Aug 10, 2010

Stalk show

I've started receiving Twitter's suggestions for people I should 'follow'. I wish it wouldn't. For the most part, these are celebrities that I have deliberately chosen to stay far away from (the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, Chetan Bhagat, Lalit Modi). The suggestions seem to be deduced from my current social graph on twitter and popular Indian celebrities (probably based on number of followers or a list). Apart from these being shallow dimensions to suggest 'interesting people', shouldn't such an algorithm consider this: if I have been on Twitter for a couple of years and these people have been around for over 3 months, I would in all likelihood have heard of them? (if they are indeed popular enough to be tweeted about) Thus, if I have not followed them so far, it is out of choice and not of ignorance.

Probably they should stick to picking friends-of-a-friends and minor celebs (not in the top 100, say). Or just leave us alone to stumble in the jungle. Even better, is there someway to indicate (proudly) under a "Who Not to Follow" section, that I choose not to follow these people?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Good point, JR. Also, I think celebrities should be clustered into interest groups just like "Browse interests" tab in suggestions...

J Ramanand said...

Yes, possibly. I feel Twitter is just applying methods that were used for more symmetric social networks (I find the LinkedIn suggestions are quite relevant) instead of thinking afresh how to make this for Twitter. A pity. I'll try to think more on this :-)

Anonymous said...

Totally agree with you on this.

Hari