I've found people to follow in certain industries from following lists created by other people I trust. I think that's a great use of lists. I don't look at how many lists I'm on and think about my influence or popularity. I just don't care that much.

Another extremely valuable use of lists that I think will come out in the next few weeks is integration with third-party applications. I have "groups" in several different Twitter applications. They're scattered and there's no easy way to get them synced. I'm hoping integrating Twitter lists (even private ones) with third party applications will allow me to have the same groups in Tweetdeck or Seesmic on my desktop as I have in Tweetie 2.0 (or 3.0) on my iPhone.

Being able to segment people I follow is much more important to me than creating lists I want to share with other people. I follow different people for different reasons, so sometimes I'm looking to connect with friends and family, while other times I'm interested in finding out more about a technology topic or learn about marketing. I think lists will help segment these groups allowing better interactions.

We'll see…

I am not looking forward to the majority of blog posts regarding lists…

More importantly, the only folks wringing their hands over this issue are people over-obsessed with vanity and perceived influence.

As I said above, "Enjoy the feature for what it can be for you."

Lists solves that problem in my book. "

Are you saying that lists can't be gamed?
It's just as easy to have lists comprising armies of strawmen.

At best lists or whatever social widgets or constructions the networks come up with should be viewed as just tools and not much more.

Anything else is just an exercise is self-promotion and blowing your own virtual trumpet.

The follower count has always been a dubious way to gauge whether someone has influence or is worth following. We all know it's incredibly easy to manipulate those follower counts and 75% of the "followers" are either bots or folks who don't give attention anyway.

Lists solves that problem in my book.

Am I inclined to think that someone is more authoritative on a topic or in a community because they are on a number of different lists? Yes, because it's a more organic way (at the moment) of issuing something like pagerank or quality score. Of course that will change and evolve just as Twitter continues to change and evolve.

Don't forget, following someone is an exclusionary act itself. So, having that number of followers and followings can be seen as trying to prop up the strawman of an A List if you go down that path.

So, stop worrying and love the bomb. Enjoy the feature for what it can be for you.

Take for example the lists of most sexy women/men in the celeb magazines and it obviously increases the ratings of a particular celeb and then the lists becomes self perpetuating