Yesterday, Shelby Sapusek shared her thoughts about being afraid of Twitter lists because they might enable her. Now, it’s my turn to take the She Said, He Said stage and share my thoughts about Twitter lists. And I love having the last word, well until tonight’s #shehechat when Shelby can rebut.
While I use Twitter lists to some extent, I don’t feel Twitter has got this feature right yet. Regardless, I did discover a new use for a Twitter list to offset the ill effects of another Twitter change. During our #shehechat last week, we discovered that the Twitter search API, which one uses to follow a hashtag-based chat, can lag as much as 15 minutes without warning.
The Twitter Search API lag workaround
After a frustrating hour following our own chat, I decided a strategy was needed to make sure we didn’t fall 15 minutes behind next week. I did notice during the chat that both my home feed, mentions feed and a list I follow stayed current. That got me to thinking that if I could get all the #shehechat participants in a list, I’d be able to see what they were saying in real time.
The nice thing about Twitter lists is I can share mine with you. So, if our chat starts lagging tonight, you too can follow this list shehechat list and keep up with the folks I know are regular participants in the chat. If you are a regular and don’t see your name on the list, please let me know with a mention on Twitter and I’ll add you. I’ll also add anyone I see participating each week.
This is by no means a perfect solution, but until we figure out what Twitter’s game plan is with the search API we don’t have any other options at the moment. If you have other ideas or more information about this search API change, please let us know.
This week’s #shehechat topics
1. How to use Twitter lists
2. What do you think about Twitter’s announcement to attach your image uploads to your profile?
3. If Google and all its applications and networks disappeared, what would you miss most?
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