Twitter Finally Drops the Suggested Users List

Twitter has finally gotten around to revamping the much talked-about Suggested Users List. Until now, new Twitter users were presented with a list of 20 users from a pool of accounts picked by Twitter staff. Whoever got on the list saw a huge uptake in followers, but there were talks about the relevance and the fairness of the system. The microblogging service has now introduced a significantly improved system based on interest categories and dynamic lists.

"Two of the biggest challenges for new users have been finding accounts to follow that appeal to their interests, and finding their friends and colleagues who tweet. Over time, we've learned that by making suggestions of who to follow, we can help users get going more easily on Twitter," Josh Elman from the Twitter product team wrote.

"We've found that the power of suggestion can be a great thing to help people get started, but it's important that we suggest things relevant to them. We've created a number of algorithms to identify users across a variety of clusters who tweet actively and are engaged with their audiences," Elman explains the new feature.

Instead of 20 people, new users are presented with 20 categories to choose from, ranging from Arts, Music, to Technology and Travel. The categories are populated with suggested accounts relevant to them. The interesting part is that these lists aren't static, they change over time depending on the reactions and how the suggested users interact with their followers.

This new approach solves several problems for Twitter. For one, it gets rid of the controversial Suggested Users List placating some of the critics. But even better, it replaces it with something that might actually prove a lot more useful to the new users. By suggesting people to follow that might prove a lot more relevant to them, it helps them get engaged with the service which bodes well for Twitter in the long run as it turns new adopters into 'believers,' ensuring the service keeps its momentum in the long run, something it's been having problems with lately.