Twitter Tweaks Social Media with New Lists Feature

Twitter, the over-hyped, under-appreciated social network for sharing chit-chat and links, just launched a tool enabling users to create their own lists on the site. The Journal explains the basics:

The new feature allows Twitter users to organize the people they follow and streamline their feeds. Others can then follow their lists, sparing them the time of hunting for individual Twitterers with shared interests

So what, right?

The feature could be consequential, however, because it devolves a bit more media and social influence to users.

Previously, Twitter essentially held the market on recommending users, through its official list of suggested users. Making that list would net a user hundreds of thousands of followers -- turning the micro-site into a broadcasting portal with the reach of cable news. Landing on the list is so valuable, in fact, one state's election commission is examining whether such social media activity should be regulated. (California has several pols on the big list, with follower counts topping 900,000.)

The new lists enable people to curate and aggregate their own recommendations. Then other users can follow the entire group, or surf a list through a dedicated section of Twitter, which is accessible to people who never even signed up with the service. (This may please Nation commenter Mask, our resident luddite.)

For example, The Nation's Twitter account now hosts a list of Nation contributors. I just created a politics and media list of people worth checking out on Twitter. And users are already innovating ways to tap the list feature for activism and political shaming -- human rights advocate Bob Fertik launched a list tracking journalists who he accuses of enabling torture and war crimes.

Apart from influence and recommendations, this feature also breaks digital ground for live, communal conversations. Now, a national organization could invite its members on Twitter for real-time reaction to a big event, like a presidential speech. That already happens on Twitter, but primarily through new, social networks of people -- not across the social or organizational graphs of offline groups.

Comments (19)

1. It's a great move in order to build communities and bridge people's interest here.

   Great stuff.

   ----Andrew Jones (on Twitter as @sluggahjells)

   Posted by sluggahjells at 10/30/2009 @ 12:52pm

2. Every time Mr Melber goes on one of his "Isn't the Internet just so marvelous" things....I remember that scene from "The West Wing" with Bradley Whitford and John Spencer-

   Leo McGarry: My generation never got the future it was promised... Thirty-five years later, cars, air travel is exactly the same. We don't even have the Concorde anymore. Technology stopped.

   Josh Lyman: The personal computer...

   Leo McGarry: A more efficient delivery system for gossip and pornography? Where's my jet pack, my colonies on the Moon?

   Posted by Mask at 10/30/2009 @ 1:11pm

3. Good post, Maskot.

   Instead of the brave new world, we get Dubya --and now Obama-- carrying out unwinnable, undeclared, unconstitutional wars, and abject inattention to the ongoing 6th mass extinction --last one wiped out Dinos 65 million years ago-- being brought to its conclusion by human caused global warming.

   What's not to like?

   By the way, I like that Leslie Savan referred to Obama as "44" in her Notion post. That is a not so subtle rip on the current admin. It kind of amazes me that it's so difficult to be highly critical of Obama at this point given his pathetic lack of action in so many critical policy areas. Charm obviously has great power to disarm, but that charm has a limited shelf life.

   Here's a nicely toned piece by Ted Rall:

   www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23835.htm

   Excerpt:

   In the second covert executive order, Bush authorized the CIA to target and assassinate said "enemy combatants"--again, including American citizens.

   These two documents first came into play on November 3, 2002, when a CIA-operated Predator drone plane violating Yemeni airspace fired a Hellfire missile at a car containing Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, supposedly Al Qaeda's #1 man in Yemen at the time.

   U.S. officials didn't know that an American citizen, Kamal Derwish, was riding along. (You know what they say about hitchhiking.) "The Bush administration said the killing of an American in this fashion was legal...this is legal because the president and his lawyers say so--it's not much more complicated than that," CBS News reported at the time.

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/30/2009 @ 2:04pm

4. "I can assure you that no constitutional questions are raised here," said Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, after the CIA assassinations. "He's well within the balance of accepted practice and the letter of his constitutional authority."

   It's right there in the Constitution between the right to tax and the repeal of Prohibition.

   Anyway, Congress tried to clarify matters in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, part of which--the section that eliminated the writ of habeas corpus--got struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court last year. But the rest of the MCA remains in force, including a passage that defines an enemy combatant as anyone who provides "material support" to the "enemy." And who is the enemy? The enemy is anyone the president says it/he/she/they is.

