Twitter looking more like email shock horror

Today, amongst massive blog attention, Twitter announces "Lists":

The idea is to allow people to curate lists of Twitter accounts. 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.

Lists are public by default (but can be made private) and the lists you've created are linked from your profile. Other Twitter users can then subscribe to your lists. This means lists have the potential to be an important new discovery mechanism for great tweets and accounts.

Good heavens - does this just look a bit like the emergence of email Groupware in the early 90's?. Of course not, because email, as we all know, is evil. Perish that thought!

But the functionality we need for using messaging is roughly the same, irrespective of system.

Thus - another prediction for you - in 2 years time you won't be able to tell the difference between a Twitter client and an email one functionally. We will all have ThunderTweet and Microsoft Tweetlook on our systems by then (or more likely Thunderbird et al will handle Twts and emails). Or we will all have Google Wave I suppose...... (who will win the Next Gen Comm Client War - answers on a Twtcard)

And everyone will be moaning about the "Tyranny of their Tweetbox"

And there will be a new, fun, system that all the cool people are using, and it will be cool mainly because its got so few people on it so it doesn't swamp you, and its not where all the work tasks come from......