Today Twitter has begin a broad rollout of a new feature, Twitter Lists. The feature had been available only to a select group of beta users, but product manager Nick Kallen tweeted yesterday, “Currently, 25% of all users have Lists.” I don’t have access to Lists yet, but I expect it’s coming soon.

The point of Twitter lists is relevant discovery: It’s an easy way to find and follow Twitter users you might not otherwise know about, but would be interested in. However, you might not be interested in everything (or even most things) a given Twitter user in a list has to say. This is more likely if you’re more interest in topics than people. In this case, Twitter lists might deliver more noise than signal.

But I think if you use a good tool like Tweetdeck for accessing Twitter (rather than just the Twitter site, which has always sucked for usability), you can combine Twitter Lists with filtering to end up with something very useful indeed, especially for staying abreast of news or topics…

As far as I understand it, Twitter Lists are defined groups of Twitter accounts. If you follow a list, you automatically follow all the accounts in that list. Kallen described it this way: “For example, you could create a list of the funniest Twitter accounts of all time, athletes, local businesses, friends, or any compilation that makes sense.”

…Well, that kind of list would be useful in some cases, but in many others I think it may not be what Twitter users or others are looking for. That’s because people don’t have one-track minds.

People who use Twitter most effectively tend to post about a lot of different topics that interest or affect them. Generally, Twitter accounts that only post about one topic tend to be more about publication than conversation, and that gets boring in social media.

For instance, many journalists follow me on Twitter because I have a lot to say about journalism. But I also tweet about my former abode Boulder, and my new town Oakland. And I occasionally mention other topics I love, like zombies, polyamory, my recent experience with knee surgery. Plus I cover live events via Twitter, too.

…Yeah, I tweet a lot. And not everyone who follows me is interested in everything I talk about. That’s fine for some folks, and not for others. And that’s pretty typical.

Someone who’s interested in zombies might decided to create a Twitter List of people who tweet about zombies. Right now, near Halloween, that would probably be a long list indeed. And I’d bet that most of those zombie tweeters would also be tweeting about a lot of other stuff.

So if you’re only interested in tweets about zombies, then the smart thing to do would be:

• Designate a group in Tweetdeck based on the zombie Twitter List (see the problem with this, below)
• Display tweets from that group in a column.
• Use Tweetdeck’s filter function on that column to display only tweets from that group that include “zombie” or “zombies.”

That way, you’d only see relevant tweets from the selected list of Twitter users.

LIST + FILTERING TO THWART TWEETSPAM & HASHTAG HIJACKING

Sticking with this example: If you use my strategy, you’d be viewing zombie tweets only from a selected group of users (and not from anyone who uses that keyword). Thus you’d avoid the growing problem of keyword tweetspam — when spammers post spam tweets that include keywords which anyone would see in a Twitter search. That gets really annoying, especially for trending topics and other popular search terms or hashtags.

In fact, the Twitter user convention of hashtags arose in part as a way to curate the quality of tweets about a topic. Twitter users who use hashtags when discussing topics or events generally tend to be especially dedicated to the topic or community — and often just better (or at least more experienced) at using Twitter.

The problem is, anyone can include a hashtag in a tweet. Which is why spammers start bombarding hashtags that get popular.

Also, hashtags can be “hijacked” by people who wish to disrupt ongoing discussion or coverage of a topic or event. For instance, often hashtags related to healthcare reform or climate change get heavily used by people who oppose action on both those topics. They’ll post rude or otherwise disruptive tweets that include the hashtag in order to make it difficult or unpleasant for people trying to have a civil ongoing discussion.

However, if you’re starting from a defined Twitter List and then filtering by keyword or hashtag, you’d never see spammy or disruptive tweets.

Keeping up with changing lists? I don’t know yet whether additions and deletions made to a Twitter List after you follow that list are automatically reflected in your own Twitter friends list (the people you follow). That kind of updating could be useful to keep up with a shifting array of recommendations or players. However, it could also be abused by spammers or other nefarious characters. I’ll experiment with that and report back later.

