Recently Twitter added a new feature in the hopes of making the social site more user-friendly. “Twitter Lists” is a new way to organize like-minded tweeters into lists. This should be another step in the right direction for Twitter which may have reached a plateau in growth.
The Twitter Lists feature is a new way to organize the people you’re following or find new members to follow. In essence Twitter Lists is Twitter’s way of competing with Facebook’s groups, and lets the user see what like-minded individuals are talking about in a more precise way. Each list is a unified Twitter stream of the latest tweets from a specific set of users.
The NHL had a brilliant idea to call-out NHL fans on Twitter in order to crowd-source Twitter Lists of NHL fans by their favorite teams. They sent out a tweet that said, “Hey guys–we want to create lists of #NHL fans by team! Please Tweet @NHL your favorite team or teams with the hashtag #myfavoriteNHLteam.”
Some smart developers have already started webpages designed specifically to cater to those that are interested in following specific lists:
Listorious, for example, is a third-party site that maintains a categorized directory of Twitter Lists that allows you to search or browse through lists by category, and find the most popular lists.
There is also a page for TweetMeme Lists, which is related to the popular TweetMeme, which shows the most tweeted links on Twitter and powers a “retweet” button for articles. Just like it does for links, TweetMeme also finds the most tweeted about Twitter Lists.
Along with the Twitter List, the site also added a small feature that may have gone undetected. They now have a small blurb at the top when you click on a trending topic which gets rid of the headache of not knowing what is going on.
Obviously Twitter is doing something right if a company made a product specifically for the use of Twitter and only Twitter.
Facebook has recently changed up their users homepages. Many, like me, assumed there would be some sort of outrage to the changes that have been implemented, and of course there were. One notable group formed on Facebook is the: “PLEASE GIVE US OUR OLD NEWS FEED BACK!” The group has over 600,000 members currently, and if many are like me, it will grow.
For me the problem isn’t so much the addition of the Reconnect, but more of the News Feed vs. Live Feed issue. In any case, change can be good once users get use to it, although with Facebook it seems that just as you get the hang of the changes, they switch it up again; I guess that’s part of the process in making a user-friendly social site.
Many of the social media websites have learned from the mistakes of MySpace and have learned to adapt in order to stay afloat in today’s disloyal consumer market.
Related posts:
One Comment
I’ve gotta be honest, I’m not quite seeing the appeal of the Twitter lists at the moment. They seem very disconnected from the rest of the Twittersphere. Maybe it’s something that’ll catch on over time.
The blurb describing current trends is definitely a welcome addition though.