Gotta wonder what if they had done this to begin with, how much more useful Twitter would be today. All the michegas about celebs using Twitter missed the point as far as I was concerned. I used Twitter. I didn't want Twitter to become TV. I don't have any use for TV except, very rarely, as entertainment. I value Twitter most when it connects me to intelligent people who have something to say. Now, with the new feature, at last they're trying to help me do that.
A couple of things came up in the meantime:
1. I wondered if there is an API for this feature. I want to write some custom tools to explore its suggestions. Apparently one was promised on the developer mail list as the feature was initially rolling out. Looking forward to trying it, when it's available. I think mashups of this feature will be interesting.
2. Chris Baskind asked a very important question. "Twitter's new Follow recommendations are an improvement. But I'd like Twitter to publicly disclose whether any are sponsored." I admit that when I saw them recommending products and companies I wondered too. A few minutes after he asked, we got an answer from Josh Elman, at Twitter: "The suggestions are not sponsored. Our only advertising products are promoted trends and promoted tweets as labeled."
