FoaF brought you *items* from other people using your current friends as a filter. Lists do not do that. They simply give you a list of people who have been defined by a friend. If you look at that list you're not going to get content that matches that definition. They are *very* different IMO. - AJ Kohn

or another way for people to say "look what people think about me" - Josh Haley

@Josh: Yup, for those who haven't graduated beyond caring what others think about them. - AJ Kohn

Look at this list and tell me if you can figure out the topic: http://ff.im/aQouI And if you can, does it really deliver value? - AJ Kohn

AJ - glad to hear you've graduated beyond caring what people think of you.. - Andy Connell

@Andy: Got over that sophomore year of high school and never looked back. Doesn't mean I don't treat people well, but ... you just can't control how others are going to think about you and it's pretty dreary worrying about it. - AJ Kohn

Agreed that lists are not a way of restricting content; they're a way of restricting people. But IMHO it's all the same as far as I can tell—the FOAF feature shows me new people because one of my friends likes their content; the lists are another mechanism for doing that, but the people are hand-selected by someone else, and not based upon a single piece of content. Ultimately, both... more... - Glen Mistletoe

I just don't see them as the same. With FoaF I'm assigning a weight to the content (and thereby people) when I like or comment on an item. People subscribed to me may use me as an SEO filter, and so I'm selecting the best SEO content and passing it along. I take that ugly list view and pass along what's good. A list doesn't come with any assignment of weight. You're only getting a... more... - AJ Kohn

So, if I put you on a list of "SEO experts," wouldn't that explicitly be a recommendation to others that you'd be a good person to follow for that topic? Because there's no way (on Twitter or FriendFeed) to subscribe to a "topic"—if a person wants to follow SEO as a topic, then they need to follow SEO people. With FriendFeed's mechanism, you do this by highlighting a single piece of... more... - Glen Mistletoe

@Glen: That would be nice of you. But the problem is I talk about a lot more than just SEO. Heck I'll toss in LOLcats quite frequently!. So they're not always there, that's what I'm saying. So, if someone looks at that noise, that person might actually think YOU did a bad job with your list - even though you didn't. And if I'm one of 100 people on that list, am I really good or middle... more... - AJ Kohn

So, to be effective, you shouldn't ever follow anyone? Just use saved searches? Not sure I understand the reasoning there. How do you know what to search for if you want to discover interesting but unknown things? Do you expect every SEO-related post to have #seo in it? - Glen Mistletoe