   Again, there is no distinction between foreigners and U.S. citizens....

   Now that times have supposedly changed, it's time to ask: why hasn't President Obama abrogated Bush's controversial executive orders? If Obama truly seeks a break with the lawlessness of the prior administration, what better way to enact it?

   Simply put, no one man--not even a nice, articulate, charismatic one--ought to claim the right to suspend a person's constitutional rights. Not in America. Certainly no one man--not even a young, handsome, likeable one--should be able to have anyone he wants whacked. Even in dictatorships, the right of life and death is reserved for judges and juries operating under a system purportedly designed to support impartiality and a search for the truth.... Obama has eliminated the use of the phrase "enemy combatant," but The New York Times reported that the change is merely meant to "symbolically separate the new administration from Bush detention policies."

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/30/2009 @ 2:04pm

5. These days, Obama has ramped up the assassination of political opponents of the U.S. and the U.S.-aligned authoritarian regime in Pakistan, deploying more Predator drone plane attacks than Bush. But that's just for now. Obama could still personally order a government agency to murder you.

   Which is weird. But not nearly as weird as the fact that you probably don't care enough to do something about it.

   End quote.

   Well, at least we have the internet --for now anyway.

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/30/2009 @ 2:04pm

6. Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/30/2009 @ 2:04pm

   Sorry, kool, but can't seem to get past THIS when it comes to your carping about "Obama is just like Bush" ....

   "Edwards is the fightin' populist, so we better pull our heads together and vote for his aggressively progressive platform. The time has never been more pregnant with possibilities for the progressive agenda."----Posted by b_kool_66 at 12/27/2007 @ 4:28pm

   He lied to Elizabeth...what makes you think he wasn't lying to YOU?

   Posted by Mask at 10/30/2009 @ 3:00pm

7. Here's the deal, Maskot.

   It may well not have mattered if Edwards had not so badly screwed up (post facto), and had he been able to --against steep odds-- won the presidency. I think there's a good number of true progressives, myself included, who would have preferred someone like Kucinich or Nader anyway.

   Edwards as prez would have been, in many ways, as long a long shot as any we might care to name.

   That being said, as much as I really liked Obama in the wake of his Dem convention speech in '04, he was looking like badly damaged goods by the time late '07 rolled around. Of the many disturbing signals was the massive amounts of big bank money being firehosed at his campaign.

   The Nation probably should have either endorsed a Kucinich, McKinney, or Nader run on pure principle. If a more pragmatic approach was the idea, then Edwards was the best choice --this is pre-baby scandal, of course-- in regards to platform versus platitudes. Despite your claims of precedent in such cases as Bush 41's "read my lips" pledge, that anyone can reneg on a platform, it doesn'd occur without potentially grave political consequences.

   Bottom line:

   As the Nation mag has stated (quite boldly) on many occasions, we should be voting for a candidate's platform not their style points. It's that style voting --the old horse race politics that the Nation has beaten up pretty thoroughly-- that has now given us a lengthy list of vanity presidents from Reagan to Obama.

   It's not working, obviously. But answers are increasingly hard to come by in the quest to fix our old broken down political jalopy.

   Perhaps we should just shoot the whole thing in the head?

   Or we can just let it do it too itself.

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/30/2009 @ 3:25pm

8. Let me clarify that poor first line:

   It may well not have mattered if Edwards had not so badly screwed up (post facto), and had been able to --against steep odds-- win the presidency.

   Time for a beer.

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/30/2009 @ 3:27pm

9. I just dont' get Twitter.

   Why would I want to follow anyones feed? I don't care who they are, there is no way they are interesting enough to track their thoughts using the internet. If twits are anything like what folks post on Facebook, it is definately not worth it.

   Posted by Extraneous at 10/30/2009 @ 3:46pm

10. Finally, Maskot, would you care to bury the hatchet (or bone, if you prefer) and end your two year running war on Kool/Edwards.

    He was never my best bud.

    Finally, a few recent ironic headlines --not to be found in the "mainstream" media, of course, but the ironies abound without need for The Daily Show or Colbert to illuminate them.

