Humanity has always loved creating lists to provide context for things, and the Twitter universe is no exception.
Whether it’s the suggested user list for new users of the service, the Twitter List function which has recently been announced and will arrive soon, or the huge variety of third-party lists created for almost every topic (e.g. People in UK Radio – I’ve slipped down the list slightly!)
But if you want to create a list quickly and easily to monitor, and don’t fancy waiting around for Twitter itself, then Mixtweet provides a good solution.
It allows you to create mixes from your friends, your timelines or other peoples mixes, and you don’t need to be following people to add them. And once the list is created, you can embed it as a widget wherever you fancy.
You can also view multiple ‘mixes’ via the site, with real-time updates and the ability to clip any update for later reading, and founder Michael Wu has said that Mixtweet lists will be made compatible with Twitter Lists when their API becomes available.
It also users OAuth to access your account, so minimising any safety risk, or you can create a log-in via the site itself. All in all, a really nice service – although you may wonder what their plan will be once Twitter Lists become available, that doesn’t seem to be a reason to avoid using them in the meantime.