Finding the best conversation in a party line with more than 100 million users can be a struggle. Twitter’s enhanced “people finder” breaks through the chatter by leveraging the relationships you already have.
Until recently, your chances of being recommended by Twitter were rare and the rules for being added to Twitter’s suggested user list were vague. It made unknown individuals like Anil Dash, spontaneously famous. Why? When a new user signs up for Twitter, they’re presented with a list of about 20 “default” accounts to follow — which often included Dash for no apparent purpose.
“I’m obviously not a better tweeter than 99 million other Twitter users, ” Dash blogged. “I never asked to be on the list, and it’s never been explained to me why I was chosen. Ultimately it’s clear that the decision of whom to feature is essentially an arbitrary choice by Twitter , and that at best, I represent something they’d want to show new users.”
Dash said he had 18,000 followers in October, 2009, before being added to the suggested user list. By the end of the year, his follower base grew close to 300,000. Well above the 25,000 he expected. Today, Dash retains more than 335,000 followers — most of which he attributes to Twitter’s suggestion list.
Now, Twitter suggests followers using a new crowdsourcing algorithm (in the ‘find people’ section of your profile). The suggestions are based on several factors..most notably, the people you follow and the people they follow. This new approach benefits EVERYONE on Twitter, since you’ll be suggested as friend for many of your existing twitter friends.
Since the algorithm was introduced a few weeks ago, I’ve seen stead additions to my list of follower…And, I’ve added 20-30 new friends that I probably wouldn’t have found without browsing the individual follower lists of my 200+friends or 1,500+ follower.
The only danger I see in this approach is that it does reward Twitter’s most active followers the most. This means that users that accept friends and followers without discretion could viewed as having more substance than they actually have. However, I’ll trust Twitter’s user relevance team to address these concerns as they fine-tune their new friend finding logic.
Credits: Cartoon courtesy of Geek and Poke.
Follow Me
“Follow Me” is a single by Uncle Kracker. It was released in 2001 and went to number one on the ARIA Charts in Australia. It was a huge success, reaching #5 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and is one of Uncle Kracker’s highest charting song to date.
About Troy Janisch
Pingback: Tweets that mention Follow your followers' followers: Twitter croudsources suggestions | Social Meteor -- Topsy.com