Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for tag cloud buddy lists. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for tag cloud buddy list management can be provided. The method can include loading a list of contacts in a messaging system executing in memory by a processor of a computer, rating each of the contacts in the list according to at least one criteria, and visually emphasizing each of the contacts differently in a buddy cloud for a user interface to the messaging system according to different ratings applied to each of the contacts. Optionally, contacts with ratings failing to exceed a threshold value can be filtered from the buddy cloud. In this regard, the threshold value can be selected with a slider control displayed in the messaging system.