PROBLEM: MY BRILLIANT IDEA DOESN’T REALLY WORK YET (EASILY)

Combining Twitter Lists with keyword filtering would be great, IF: Tweetdeck or other sophisticated Twitter tools (Like Seesmic Desktop and Hootsuite) allowed you to automatically import a Twitter List as a group. As far as I can tell, they don’t do that yet.

So this brilliant idea of mine doesn’t really work well yet. Because you’d have to follow a Twitter List and then manually select those Twitter friends to create a Tweetdeck group. And then you’d have to apply your term-based filtering to the column for that group.

I just checked out help files for Tweetdeck, Seesmic Desktop, and HootSuite. So far none of them allow you to import a Twitter List as a group. I’d expect, they’ll add that automatic feature soon (nudge nudge), because Twitter Lists are likely to be popular — and maybe even supported directly via the Twitter API.

In the meantime, keep my filtering strategy in mind. It’ll work — it’s just clunky.

ALSO: If you create Twitter lists: Suggest filtering terms (formatted as a boolean “OR” search query). This will make it easy and fast for your List subscribers to filter for exactly what you intend your list to focus on.

…What do you think of my strategy? Any corrections, suggestions, or updates? Please comment below.

Without going into details, I’ve been handling a lot of major personal stuff lately — and I’ve been fortunate to have a strong and growing circle of close friends who have stepped up to offer me a steady supply of energy, support, perspective, honesty, sympathy, empathy, nurturing, and fun.

And I do this for them, too. That’s the core of deep friendship and other loving connections: You give of your own energy to help sustain others who are running low or in transition. At certain points we all need more nurturing; and at other times we have an abundance of energy and emotion to offer. Life comes in waves.

Personally, I’ve always found it very hard to ask for the help or nurturing I need. I don’t trust people easily, especially where my feelings of vulnerability are concerned. I assume that any emotional need I have, however small, will be perceived as too great an imposition. I don’t expect other people to be available to me. (Yes, I’m working on changing this mindset, quite deliberately. It’s a coping mechanism I’ve outgrown.)

As I’m reaching out more to my close friends, I’m wishing I had a tool that would help me to gauge their situation before I make a request, so I can be more sensitive to when I might actually be imposing.

Here’s what it might look like…

Imagine an online social network where your “friends” truly are only your closest friends — your confidantes, the people you care for most and who care about you, your trusted support network or tribe. This is definitely about quality, not quantity.

Imagine that you could download a small app or widget that would allow you to specify your current level of available emotional energy, attention, and time — that is, what you have to offer whoever in your circle might need it. It would also allow you to specify your current emotional needs from a customizable category list, and rate them low / medium / high. You could even transmit notes like “Need encouragement to finish filing my taxes” or “feeling lonely on the anniversary of my divorce” or “shoulder massage badly needed” or “I haven’t had a good laugh all week.”

This information would not be published in any way — it would only be available to the people whom you specify, through this app. It wouldn’t be available to search engines or for syndication.

When the people in your close circle are connected through this app, you could look at the app’s dashboard whenever you feel like you have some energy, attention, and time to offer, and indicate the current resources you can offer. The dashboard would display the current needs of your close friends, ranked according to how well they match with your emotional availability. Then you could take action — from arranging a coffee date to sending a text message to stopping by to give a hug and listen — to respond to that need.

Friends with significant needs or crises would be flagged (perhaps even via mobile alerts), so you’d know if a loved one needs immediate attention and realign your current priorities if needed. Because when you experience a death in the family, the end of a significant relationship, a serious illness or accident, the loss of a job… just reaching out to contact your closest friends can seem daunting. What if you could simply alert your entire support network with just a few clicks?

…Obviously, more would need to be fleshed out — like tracking needs that have gone unmet for more than a day, or having multiple friends collaborate to meet someone’s need. But what do you think of this nascent idea? Does it already exist? Could it?