Twitter recently announced an upcoming release of "Twitter Lists," but we figured we'd beat them to the punch. We're excited to announce the alpha launch of Twillist today, a simple application to create and track lists of twitter followers. It's something we've been playing around with at Opera New Media along with our friends at Pod Consulting over the last few months. Having fallen in love, we thought it was the right time to put Twillist out in the wild.

We think we're at the dawn of a movement to create smart social filters to help people find great content -- the signal amidst the noise, if you will -- and Twillist is going to be our evolving contribution to that effort. We know we can't do it alone, so please be liberal with your feedback. Contact us at anytime.

The Twillist Team

Good read here.

Been meaning to share this for a while but never got round to it. Since this is the first Posterous post to auto-publish to the new @twillistHQ twitter, I thought it's as good a time as ever to do this.

- AK

I love Google Reader. It can be a bit overwhelming (feed management is critical), but no matter how many blog/news destinations I've tried (Techmeme, Digg, Mixx, Arts and Letters Daily), I always return to Reader. For me, Reader's appeal is rooted in the power of sources - certain voices carry more weight with me than others. There are bloggers, friends, and sources whose viewpoint and implicit judgment (If they're writing about something, they probably think it's important) is more valued. This is true not only of opinion but link behavior. I want to know what Paul Krugman (NYT columnist) thinks and where he links. Same for my good friend Michael Broukhim. Further still, I want to know who Michael reads. If he likes a blog, I might find it interesting too.

For the most part, it's pretty easy for bloggers to publish their sources. They could maintain a blogroll, publish an OPML feed, or use something like Blogrollr - a sweet application that actually keeps track of what blogs an author actually reads (as opposed to merely citing on the sidebar). For those who don't publish, it hasn't been as easy.

Reader Bundles changes that. From the Official Reader Blog:

Have you ever had a friend you just knew would love your three favorite blogs about education policy? Do you know all the best sources for celebrity gossip? Or maybe a friend who knows where to get the best baseball commentary? If you've ever wanted to share your favorite feeds, now you can create custom bundles and share them with just a few clicks.

This is a great first step but only a first step. Two things immediately suggest themselves:

1. It's not just about blogs anymore. Great (publicly consumable) content is now being published on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere. Bundles is just about blogs (for now).


2. Sifters need to be rewarded. Filtering is the great challenge of the web. Unlike a newspaper or magazine, the web is infinite and ever expanding. We need guides to sort the good from the bad, the interesting from the boring. Web rewards (popularity, ad dollars) are structured to reward content creators. Moving forward, greater emphasis should be placed on giving credit to those whose orginal contributions may be small but whose judgment is critical to highlighting good work.

Great sources aren't easy to find. Reader Bundles help, hopefully Twillist will too.

A few weeks ago, TechCrunch posted this great video Evan Williams talking about startups:

The takeaway: Do Something Awesome.

Startups are hard, the odds of success small and the difficulties great. A commitment to building something awesome, to doing something big is necessary sustenance for the tough times. Like Twitter, Twillist initially started out as a side project. Now, well, it's something more. Why? Because we think it's awesome and it's fun, and are pretty confident a lot of people will agree.

We're not there yet (the alpha's almost ready) but as we progress, this blog will chronicle the good, the bad, and the ugly. Thoughts are always welcome and desperately needed.