“Sorry, you’re not on the list.” Oh, the burn. And if you’re on Twitter, the indignation is now monumentally public. But then I’m reminded of what my mother told me: it’s not quantity but quality that counts. And sometimes, the who is better than the what…

So what’s all the fuss about with these newfangled lists on Twitter anyhow? Well it’s really very simple: assuming most users are exceptionally lazy, for them to go to the effort of actually making a list and then adding you to it, I’d take that as a big fat endorsement.

But what about all the his-list-count-is-bigger-than-mine moaning and griping crowd? There’s where my dearly departed mother and her oft cited truisms comes into play. Would you rather be in / on five lists for some of the most influential people in your social network, or would you rather be in / on two hundred lists for people you don’t really know or even consider influential? If you had to think about that, leave now.

All of which brings us rathe neatly to the who and the what of social networking — it’s what yo