 15MB and photos up to 10MB. I’m not sure why they are using different file sizes for each type of file. Once you’ve uploaded your file and sent your tweet, you get a TinyURL, which links to a page where you file is. It’s a simple site that gives you the ability to share files quickly and easily. There is also a downloadable client that allows you to use the site’s features from your desktop. PROS: Easy to use single function site. CONS: There is no list of all the files you upload. You can’t control the files once they are uploaded if you don’t have the URL. It doesn’t handle audio files. RATING: Thumbsdown Acamin Acamin is designed with a nod to the academic community. That doesn’t mean it’s limited to that field. You can post files to your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account. I tried adding a picture and was given a series of error messages before finally being told that my image was posted to my Twitter account. When I clicked on the URL to link back to the image, I got a “This file is not available!” error message. According to the icons on the page, you can attach a file to an email, publish it online, get the code to embed your file and convert it to a pdf. PROS: The ability to publish files on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as being able to convert documents to a pdf file. CONS: It doesn’t work. I counted at least six error messages before the site attempted to send the file, then got another error message after posting. RATING: Thumbsdown Conclusion TwitFS did the best by ultimately having the best features. It’s simple to use, accepts the largest files and allows you to share the file across multiple networks. Best of all, it works without any problems. FileSocial is also recommended for it’s ability to view the files without having to download them. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . 8 Twitter Apps That Make It Easy To Share Files

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8 Twitter Apps That Make It Easy To Share Files

I know that Google likes to cover its butt by placing new tools in Google Labs , then keeping the beta tag for years, but its new Social Search feature has gone AWOL. OK, technically, Google has shut it down until sometime later today or tomorrow: The Google Social Search experiment is temporarily down. We are working on it and expect to restore access sometime Monday or Tuesday Down? Did they say down? When has Google ever yanked a service after launching it? I know some services have failed–and therefore permanently shutdown–but temporarily yanked? We have no word on why the service is down, but let’s have some fun speculating: It was launched too soon, without proper care and attention to the details. It’s insanely popular and Google’s servers are taking a hammering, so the service is being reconfigured. It has been hacked, or there’s some kind of massive security hole that’s revealing far too much of your friends’ data. My money is on #3? What do you think?

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Is Google Antisocial?

By POYZN of WamWan – Follow them @POYZN . There’s countless Twitter widgets, tools and sites out there to make your Twitter experience more enjoyable. But the following sites are the pick of the bunch chosen from those sneaky discreet third party text-ads on Twitter itself, placed on user profiles, displayed under the stats. Since Twitter is officially endorsing these third-party fansites for free, then they must have some user benefit, right? Well, the following five chosen are actually pretty fun and useful: We Follow – Directory of interesting Twitter accounts . This site is terrific for fishing out the Twitter users in your niche, or the ones which simply interest you. You can add your own Twitter account to the directory too so others can find you. All users are neatly categorized and tagged for you to choose from by; industry, niche and location. All the celebrity tweeters are listed there too. Happy stalking. Favstar – Fast way to discover people’s favorite tweets. Favstar lets you track what your friends, followers, and everyone else has labeled as ‘favorite’ on Twitter. Ofcourse, you can also know how many Twitter users have your tweets as their favorite. Depending on your findings, it’ll either boost your ego or deflate it. Be prepared for a reality shock. Twitter Counter – Fun way to explore your social graph . This is basically Feedburner in a Twitter costume. It lets you show off the number of Twitter followers you have. Which is useful for the braggers. For everyone else, it’s a great tool to explore your account’s statistics in terms of overall rank, followers, friends, updates, etc, all broken down in a neat graph. You can also compare your account to others too. For instance, you can compare yours to Ellen DeGeneres and Ashton Kutcher’s. Go ahead try it, aim for the stars. Hype Machine – Easy way to find Twitter’s most popular music . This clever little tool keeps track of what Twitter users write about in regard of music selection. It’s basically an interactive music chart of songs being posted on Twitter. It’s a great tool in a way which you are able to find out and listen to what your fellow tweeters enjoy music-wise. The only drawback is that you’ll soon discover so many of which have terrible taste in music. Trends Map – Simple way to pinpoint map of local trends . This tool is a real-time mapping of Twitter trends across the globe. It lets you see what the world is discussing right now on Twitter, and from which location the trend originated. It’s really neat. It’s Google Maps but Twitterized. You’ll particularly love this one if your Twitter trend obsession is few levels above the average Twitter addict. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . Twitter Approved – Five Fantastically Fun Fansites

