Twitter rolled out its new lists feature to all users on Friday. Today, Seesmic will launch the first desktop client with support for lists. For now, this early release will only go out to users who sign up for Team Seesmic, the company’s semi-private beta-test group. We got a chance to test an early build of Seesmic with the lists feature over the last two days and it already changed the way we use Twitter. Seesmic plans to ship this preview version later today.
Using Lists in Seesmic
In the desktop client, Seesmic integrates lists in its sidebar. To add a list to the deck, you just click on the name of the list. Using these userlists is just as easy as creating a persistent search in Seesmic. Seesmic has also added the option to add users to a list right from the desktop.
This is still an early build and some features are still missing. Seesmic’s CEO and founder Loïc le Meur told us that Seesmic’s users had been asking for basic lists support and that the company wanted to get this feature into its users’ hands as soon as possible. Because of this, some features haven’t been implemented yet.
In the build we tested, we couldn’t create new lists, for example. For now, list columns also don’t update themselves. Instead, users will have to reload them manually. As le Meur told us, users would quickly hit their API limits on Twitter if the lists auto-updated. The company is working with Twitter to find a better solution. For now, the lack of auto-updating lists is an annoyance, but not a deal-breaker.
Le Meur stressed that this was still a preview version and that the company plans to ship more comprehensive support for lists in the final build.
Coming Later Today
If you want to give it a try, just sign up for Team Seesmic and you’ll be notified when the new build arrives.
