Today morning when I logged into my twitter account, I found this new tab “suggested users” in find people section. It has to be a development between yesterday to today as it was not there two days back when I had clicked “find people”. But what is interesting is that there was no formal announcement or whatsoever on twitter main page about it, quite a silent launch of a new feature from twitter! Though there are lots of external tools and apps for twitter but twitter on its own has hardly launched anything in recent times. So, when twitter launched something on its own I must say I was having somewhat high expectations from it but when I used this tool I didn’t find it much useful. In fact I can’t understand the logic of this recommendation at all. So, is twitter recommending these users to me based on my profile or my friend’s list profile or the nature of my updates? The algorithm is not at all clear. And to add to that what disappoints me further is that I am getting quite common suggestions for my both accounts – I maintain two accounts, one my personal account and second on behalf of my company where I work. There is hardly any similarity between these two accounts, neither in terms of following / follower list nor in terms of updates or profile. So, how come the users suggested are having so much similarity? So, is it just a set of some users which twitter is recommending to everybody in different permutations and combinations??? And some of the other recommendations are absolutely bizarre, have a look on the two scrnshots:
Frosh
Yep, totally agree with your analysis. Same people recommended for all accounts — it’s almost like paid advertising, although perhaps just an early stage algorithm instead. Dunno, but needs improvement.
Kanupriya
@ Frosh: yes, those reco looked quite dummy types to me.
Alexwebmaster
Hello webmaster
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N. Wylie Jones
I’m trying to reach as many famous creative people in varied fields as I can. My book, The World’s Most Creative (And Dangerous)Quote Book, http://www.knowords.com. is at the pre-agent stage. I’m getting beta-blurbs to take with me to the agent with the book, a recommendation from a famous writer (which I already have), and letters and e-mails from people who have written me to buy the book. (They think it is already a book.) Being on a suggested list can’t hurt. Look what it did to TechCrunch’s followers total. N. Wylie Jones
Saikat
Absolutely looks like they are paid users. Twitter should let other accounts to grow too.
Instead of calling them “Suggested Users” they should call them “Featured Users”. No one will stop them doing so.. its their product and hence all rights to monetize it..