Facebook gets groups, when will twitter?
It wasn’t part of the new facebook, but recently facebook enabled you to group your friends into different lists. This is a natural part of someone with a growing list of friends that they may want to keep track of.
Now I don’t even have that many people I follow on twitter just 150 (nice round number, shame to have to add more) but still I wouldn’t mind being able to sort them, and in theory I may want to just message some of them about some events, say some local stuff that is happening here in Bloomington.
This is a natural progression and something that users are expecting, but how does one implement this given the complete fragmentation of the user experience given the tremendous number of clients that have sprung up around the great open API that Twitter has supported from Day 1? This presents a very different set of problems than a more closed network. I suppose though that in the larger scheme of things as featuers are added to the service and API that because of the huge numer of developers and clients that good uses will catch on quickly as they have in the past.
Comments?
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While I agree that there are benefits to having group control, I hope Twitter never adds them.
The proliferation of microblogging and lifestreaming tools over the past year has largely been a response to what is missing on Twitter. However, I contend that one of the reasons Twitter is successful is its simplicity. It does not try to do to much or impose too many constraints. The nature of the beast would change considerably and possibly for the worse if we also had to manage groups.
A more useful upgrade, in my opinion, would be a better way to search and process other members. It is not easy to tell which of your followed authors are also following you, or even to just search for a specific user within your own follow net.
Some people I know have created multiple Twitter accounts to follow different kinds of groups (school vs. friends vs. professional, etc). For me, that would add a level of complexity and identity juggling that makes the service less appealing. I like the fact that I can just be me, and whoever wants to see that can.
I agree with Kevin. I am constantly amazed at how developers are their own worst enemy as they slowly (and sometimes quickly) dilute the core of their original concept. Case in point - LinkedIn.com. They just added several new applications. While it appears that some of the applications compliment the original concept of LinkedIn, others appear to take away from its value.
I think that one of the fundamental reasons why Twitter works is because it is so simple, as Kevin stated above. TwitterGroups, TwitterApps, TwitterMeetings, TwitterWhatever. At some point, Twitter can lose it’s identity. Can someone explain what myspace or facebook are in simple and concrete terms. Are they simply social networking apps? Has the meaning of social networking evolved? How many people do you hear say that they don’t use facebook anymore? Why is that? I propose that it is because no one can figure out what it is or does now.
I hope the keepers of Twitter are content with letting Twitter be Twitter.
You know it’s interesting… twitter seems simple enough, but only AFTER you start using it. I have described it to many people, a portion of whom are very tech savvy, and they just don’t get it and if they have an inkling it’s still only after they try it do they get it. Most don’t end up keeping up with twitter, but they get it, it’s just not for them (or they don’t have a big enough network). It makes we wonder if twitter is really that simple or not.