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If a list has more than 150 people, it is bogus (unless it's a list of douchebags on Twitter).
Even if the dbags figure out a way to start trading lists, we'll be able to see if the lists are bogus or not.
There are many small business people trying out Twitter. In every class I teach, they as "how do you get followers?" and are disappointed that they can't buy them. They just haven't yet understood that this ia not another ad medium.
The same will happen with lists, or anything that comes up.. someone will see Scoble talk about lists and decide they want to be on a list. They will read this post and see that being on a list is cool (they won't use "list/follwer" ratio) and they will spend hours asking friends to list them.
2 years ago, I heard people say "This is ruining Twitter".. heard the same about other technology too. (BBS operators talking more about what "should" be than adding any value).
Through it all, we have conversations with real people.. and life goes on.
You are right. Good content is good content.. even in just 140 characters.
I've written many thousands of tweets, status messages and short copy for email, business cards, etc. What works best is human to human engagement.
Sometimes, just a simple "Hello" or "Thank You" will make that person's day. And who would you rather buy from?
This is business. I tweet as part of my brand, but it's also human. After all, business is conducted between human beings, regardless of the technology.
You see, @thebloggess is on my 'bloggersiwanttosleepwith' list. That makes you the competition.
I am on a bunch of "Jew" lists as well, so you know that I've got the brotherhood of the.. accountants and tax attorneys who have my back.
While I do not pride myself on my # of followers (or try not to) I was pretty estastic to see myself on lists as soon as the feature rolled out. The lists show a lot about me and pretty accurately. From the lists I'm on people can see that:
1. I'm some sort of designer or creative person
2. I might be a little charming (to someone!)
3. I know someone that speaks Tagalog and considers me a friend
4. I Retweet often (if relevant)
5. I like Hip-hop (or music in general) and express that freely
I can now use lists when I am deciding whether or not to follow a fellow tweeter in addition to "Do they have a relevant bio? Do they have a url? Are they following way more people than are following them?"
http://twitter.com/strebel/douchebagfuckers
The real douchebags? I just don't follow them, much less list them. I don't like having annoying people pollute my Twitter stream, you see.
Anyway, once the gamers start gaming the lists, the rating sites should change their algorithms so that they take into consideration the quality of the tweeps in their lists, both the ones they follow and the ones that follow them. Their 1,000 lists artificially packed with spambots should count for less than the 115 that follow me, both the NaNoWriMo ones and those belonging to such tweeps as @kim and @BuzzEdition.
Anyway, it's early in the Twitter lists saga, so things are bound to change greatly by this time next year. For one thing, I suggested to @twitter that they add groups, which would be like lists mutually owned by their members. And others have their own suggestions...
Oh well, I blather and procrastinate writing my latest NaNoWriMo novel... *sigh*