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Twitter has an estimated 45 million users, this is a pretty big user base that Twitter has to please. With that comes decisions that will tick off some and please others no matter, the key is finding a balance.
Twitter’s latest feature, Lists, have been a well discussed feature around the blogosphere. I am not sure how Twitter manages to get about as much press as Apple with little to no effort, but it is what it is.
There are numerous complaints, ranging from spam, to the actual usefulness of having lists. The latest complaint that I have seen and has yet to be bludgeoned to death is the fact that Twitter lists tap out at 500 people.
To some, 500 is simply too low of a limit and these people are shouting, “more!” comparing the limit to that of Facebook’s 5,000 friend cap for personal pages (which I also agree with, by the way). Let’s be clear here, you are an outlier.
Twitter Lists are meant to organize and keep track of certain people on Twitter and obviously, their tweets. This means lists will be generally small and well below the 500 limit. So how can I make this assumption?
My current job requires me to look at a lot of Twitter profiles (I look at Twitter profiles about 15 hours a week, to be exact) and many of them tweet on a semi-regular basis, but not nearly as much as you or I. In another words, these tweeters more or so use Twitter for work and maybe some pleasure. With the public release of Twitter lists, many tweeters are on at least one list. I have clicked through on a lot of these lists (probably around 20), and many people only add up to 50-100 people to their lists, if not less. This is because people are making these lists for their benefit and to actually keep track and not miss fellow tweeters tweets like they used to previous to lists.
This is the exact reason Twitter lists were created.
With that in mind, it is rather pointless to go above and beyond 500 tweeters on a list, otherwise you are missing Tweets just like you did before on your home feed, essentially defeating the purpose of lists.
I know there are some that disagree about the limit, but Twitter has to target their core audience and whether you like it or not, you hardcore list makers are outliers in the grand scheme of things. Twitter had to find a balance, and I believe they found an appropriate one for both regular and hardcore users.
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