NEWSROOMS in the US have been using the new Twitter Lists feature to cover the recent shootings in Fort Hood and draw together news sources.
Mashable takes a look at some of the early examples, and it is good to see that other news operations have been placed on the Twitter Lists of other newsrooms.
Twitter Lists have only been available for a short time and I, like many, put together a list (see @thisfrenchlife/france) but wondered what more could be done.
This example of using a list for breaking news is a great use of the service, but I could also see lists being created for other reasons:
- Conference or event coverage
- Local and national election campaigns
- Meet-ups and networking events
As an added extra it would be a simple task to run the list through the Twitter widget that lets people display their own and others' tweets elsewhere on the web.
It would require someone to gather together the Twitter accounts to place on a list, but it could also help people cut through some of the hashtag mayhem that can occur when people gather round a subject.
Fort Hood Shooting Shows How Twitter, Lists Can be Used for Breaking News - Poynter Online
Thought about this the other day on Twitter, not realising you had already put this out there.
I'm thinking lists could be really useful for breaking news. Especially to filter the relevant accounts of the event.
For it to work, it should be easy to add people to a list, one click at most. That list would only display tweets with a certain hashtag, or display all tweets from certain people during the event.
Everyone should be able to add people to the list, and flag those who doesn't belong there. To spam, you would have to add yourself to a list and not be flagged. Then it becomes hard to spam the stream with other than relevant info.
This could be made simpler or more complex, or entirely different. But I think the potential is worth looking into, especially as breaking news are such a big thing on Twitter.
Posted by: Kasper Sorensen | November 11, 2009 at 09:44