[Ireland] Social media consultants Simplyzesty started using Twitter Lists to list blogs. However, a brainwave has lead them to take Twitter Lists to their logical conclusion: creating lists of Twitter users in entire countries. They’ve launched a Twitter list for the UK and the list of users in Ireland is currently going crazy. They call it “crowdsourcing populations”. Who knows – this could end up being a sort of crowd-sourced yellow pages/people directory.
A couple of hours ago they launched a USA version with a script built to make the listings automatic. The plan is to do is to cover the USA in 72 hours.
Here’s how you get yourself into the list. The Irish one was built by hand, but the others are going to be built with a script but Twitter users tweeting “I want to get listed #TwitterCalifonia [or another state]” and Simplyzesty will collect all the tweets and add them to the lists for each State. In the UK Twitter users can tweet #TwitterEssex, replacing the county name with the county you live in.
Now clearly this might raise some issues for some (do you really want to be publicly listed as being in a certain country?) and potentially creates a list others might decide to abuse. We all know what happened to email eventually. It’s also clearly a useful marketing exercise for Simplyzesty.
But the lists could also show roughly where the Twitter populations are most active in the US (California is my fairly sure bet).
The full US Twitter lists are here, here and here because there are 50 states but Twitter only allows you 20 lists per profile.
UPDATE: As commenters helpfully correct me below, lists are limited to 500 users at a time. However, Simplyzesty says their contacts at Twitter indicate that the 500 limit is “not a technical issue” and may well be lifted. They’re also looking at other workarounds. Still, the project does still look, shall we say, a little ambitious…
Join my list: Bread, milk, lettuce, grapes, avocados, spinach, yogurt…
There are 12 million undocumented twitteries in the U.S. – what will happen to them? Will they get amnesty? Or should the legislator create @simplyamerica/undocumented and then delete them all?
Call your congressman today and demand a twitter reform, such that if one manages to post 100 smart twits that are actually useful for someone then he or she gets a green card.
funny! +1
Pretty sure lists were not meant for this…
Pretty sure most twitter features were not meant for anything that we use them for.
Lists like these are pretty handy if you want to create a mashup for local tweets, i have one for the town I live in and it will be used for a local directory and event site.
This is not going to end well.
Besides, lists should be used for more important things like my one: http://twitter.com/nzben/would-turn-gay-for
And the point of this is…..?
Plus you can only have max 500 people within a list.
A list for this . . . a list for that
A list for everything
Now Twitter chat
Somebody has a lot of free time
Mike: you really should have called Twitter about this. A list can only have 500 members. This idea is incredibly lame and a stupid reason for a TechCrunch post. Sorry.
Not only that but the self-imposed 72 hour deadline smacks of self promotion with no glimmer of a desire for public resource in sight.
Er, they’ve missed Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland out of the UK.
So, prior to reading how lame it is with only a maximum 500 members per list, I created Scotland.
Thank god I’m on company time right now.
Thanx for the valuable information. Lists like these are pretty handy if you want to create a mashup for local tweets. keep posting. Will be visiting back soon.
Twitter will no doubt add this sort of functionality themselves in the months to come, or rather, re-introduce it – 18 months ago it was possible to search for users by location, but Twitter removed the option.
Not sure if this concept was well thought through before it was posted..hmm
Like someone above said, they have missed Scotland, Wales etc off the list, but I think thats all the reporting and blogging thats talking about the lists, as their site is called ‘English Twitter population’, not UK or GB twitter population which would be a different thing!
What a load of negative bullshit in the comments.
SimplyZesty is a kick ass blog. Niall and Lauren might not “get it right” all the time, but they work their asses off and fire out some fantastic and helpful blog posts especially for small biz like mine.
“Pretty sure lists were not meant for this…” ah shove it Jason!
This would be a fantastic idea, if our website wasn’t available. Geofollow allows users to list their location, and categorize yourself by interests.
It’s completely free to list yourself, and you can bulk follow users by location.
The next step for twitter lists is to allow people to browse people by most popular list names they are in. List names are effectively to crowdsource people tagging.
For example, lets say 10 people added someone to their own “tech” list. What that would create is a tag for that person “tech”. So, then I could browse people that have a tech tag + linux tag + city tag for example.
Hope they will add a way to untag yourself!
@lamaru
Another Don here, I’m in Ireland though and second Joes point on SimplyZesty getting out there and doing something…surely you can’t knock that…lists are lists…it’s how you plan to monetise something that I am most interested in.
what is the point? here’s the twitter cycle: 1) friends and colleagues talk about tweeting. 2) you check it out and say i don’t get it. 3) you eventually jump in and tweet because you can’t get away from the buzz. 4) first you try to be witty and insightful then you realize that you still aren’t. 5) then you here its good for your business so you tweet some more. 6) then you realize tweeting is completely narcissistic and your ‘followers’ are so consumed with being followed that they don’t read your tweets or click on your insightful links. Because they are at step 4 and very consumed with their recently discovered wit and Steven Wright-like humor.