The Twitter landscape has a major change with the addition of the Twitter Lists feature, and users are waiting to see if this change is for the good (or bad) of their tweeting lives.
Here are the realities of Twitter Lists:
1. Groups made possible
The Twitter Lists feature is actually the much-awaited groups functionality. In the pre-list era, users cannot organize the people they are following, or search for people using the listings.
With Twitter Lists, users can group people in many ways. Family and friends can be grouped into distinct categories. Grouping by interest is also possible. Users can even group together all of their office mates, colleagues, and, yes, even the bosses, into one worklist.
2. The urge to group
Convenience is the main reason why people organize their Twitter contacts. Twitter Lists allows users to view the current tweet stream of any particular group, without having to sift through tons of tweets that is the norm in the default profile page. A simple click on a particular group will bring up a view of the tweets generated by that group. This also makes it possible to view what others are tweeting without actually following them, making the user's main tweet stream less chaotic.
Users can also compile their "favorite tweets" lineup and recommend these tweets to others easily, instead of having to do it tediously.
3. List creation made easy
The processes of creation and managing the listings are straightforward and easy to navigate with clickable links. A "New list" link is visible in the main page, and it leads to the creation page requiring users to provide the name and the preferred security settings for the new listing, be it public to everyone, or private only to the creator. The maximum number of lists that a user can create is currently 20.
4. From following people to following lists
Hitting the "Create list" button creates the listing's URL, of the form "twitter.com/user/new-list-name." Users can then begin adding up to a maximum of 500 people to it. Other ways to add people to the new listing is via their profile pages or the creator's following/follower page.
5. Uncluttered tweet viewing
Clicking the "Lists" link in the main page will bring up the user-created and following lists. Clicking on any of them will display the stream for this particular group for easy-on-the-eye viewing.
6. Group revision and access is easy
A "View list page" link will bring the user to the created listings. Other users can view and access the listings. But only the creator will be allowed to edit or delete the details therein, or change its security settings from private to public or vice versa.
7. User removal in a jiffy
To remove a user from a particular listing simply involves unchecking the list name displayed beside the user's name. For users who wish to be removed from other people's group, blocking the creator will automatically remove the former from the group listing.
Twitter Lists is an enhancement that aims to improve users' experience. It's one step out of the dark ages for Twitter, ensuring greater satisfaction of its users.