The Suggested Users List Ambiguity

Posted on 04. Oct, 2009 by Antonella Stellacci in Trends

Say you want to learn a foreign language. You could

Learn the rules and words – through an interactive course or a class;
Learn by “association”, finding native speakers or traveling to the country where that language is spoken;
Turn the TV on and watch Martha Stewart speaking a few words of that language….

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Uh? Well, that’s what would happen if you followed the” Twitter methodology”. New users are welcomed by a few instructions and a “SUL”, a suggested users list, which should provide them with guidance. In Twitter’s words:

We noticed a certain percentage of new users were signing up and then not following anyone. When you don’t follow any other accounts on Twitter the product is not as relevant as it could be. To improve the user experience, we started suggesting some accounts to follow. (…) We’ve explained that the Suggested Users list is a bit like your local book store’s staff picks but there’s a little more to it than that. Our Chief Scientist developed a program that scans active Twitter accounts for a bunch of key ingredients such as how much of the profile is filled out, certain indications that the account is interesting to others in some respects, and a few other signals.

What does the SUL look like after a few months? The current list is a mix of opinion leaders and tech bloggers, with a tendency to minimize criticisms to Twitter, brands who have been successful on Twitter (Dell, JetBlue, etc) and a lot of celebrities, such as Martha Stewart, Coldplay or Britney Spears, etc.

So why has the SUL generated such a storm of angry criticisms last week, heralded by Robert Scoble? Specifically, Scoble’s protest is not against the SUL per se, but against the current selection, which boldly misses Internet luminaries of outstanding merits, such as Scoble himself.

Scoble has a point. The SUL is nothing like an educational tool anymore (if it ever was meant to be): it is trying to be sponsored and organic search at the same time, pretending to be only the latter.

Just look at the stream of mono-directional tweets of a user like Martha Stewart (announcing she is gonna be on her TV show) to get an idea. Instead of picking the “native speakers” of a foreign language, Twitter is choosing the dubbed actors. It is understandable that Twitter wants to let you know that celebrities too are on Twitter, and pay them back with a premium placement. It’s a win-win: they get more followers, and followers learn about those big names, who make Twitter look like a big deal.

But is it really? Are you on Facebook because you can be fan of BritneySpears or Starbucks? Did you understand the value of Facebook because of a Fan Page or a friend? Twitter is right, you could learn by “association”, i.e. from friends or like-minded people. But a generic SUL can’t provide neither. And even if the purpose was to turn Twitter into a new advertising medium for celebrities, can Twitter create long-term value, if the new users who are attracted only by the big names, quickly abandon it?

As a matter of fact, the SUL could still be useful if done right:

A selection of regular users who are really active, produce valuable content and engage in conversations. As per the initial plan.
A frequent rotation of the same, so that you don’t bloat their accounts with hundreds of thousands of new users who are going to be ignored.
A better indication of the interests of those users, so that you can decide whether or not you want to follow them.
A separate section for Celebrities, maybe with public rates (yes, Twitter is allergic to business models for now, but wouldn’t that make this list a lot more transparent?).

There are certainly many other ways to enhance the discovery of new content, i.e. interesting users to follow. Many third party services provide the lead:

Directories (Wefollow docet)
Social Search (MrTweet has been one of the first in the space)
Friends: Facebook Connect or GoogleFriends (blasphemy?)
Users’ generated recommendations (the so-called #FollowFriday)

The final word will be one of transparency. Would users have migrated massively to Google if they hadn’t believed that search results were as relevant as they can be?

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