Back when Twitter Lists first started to roll out to everyone, there was quite a bit of hype over how lists would have a major impact on the way people use the service. The extent of that change remains to be seen (many Twitter clients still haven’t integrated Lists so plenty of people probably haven’t even been exposed to them). But even during its relatively short existence we’ve come across one glaring weakness: there’s hasn’t been a good way to describe what a list you created was actually was actually about. Today, that’s changing: Twitter is rolling out a field for descriptions, according to a tweet from engineer Rael Dornfest.
Yes, you’ve always been able to name a list whatever you want, but that usually involves creating ugly titles like ‘tech-people-I-think-are-smart’. Take for example, TechCrunch’s list on Tech (check it out if you haven’t already). The word ‘tech’ is probably what most people would search for if they wanted a list related to technology, which is why we chose it. But it’s also ambiguous: that list could be a stream of stories from the top tech blogs, breaking news, or tweets from the people behind the stories. Now that Twitter is rolling out a description field, we’ll be able to keep the succinct title while more effectively describing what the list is about.
In a followup tweet, Dornfest gave instructions on how to add descriptions to lists you’ve created:
Adding a description to an existing list is as simple as: visit list page, click “Edit” (top-right), add a description, and save.
And if you’re looking for some lists to follow, be sure to check out the rest of our lists here (we’re always updating these so let us know if you thikn you should be added).