Excerpt from my Mashable post from today:

Though Twitter Lists are new to most users, some news organizations are trying to stay ahead of the curve by taking advantage of the new feature and implementing it quickly. Whether by creating staff directories to make their journalists easier to find, or recommending tweeps to follow on specific subjects, Twitter lists are giving news sites the ability to curate news and further open up to Twitter users that can help them to gather news. News () organizations are beginning to learn the fundamental characteristic of social media: it’s social.

This is an interesting departure for news organizations that were primarily using Twitter () as a service for self-promotion, such as the case with ESPN, whose social media policies serve ESPN efforts first. Or like policies of The Wall Street Journal, which were criticized for being too restrictive. The list of ways news organizations are using Twitter Lists is expanding. If you come across a creative way that lists are being used, please share in the comments below.

1. Staff Directory

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Jennifer Preston, the first social media editor of The New York Times, is working with staff to strategize their use of tools in the social media landscape. She said for the past couple of months, the focus of their social strategy has been on how to best use Twitter and “tapping into the real-time Web.” One of the newest pieces of that strategy is the Times’ Twitter lists.

The Times’ Twitter lists allow readers to be able to follow a list of Times’ staffers, which includes a stream of tweets from more than 100 people. The New York Times website already gets significant traffic from Twitter, but this has the potential to make its staffers more easily findable, expanding their reach and potentially their traffic.

Read the full post here.

Related posts:

1. 7 ways to make news sites more social
2. News organizations seek new revenue in wine clubs
3. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr…Can news orgs be everywhere?
4. 10 ways universities use social media to share information
5. NYC 3.0: Kommons looks to challenge Twitter for trustworthy news in real-time