    US to pay Taliban to switch sides:

    news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8329129.stm

    ‘US drone strikes may break international law':

    tinyurl.com/ykny995

    Obama turns to the financial elite for campaign cash:

    tinyurl.com/ygyu6ke

    When tragedy gets a bit too inconvenient, at least we'll always have comedy.

    Happy Halloween, all.

    Peace, ~B

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/30/2009 @ 3:49pm

11. Happy Holloween b_kool_66, Happy Holloween everybody! Holloween, my favorite holiday!

    Posted by Denise29 at 10/30/2009 @ 4:51pm

12. http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/img/2009/10/microsoft-twitter.jpg

    Posted by frosty zoom at 10/31/2009 @ 8:53pm

13. I did not know Mask is a luddite.

    Posted by Citizen54 at 11/01/2009 @ 6:23pm

14. Posted by b_kool_66 at 10/30/2009 @ 3:49pm

    No war...just a friendly reminder.

    As much as you'd hate to admit it, I think from his politics (2004 positions to 2008 positions) to his personal life...John Edwards was more of an opportunist and disengenuous than Barack Obama is or was.

    Posted by Mask at 11/02/2009 @ 09:18am

15. I did not know Mask is a luddite.----Posted by Citizen54 at 11/01/2009 @ 6:23pm

    Just don't buy all the hype, Citi. Talking about the "power of the Internet in politics" seems to me to be a bit like talking about "learning swordsmanship from World of Warcraft."

    Posted by Mask at 11/02/2009 @ 10:49am

16. "As much as you'd hate to admit it...."

    No Maskot, I don't have a problem "admitting" that John Edwards was an opportunist. I suspect that's why many --including myself-- were cautious, at least, with any support of Edwards.

    Virtually all politicians exhibit some degree of opportunism, it comes with the job, but as much as most of us would judge Obama a better man than Edwards, the policies thus far --not to mention the lack of substance during his election run-- should mark Obama as either a fraud or inept, or both.

    Obama is killing his presidency with a lack of vigor and conviction. John Edwards, in contrast, made his career as a fighter.

    If it were possible to change the outcome, take away the Hunter affair and replace Edwards for Obama as prez, I'd wager that a lot of progressives would take that chance. We don't have to like 'em to see 'em kick some ass and make some headway in the cesspool that is Washington.

    That was what Edwards was promising. I wish we could have seen if he was only bluffing at this point.

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 11/02/2009 @ 10:59am

17. "I suspect that's why many --including myself-- were cautious, at least, with any support of Edwards. "-------Posted by b_kool_66 at 11/02/2009 @ 10:59am

    Rather than do a long search, simply return to the post above and ask...

    You were "cautious" with your support?!??!?!?!?!

    Let's read that again--

    "Edwards is the fightin' populist, so we better pull our heads together and vote for his aggressively progressive platform. The time has never been more pregnant with possibilities for the progressive agenda."----Posted by b_kool_66 at 12/27/2007 @ 4:28pm

    Oh, yeah...you're really keeping your powder dry and tempering your remarks, aren't ya, KOOL?

    LOL

    Posted by Mask at 11/02/2009 @ 11:58am

18. I rested my case, oh about two years ago or so, Maskot. It was about the PLATFORM of Edwards, not the individual.

    Obviously, the country is in deep shit now, and Obama is doing almost nothing beyond purty words to change that fact.

    And another thing....

    I will always admit to a mistake if I feel that one was made --unlike some others around here (Metteyya, for one-- but it's impossible to admit to a mistake in the case of Edwards' PLATFORM since it never got a chance to be implemented.

    The jokes on all of us, actually, but I don't think there'll be much laughter anytime soon for some reason. But nice job of digging for the last two years for that quote you posted.

    I'll admit to having been a booster (of Edwards' PLATFORM), but it was for a good cause --as we can now see in light of Obama's apparent ineptitude.

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 11/02/2009 @ 12:58pm

19. I sometimes wonder why a politician can't run if he or she has had an affair, not Edwards, he had other probs, but it does seem it doesn't have any thing to do with the way many politicians govern, europeans seem to have that more in perspective.

    Posted by Denise29 at 11/02/2009 @ 9:02pm