Twitter list widgets are great, but filters are better

Last week, I wrote about how brands can use Twitter lists. Shortly after the list function was announced, Twitter released a Twitter list widget, a tool that enables people to embed a streamed version of their list on any blog or Web site.

It's one thing to have a list; lists help validate and organize one's Twitter contacts into easily digestible groups.

Please bear with me for a moment:

Let's say you care enough to create a list of contacts for your brand. Presumably, you care enough about the content these people produce to add them to your list.

Now, let's say you wanted to stream all of their tweets into a widget:

• Where would you place this widget? Probably on a site pertaining to your brand.
• What type of content would you want to stream? Most likely, brand-related content.

I wrote in my last post that good Twitter accounts are not one-dimensional. This means, if the people you put on the list are well-rounded, they'll tweet about topics that may not pertain to your brand 24/7.

(Big gasp.)

It's great that Twitter widgetized its Twitter list function, and it's even better than Twitter lists are an easy way to screen the people who show up in any given Twitter feed. But at the end of the day, brands will be hesitant to stream non-brand related content on its page, even from its best advocates, and even if it's in a widget.

The next step for Twitter list widgets must be to enable users to filter content that's streamed through them. Only then, I believe, will Twitter list widgets become more mainstream.

Thoughts?

- Daniel B. Honigman