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Twitter Approved – Five Fantastically Fun Fansites

I still have no clue how to use Google Wave . Not that I’m stupid, I’m just not motivated to invest the tremendous effort needed to learn the new interface–especially when not all of my friends have invites yet. Still, it helps to see a real-world use of Google Wave–at a conference no less. Instead of using Twitter–and hashtags–attendees at the recent Ecomm conference were given Google Wave accounts. The resulting collaboration gives me a better feel for at least one practical use of the new service. Take a look: Of course,  I see one immediate problem. Where’s the opinion? What I love about conference Tweets–and blog posts–is reading the opinion that’s thrown in with the coverage. The above Google Wave example seems just a little too sterile for my liking. Anyhow, I’d better get on the Google Wave soon because, apparently , Google has aspirations of taking the Google Wave "look and feel" and making it uniform across all of its apps.

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Google Waves Goodbye to Conference Twittering

By Matt Wilson . Follow him @MattWilsonTV . We all have them—”social media friends”—people who we talk to online but most likely have never met in person. We connected with them because of a common interest via Twitter, engaged in interesting conversation with them and shared a bond, but we don’t really consider them a true friend. Truly using Twitter to its fullest potential means networking not just for casual online interaction but actually creating long lasting relationships. Real friends will shout from the rooftops to promote your brand, real friends collaborate, work together and would do anything for each other. Let’s start making these Twitter friends into your own global network of people who have a vested interest in each other’s success. Besides, what good are your friends if you don’t really know them? But don’t be a creep! Ew, you want to meet me in person? Is it really okay to meet people online? Yes! It’s important to realize that there is a real person behind that avatar—not just another click thru to your blog. Make people feel like they know you. Your Twitter brand should have both personal and professional elements to it. In order to create real relationships your Twitter friends should trust you. Your avatar must look like you! You want people to stop you at events because they recognize you from Twitter. Take the time to look at someone’s profile and website. Know more about your friends than just their handle. Read their bio, check out their website and ask about them. People want to know you care! Post videos of yourself and ask questions—the more interaction people have with you on Twitter, the closer people feel to you. Engage your audience! Help people! If you are helpful on Twitter, chances are you are helpful offline. Networking is all about giving—remember you have to give to get. Providing value on Twitter eventually creates value in real life. Compliment! Flattery goes a long way on Twitter. Tell someone you admire their work and think they are a leader and you are much more likely to make a real friend! Post Twitpics. Your personal brand should have a personality; make sure they know you are real. Take interesting pictures from your everyday life. It doesn’t have to be a picture of your children, simply try a picture from an event you are attending. Now take networking offline! Attend or organize a Tweetup. Use http://twtvite.com to send out invitations. Get a few real friends who are on Twitter together and invite all your respective Twitter friends. Schedule phone calls. Meet someone on Twitter who you’d like to know better? Ask to schedule a phone call. Send a DM and specify a time limit of 10 minutes. Nobody’s time will be wasted. Imagine you did this every day? Don’t want to pay long distance or give out your number? Invite a Twitter friend for a #VirtualCoffee meeting on Skype. Connect face to face and have a real conversation. Have a column on Tweetdeck specifically for people you’d like to meet in person. You can monitor people more closely this way by organizing friends into one big column, or segment them into geographic location. Never eat alone! Traveling? Make a conscious effort to meet people you’ve connected with on social media. Of course meet in a public place and keep things casual. Plan this in advance. Attend Events: Go to tweetups, networking events, conferences, keynote speeches, unconferences or anything with a hashtag on Twitter. Tag everything with a hashtag and let it be known you are looking to do some real life networking. Take the leap! Creating a network of global friends means going out being assertive. Don’t be shy—start approaching people. Set a goal for yourself of 5 real life connections each week. Connect with one person daily or knock them all out in a single day of the week. It’s time to start using Twitter to its potential. [image] © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . Turn Twitter Friends into Real Friends

