Build Better Twitter Lists With ‘Proxy’
Today I stumbled upon a service called Vicarfully that allows you to create new Twitter lists based on who other Twitter users follow. It’s an easy and automatic way to create lists of interesting accounts that saves you a ton of time compared to the manual method – and lists greatly improve your experience over the regular nonsense fire hose you see on a social site.
Vicarious’s genius comes from the way you make these lists. For example, you can simply follow the main path: create a Twitter user list that includes all the people followed by another Twitter user. When they follow a new person, that person is automatically added to your list; when they unsubscribe from someone, they disappear. (The proxy automatically updates the lists you create.)
You can also complicate the task a little. For example, Vicarfully can create on Twitter a list of all the different followings that multiple people have. So, if you have multiple “VIPs” on Twitter that you care about, you can see what other accounts they all follow – an unusual way to “check” other Twitter users you might want to follow.
Alternatively allows you to create fairly complex equations. Want to see all the people one person is following minus all the people the other is following? Light. Want a list of all accounts that two users are subscribed to, but not both ? Simple. To be honest, describing this is more annoying than setting it up. Fortunately, Vicarious’s user interface couldn’t be easier to understand:
Deputy lets you create one Twitter list for free. If you want more, you will either have to delete this list and create a new one, or pay $ 2 per month (or $ 12 per year) to cover the cost of the service.
However, there is another good reason for connecting Vicarious to your Twitter account, even if you are not creating a one-size-fits-all free list. The very first screen you see on Vicarious has two important parameters:
Unfortunately, Twitter lists are ripe for abuse, and Vicarious’s automated tool is both a blessing and a curse in this regard. This is incredibly useful for people trying to find new accounts to subscribe to (or getting a little more orders for many of the accounts they already subscribe to). However, if someone wants to be a jerk, it’s easy to see how they could also use Vicarious to add you to the list of “people I think are jerks” if another account they disagree with follows you .
Unfortunately, Twitter doesn’t give you the ability to prevent yourself from being added to lists. Your only resource is to block users when they put you on a list like ” Fools who don’t dust off, ” but this is an imperfect and impractical solution if something you post, or, in this case, someone else, who is following you calls up loads of people to start adding you to the nasty lists they create.
I also agree that it is foolish to give a third party service access to your Twitter account just to prevent abuse by that service. However, Vicarious’s tools are so powerful – and unique as I can’t think of any other service that allows you to create lists like this – that it’s worth using to get the extra privacy from the tool. At least this is the first thing I would notice if I was added to many more Twitter lists than before.
Don’t forget that you can also report offensive lists directly to Twitter . There is no guarantee that they will do anything about it, but this is another path you have if you find yourself being targeted by other users of the service.