• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, October 1, 2009

Twitter plans to test a new feature with a handful of people to group tweets, but it has some wondering if the company recently valued at $1 billion has become a follower rather than a leader.

Nick Kallen, lead on Twitter's Lists project, wrote in a blog post that the idea is to allow people to create lists of Twitter accounts, from the funniest Twitter accounts to athletes, local businesses, and friends. "Lists are public by default (but can be made private) and the lists you've created are linked from your profile," he wrote

People subscribe to the lists, which makes the feature a tool to discover potentially great tweets and accounts. Twitter lit up with tweets, asking Kallen at @nk for a spot to test the service.

Moscow, Russia-based freelance Web developer Konstantin Kovshenin sent a tweet to Kallen requesting a space on the debug team. "I'm dreaming of the retweets GUI for ages, and now lists, and you all missed me again," he tweets.

Some point to the fact that Twitter is playing catch-up with third-party application developers such as TweetDeck, which allow people to create lists and follow tweets in separate columns. Connectual Managing Partner Aaron Goldman says the difference between TweetDeck and Twitter is that the latter will give people the option to make lists public. He says it's not unlike WeFollow, which aggregates lists based on specific interest categories.

Giving credit for innovation where it's due, Twitter's Lists feature enables people to share them. And while some of the features in Lists appear more as a we-follow strategy than taking the lead, Goldman says it gives people an easier way to "consume" tweets, and "discover" people like Danny Sullivan that search engine optimization (SEO) peers may want to follow.

For marketers, Lists gives people a reason to add you and seek out influential tweeters. Goldman says it also gives a new dimension to celebrity endorsements. "Get Ashton Kutcher to put you on his list and you're golden," he says. "Create lists that will appeal to your target customers. Show that you're an expert in your category. Give people a reason to visit your Twitter profile page to see what list you create next."

Tools that benefit consumers also benefit marketers. David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation at 360i, pointed to the ease of following a group of people supporting the same brand. Marketers will benefit from organizing their own Twitter ecosystems. Dell, Comcast and Wal-Mart Stores have several customer service representatives and departments tweeting on Twitter, but giving consumers the ability to follow all on one list makes it easier, he says.

And, as with any move Twitter makes these days, people want to know whether it will generate revenue. Their model seems to hit on the strategy Facebook and Google had for many years, Berkowitz says. "Make the free tools easy to use, so people will get their hooks into it," he says. "The big difference here is Twitter continues to keep us guessing. It's unclear that this tool will impact revenue in any way."