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Turn Twitter Friends into Real Friends

Local mobile search is heating up. The powerful combination of GPS location and user input creates a golden opportunity for accurate, local, useful information to break out in a big way. As more and more GPS-enabled smartphones come on the market, more and more search engines and apps want to know just where you are and just what you’re looking for. The New York Times looks at another new local mobile app entering the marketplace. Although the GPS integration varies among the present offerings, we already have apps from local opinion sites like Yelp and Citysearch doing well in this area, as well as more specialized search engines and apps. Google and Microsoft already have local business listings as well. Is there room for Loopt’s new local-mobile app, Pulse , launching today? Absolutely, says Greg Sterling. He points out that there’s no “definitive” local mobile app yet—and it looks like Pulse might be able to position itself as that definitive app. Pulse draws info from 20 services, “including listings and review services like Zagat, Citysearch and Eventful as well as content sites like DailyCandy, Thrillist and The Village Voice.” Additionally, Pulse looks at social, spatial and temporal data to make recommendations: Pulse produces a personalized and ever-changing list of recommendations based on where you are, the time of day and Loopt’s own data on where you and your friends have been. It shows editorial descriptions and reviews from the partner sites and averages the ratings a business has received. Pulse also factors in more subjective factors, like which places are particularly popular with Loopt users at a given moment. That will help Pulse come up with recommendations that a site like Google might not, said Sam Altman, a Loopt co-founder. In addition to going for a comprehensive algorithmic/social/human-powered service, Loopt is also using a unique payment method: “Loopt gets some revenue from cellphone carriers, which include its service in their data plans or buy its technology to run their own location-based applications.” They will also be connecting with advertisers and local businesses to offer local coupons on cell phones. Finally, they also share revenue with participating content sites—like Citysearch. (A partnership with Yelp may come in the future, if Loopt can promise that the reviews will be clearly marked as coming from Yelp.) Pulse is currently working on an updated app for the iPhone. The creator, Loopt, is a mobile friend-finding service, so they already have the mobile social networking capabilities needed for the product. Of course, these advances may also mean that these third parties, search engines and telephone companies can locate you at any time. Not only that, they know what you’ve been looking for—whether that’s “bowling alley” and “ice cream” or “gun store” and “abandoned warehouse.” This conspiracy theory brought to you by The Police . But since I don’t plan on using my phone to help in my murderous plots (well, at least not in real life), I’m pretty excited about progress in this area. Now if only I could get a better phone. What do you think? Are you looking forward to new apps in the local mobile search space? Do you think Pulse will have what it takes to succeed—and possibly become that definitive app?

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Local Mobile Search: They’ll Be Watching You

