For the last couple months Twitter has slowly been rolling out Lists. It’s a super valuable feature that allows you to categorize and compartmentalize the people you are following.
Why is this important?
Well, even with a bazillion people on Twitter who don’t have much of value to say (I include myself in this bunch because I do a lot of metweeting), there’s still another bazillion who I really want to pay attention to, learn from and read. And lists addressed this problem by giving us the option to get soaked by the firehose or drink from the fountain.
So, now that we have this wonderful new ability to organize those we are following, what’s next?
What if we could also organize our followers?
And if we could organize our followers, into channels if you will, possibly we’d also be able to communicate to each channel differently with content relevant to that channel – or not communicate with certain groups at all.
For me, I don’t necessarily want to Tweet business stuff to my friends, or friend stuff to my business associates. Do you?
I mean don’t you sometimes find yourself Tweeting but not posting something in other social media forms because it just wouldn’t be appropriate – or vice versa?
And then, going further down the rabbit hole, don’t our friend and business associates also fit in further niche’ groups or categories?
Sure they do – some are friend, others are SEO’s, marketers, media people or just general tech geeks.
It’d be great to Tweet out to them directly – but still have have everything posted to the general overall feed as well to not devoid Twitter of what it is at it’s roots – an open form of social communication.
So as I’m rambling I’m wondering if this is ridiculous hyperbole which would just turn Twitter into real time short-hand email like garbate – or if it would actually be something of value.
What do you think? I’m curious to hear your thoughts?
John Kirker is an entrepreneur and technology evangelist. He started his first Internet Development Company in 1994 and since has advised or been involved in the development of hundreds of web applications for some of the world's most astute brands. He recently founded Tweetmatix.com - a local business connection building tool for Twitter. Check it out. 
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that would be something that would be very useful. i would totally be able to use that. would it have to be twitter? i could clearly see that as a new form of facebook twitter hybrid. i would love to be a part of developing this.
I could see it with FB too – individual groups or people categorization rather than the traditional “Facebook Groups” – would certainly work both ways.