Today I posed this question to Twitter:

If you were Yellowpages, what would you do instead of send out 5 lb phone books? How would go greener/friendlier.

Pretty straightforward and I honestly expected more slamming on Yellowpages than actual  answers. Color me surprised by my first three replies:

SgtHotpants – There should be an opt in/out for Yellowpages

TeriLussier – I’d have an opt out. saw the dumbest news story about an opt in, in SF. The folks who don’t want it should do the opting.

SuperMedia_Help – To opt out visithttp://bit.ly/a0TECO. Use Superpages.comhttp://bit.ly/bS7QV3 for online search – it has the SuperGuarantee!

Opt-out is the winner. But notice the third reply, it’s from SuperMedia_Help. These are the folks behind SuperMedia.com. Their reply is actually spot on topic.

The first link goes to Yellowpagesoptout.com. The site prompts for your zip code. It returns information for contacting your local yellow page directories.  Spot on listing for my area.

Beyond opting out, the site provides information about recycling your yellow pages.

In the comments, please tell me if you’ve opted out, recycle, keeping the world’s largest yellow pages pile or what.  Also what you’d see Yellowpages doing as a best path going forward.

Twitter gives us a new toy today, the List Widget. Shown above is the first widget I’ve put together. If you scroll down on the blog you’ll see it in action.

List widgets let you select the user first, then you can select from the user’s public lists. Customize the list widget appearance by choosing colors, size and even title and caption. The widget size can be auto-adjusting or a set size. Color choices allow you to select the hex code or eyeball it using your mouse.

A National Novel Writing Month widget is my example. I built a list, still growing of course, of Twitter users doing nanowrimo. The list is by no means near 500 yet, but it’s enough that there should be a fair amount of tweets coming in. I chose to have it poll, and display only 30 tweets. Those settings are adjustable as well.

Twitter included the option to copy and paste the HTML as well as a Blogger specific option.  No Facebook or MySpace option was available; you can however use the HTML for MySpace.

I agree with TechCrunch, these will be your chance to curate your lists.

What will you do with the Lists Widget?

Seth Godin rocks the blog again with Opt in and opt out. He’s talking of course about how opt in or out should trend in favor of the consumer, be it their safety, well being or finances.  Seth is focused of course on examples like your 401 K, opt in. Why right? Or business choices that are often opt out, but would be better as opt ins.

Let’s look at an Internet example along Twitter lists is going to be a fun feature, but right now it’s not opt anything. If you’re added to a list, or add someone to a list, that’s just the way it is. This will be a problem.

Lists exploded onto the scene and people are frantically working to make their own. I’m already on 53 lists and it’s growing fast. There is no management screen. Listees not only can’t remove themselves, they can’t see at a glance which lists they are on.

No opt-in, no opt-out and no way to easily manage; Lists are going to experience back lash if these options don’t show soon.

Where do you stand? Should lists be opt-in, opt-out, and perhaps even opt-in/out at the list level?

Please take time to click through and read Seth Godin’s inspiring post.

My friend Liz wrote a great post on Twitter Lists 101 Etiquette.