By Jade Craven – Follow her @jadecraven . “Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone always said that the best way to get real value out of Twitter was to follow a small number of people; it was never their intention for people to aim to follow more than 150-200 people” from Why Twitter Lists Change Everything by @davetroy Twitter has once again changed the social economy. There has been a lot of buzz around the blogosphere regarding lists. People want to know how it can improve their use of twitter and how they can help others. I hunted through the plethora of posts to find the best content regarding lists. In this post, I will ‘list’ the best quotes regarding twitter lists and show how others believe it will change the dynamics. Before I discuss the common thoughts, here are two resources: Listorious TLISTS Ways to create an extremely useful list A list is more useful, and compelling, than any one person. You should list compelling people and include yourself in a list when necessary. Beyond that, there were three main tips people gave to help you create an awesome list. Create a very specific list name: There are many generic lists that have little use to the general public. Elaine Ellis gave a great tip when she suggested users make “the lists as specific as possible, include geography, profession, topics, demographics, etc.” Laura Spencer gave further advice when she recommended that if “a list is being designed for subscribers as well as the list owner, the list name should reflect the potential content of that list to other Twitter users.” These tips are solid but not always practical. You are limited to only 25 characters so you may need to find creative ways to describe the people on your list. Some interesting examples I found were: @drwarwick/mytop100 @sammutimer/outstanding-connectors @KulpreetSingh/smart-unique-engaging @SheilaS/they-make-me-smart @smartasshat/wouldchewtheirgum @ManVsDebt/weneedtoconnect-yesyou These names are both useful as a personal reference as well as letting others know how useful the people are. Segment the list if necessary Ensure the list is really helpful to the reader. This means that you should segment according to what would be useful to other twitter users. Two examples of business doing this really well are Marve l and Caroline Serviced Apartments . Promote the twitter list elsewhere Create badges for those listed Create graphics directing people to relevant twitter lists Link to twitter lists from your blog, especially a company one Promote the list in your offline advertising material Buy advertising spots for your list Issues with twitter lists: They are exclusionary by nature As I pointed out in 8 Things to consider before using twitter lists , people may feel snubbed if they aren’t included on a public list. Andy Beal wrote about this further at Marketing Pilgrim. For example, what if you created a list of top technology CEOs, but didn’t include your boss. What if your lists of affiliate marketing gurus left off your friend because, well let’s face it, she’s not that good at affiliate marketing. Keep your list public at your own risk! Twitter is already full of cliques, Lists just formalizes them and confirms your worst fears–you are indeed a nobody. CV Harquail expanded on this further in her post at Authentic Organizations. Being on many Twitter Lists is NOT “a barometer of cool” — it’s a measure of ease of Categorization. Easy to categorize => Similar to others => Easy to ‘list’ Not every person you follow is similar enough to other people you follow to warrant their being placed on one of your Twitter lists. Laura Spencer provided an example regarding multitasking tweeters Many Twitter users tweet more than one type of information. There is no real way to segregate the marketing and PR information that a user may be tweeting from any other information that they share. So, several people have agreed that people may be upset by not being included in many lists. There is also people feeling offended by not being grouped in a friends list. This issue really came to the spotlight when Chris Brogan said: I realized what I’m not going to like about them: they will exclude people. Sure, on the one hand, they’re a great way to group people and information together. For instance, I might make a list for news feeds. I might make a list about travel, like hotels and airlines. I think there are some uses that are important, but for the most part, the way I’m going to deal with my listmaking is in private, so that people don’t feel left out or less important, or whatever else they’re going to feel. Man, it stinks feeling left out Some people have argued that this is an over reaction. There are two quotes by Robert Scoble that stood out: Numbers don’t matter. It’s WHAT LISTS people put you on and what they are named that really matter UPDATE: I had lunch yesterday with @nk who runs the team at Twitter who makes lists. He says “following” someone is just another form of lists. Since there’s 45 million people on Twitter and only about 100,000 that Chris is following, I’d guess that Chris is exclusionary. I can see this from both sides. While the numbers don’t matter, people do feel left out. I’ve seen it happen. It shouldn’t, but it does. People are making a list by following people but in Chris Brogans case, that requires an opt in. All someone has to do is follow and generally