The "lists" feature Twitter just rolled out has been swiftly repurposed by the celebrity-industrial complex to pump up the accounts of tweeters like Ellen DeGeneres. Lists show celebrities exactly who can send them followers. And thus who to spam.

Twitter's hard-core users, mostly men, tend to size up fellow microbloggers by examining the length of their... follower lists. That's what they did, at least, until celebrities started dominating Twitter. Now a new yardstick excites the geeks: Twitter lists.