As some of you are already no doubt aware, Twitter is now encouraging users to join lists to help streamline the process of finding those with whom we share common interests and enthusiasms. Not surprisingly the entire blogosphere is abuzz, and since this post was first published, Jeremy Porter has published his own take on the new phenomenon on his excellent Journalistics blog, and now Craig Kanalley has posted “How Journalists Can Use Twitter Lists to Customize, Discover and Curate” on Poynter Online.

Whether Twitter lists will improve the functionality of this rapidly expanding platform remains to be seen.

But to test the waters, I’ve started some  lists  called “La Trobe Tweeters”, and “La Trobe bloggers”.  I also started La Trobe students, but I can’t see the point of listing people who aren’t on Twitter on a Twitter page.

I’ve also added “emerging journalists” which directly addresses our mission statement as a site, and, I would hope, would help us build a list of early career journalists that be especially useful for graduating students. As far as I’m concerned anyone who has had anything published in any format can be considered for inclusion in this category.

As well as adding yourself to lists, where appropriate, please fell free to encourage your friends and colleagues to join, and lets see where this takes us. And don’t forget, you can be listed in multiple categories.

We’re going to develop a collaborative feature piece on this over the next week, so please send us details of your experiences with Twitter listing. Have you tried setting up your own? Which ones do you follow? How useful are they?

Lawrie Zion is the editor-in-chief of upstart.