Twitter is about PEOPLE. Almost every single suggestion this service makes is an organization of some sort.

If I want to find interesting follows in science, the last things I want to be inundated with are newsfeeds or pointers to captive blog posts.

This system shows no insight whatsoever as to what *people* are interesting to follow in any given subject area.

Sorry. #Twitterfail .

How much did you get paid to write that? — and who paid? Eric Schmidt? Bill Gates? (check the technology suggested users list — and/or see http://english.net.in/did-billgates-ericschmidt-pay-more-than-leola … and more like it in my @nmw twitter stream)

You say “if the algorithms they’ve cooked up prove robust” — well, I think I have just disproven that hypothesis.

The so called “algorithm” for Twitter SUL is not an algorithm — unless you call @ev’s + @biz’s hand-picked chums an algorithm (and that seems to be quite a stretch).

I would say the case is closed with Twitter’s SUL — it’s not “game over” for twitter yet, but the poor and misguided management reeks of writing on the wall.

nmw

I doubt Twitter will solve this by just asking for self declared interests. This is a very poor signal, very static and many users will game the system.

To make this work one has to mix:
1- topical analytics (i.e based on what I’m writing, here are my centers of interest) – lots of fresh and deep content here.
2- topology analytics ( who am I already connected to)
3- style and community codes ( ! we’ve a patent pending on this)

Twitter has very little material for 1) – (140 characters is not much … but many users add a link to their site which brings lots of content to mine)

Twitter should be the king of 2… but it only works as people start to connect so no use for newbies

As for 3, well. I doubt the 140 char leaves enough room for expression of style and community codes. Same tactic like 1) could work, but only for the people that publish.

Best

Thank you for informing me of this. It certainly makes sense for newbies to Twitter…

I hope you have a rocking year!

The Franchise King®
Joel Libava