he will reciprocate. However people will feel left out regardless of what you do in social media. You aren’t replying to them enough. You don’t reciprocate invites on other social networks. What do you think? Be honest. Did you feel left out because you weren’t included on a list? I know whenever I read tweets about people making lists of their friends, I immediately check to see if I’m on it. Its an ego boost. I’ve also felt disappointed at only being on about 25 lists. May lead to reputation management issues Kevin Makice was one of the first to raise this issue at Blog Schmog Web consultant Orli Yakuel discovered during Beta testing that you don’t have the ability to opt out of lists. If someone wants to label you a spammer, noisy or something you don’t want to be, you may not have the ability to reject that label. It may mean your only recourse is to communicate with the list owner in the same way you might engage someone who writes a bad review of your product. Similarly, exclusion from a high-profile list may damage your reputation. On the other hand, lists may simply increase the social pressure to recognize strangers in a new way, beyond returning a follow. There is also issue of gaming the system to damage reputations. Dave Troy wrote about this further You can even put someone in a list (cool people), have them publicize that, and then change the name of that list to something less flattering (douchebags, or worse). The issue of derogatory lists alone is one that Twitter will need to address. However, this can also be a good thing for brands. As Sampad Swain pointed out “When you check your “Lists Following You” tab, then you’ll see what people think about you and thats why they have added you in that list – both from personal front or professional one. “ Secondly, “the lists you create says a lot about you”. Making lists pertaining to your professional field helps build a perception around you. This is a good thing. What do you think? I think there will be issues with managing your reputation, yet these already exist on twitter. I think we will just need to find new tools for monitoring and handling potentially damaging tweets. You can’t consent to categorization. As Mark Trapp pointed out in Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to User Most crucially, a person cannot consent to the categorization. This can make defamatory lists stand out, especially when the words used stand out from a sea of others. You can block a list, and the user, but the damage may be done before people/brands have a change to respond. Additionally, people can’t opt in to a list. This presents two problems: You have to wait until someone creates a list, or create it yourself. In this regard, wefellow is still superior for categorization People can’t be on a list, even if the creater wanted to allow opt ins. There are two ways I’ve seen people work around this. Example 1: Huffington Post had this text on one of their posts about twitter lists. Do you know a tweeter who’s perfect for one of these lists? Email us at twitterlists@huffingtonpost.com! Example 2: Freelance switc h sent out several tweets inviting people to be part of the i-love-freelance list. If you LOVE the freelance life I’m creating a list of Freelancers so Tweet @ freelancesw #ilovefreelance I will favorite them all and then add them when my lists appear, so keep tweeting #ilovefreelance heww, twitter list #ilovefreelance so far http://bit.ly/ilovefreelance tweet @ freelancesw #ilovefreelance some cool peeps in there! In the first case, a blog relies on the readers – the wisdom of crowds – to provide them with the names of relevant twitter users. In the second, people choose to opt in to a list. This way @freelancesw has a list of engaged, passionate community members. Matt Rhodes gave great suggestions at the Fresh Networks blog A possible solution is to make lists collaborative. ____ suggested giving the list creator to make some, but not all, of their lists collaborative. I would also like to see appointing others to help manage a certain list. What do you think? I understand that this is still a new feature but it could be improved by giving users (paid or unpaid) additional options. In the meantime we will have to find creative ways to involve the community. I found two great solutions but I’m sure that others exist. If you find them, please share them in the comments. A list makes makes twitter impersonal. Kevin Makice gave some really relevant points in his post about the impact of twitter lists . People often get an email when someone follows them, or will go through their own list. This may give them a prompt to contact you. Following a list gives little incentive to engage. It encourages pruning, as it eliminates the need to follow to keep track of them. Also, the lists encourage users to “treat the channel as simply information broadcast.” They may not follow at all. This means that they reduce the means for private communication and the chance to take the relationship off site. Many users found other issues that contributed to the impersonal vibe. Amber star found it interesting that you can not tweet to a list. For example @twitter/team does not send a tweet to the entire “team”. I am assuming that you can watch live updates filtered to this list, but more compelling would be the ability to consume and produce at this list level, so that while viewing the