Micro-blogging service Twitter is tweaking its ‘Who to Follow’ feature, as not everyone is interested in “Justin Bieber, FC Barcelona or Kim Kardashian.”
In a twitter.com blog post, the micro-blogging giant admitted that all new users get pretty much the same list of suggested influential users that might be worth following.
However, as not everyone is into the same thing – be it football, celebs or a comedian – it’s beginning an “experiment” into personalising suggestions for new users.
“The first experiment will show new users a list of accounts that we recommend you follow, alongside a timeline filled with Tweets from those accounts. If you’re part of the experiment, you’ll see a Twitter experience that’s relevant to you right when you sign up,” Twitter revealed wrote.
There’s no obligation to follow whomever the platform suggests, Twitter added, but it is pretty confident in its ability to nail down a user’s likes or dislikes.
This is because the follow suggestions are based on accounts followed by other Twitter users and visits to websites in the Twitter ecosystem. This includes links to other social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube. In theory, users should find the service quite accurate.
There’s more though. According to pocket-lint.com, the company also revealed that it can also scrape website content from a user’s browsing history to tailor suggestions. Just to allay any privacy fears, the option is easily turned off through the Personalisation tab within a user’s Settings, it says.