live stream of say @twitter/team, you could also tweet a status update, and it would automatically be sent to the @twitter/team. I have tweeted about this in the past, in what I call Twitter 2.0, where I see twitter as a hierarchy, where one can consume and produce tweets and any level within the hierarchy. Terrence O’Brien observed that it wasn’t easy to read all the tweets. Since each list constitutes its own page, we don’t consider this to be an easy way of reading tweets for the large number of people you’re following. This may change once the third party apps start integrating twitter lists into their offerings. Sampad Swain identified that there was no easy way to search lists. He recommended that Twitter should enable some search option which makes searching “Twitter Lists” easier. On this regards, Twitter can integrate “Twitter Lists Search” in Twitter search only with two tabs in place of one tab (like Google). What do you think? I think that twitter lists can make it impersonal but it can also improve how you connect with other users. It depends on how you use it and how you find ways around the current limitations. What are your experiences? There are more opportunities to game The spammers will buy their way onto high profile lists. You get twenty lists and 500 on each one. Thus, as Dave Troy pointed out, there is a scarcity factor. “Everybody’s making collections, and there are certainly people who will pay and be paid for listings. Count on it.” Alex Wilhelm was one of the first to identify spam arriving on twitter lists. He said that: Twitter needs to implement a “report list as spam” feature right away. In fact, combine the two, and have a “report list and spam and block user” button. What do you think? I know there are many opportunities to game. I feel uncomfortably with the possibility of giving spammers ideas, but would love to hear your opinions in the comments. People may accidentally out you This was a concern given by Todd R Jordan . The two examples given were related to location and sexuality. This may cause problems for those who have a separate online and offline presence. Additionally, it is possibly to accidentally invade someones privacy. I recommend that users are cautious about some methods of categorization. It will reduce SOME of the noise on twitter One of the things that caused a lot of buzz was how it could reduce the amount of follow fridays. Many people reported that it made them reassess how they consumed their content online. Colin Alsheimer said that “What stopped me from using it (twitter) as a content delivery service was the massive amounts of noise I would have to filter through to get to the content I wanted to read, when I wanted to read it. If there’s no noise, this means that the accounts are simply set up as content pushing news feeds. Almost like an RSS feed just in a format that’s tailored to social sharing.“ He said the solution was to create noise free related lists. Robert Scoble was the among the first to raise this issue in his post about using twitter lists to replace the google reader . He gave several reasons. Twitter is a lot faster than RSS readers Twitter delivers the news faster than RSS Twitter doesn’t tell you the number of news item you haven’t read It is easier to can twitter headlines There are also downsides to using twitter to replace RSS readers. Again, it is worth really assessing how you want to consume your content. Another benefit is being able to separate the really active users. Blake Waddill said: When you start making lists, will you split super active twitters into a separate group for people who rarely tweet so you can hear more of what the quiet people have to say, or will you let them be drowned out? I’m an active tweeter, and people have told me that they are unfollowing me because I am too noise. I can see twitter lists being useful for these people. Brands may change how they use twitter Colin Alsheimer also said that lists will give brands the push needed to segment their twitter accounts. He said: “We may be entering a period where major brands and online personalities start to fragment or split a single Twitter account into many focused, specialized accounts, for the purpose of getting onto as many Twitter lists as possible.” I believe that many brands should be segmenting their accounts. Just look at the awesome job Marvel and Zappos are doing in this regard. If twitter lists provides companies with the impetus to change their social media usage, then thats brilliant. I would love to here about any examples from the corporate sector. Your Turn. Social media is constantly evolving. This is still new and this post only covered a fraction of the commentary that is going on around this issue. Feel free to contribute in the comments. In particular, we would be interested in: How you are planning to use the service Interesting blog posts you have found Some of the benefits/concerns with this new feature. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . Twitter Lists In Detail or, “Yo Dawg, I Heard U Like Lists!” Related posts: Essential: 8 Things to Consider Before Using Twitter Lists Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 2 – Link Lists Construct your own ‘Top 10 Must Follow’ List as it relates to your own Niche

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Twitter Lists In Detail or, “Yo Dawg, I Heard U Like Lists!”